The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
June 2009
Dear Conley,
Other than the beeping of various hospital machines and the squeaks of the nurses’ sneakers it is quiet, finally quiet, here in our room. I should be sleeping. That is what everyone tells me. Sleep. Sleep when the baby sleeps. I will listen to them – eventually. However, as of right now, in this moment, I don’t want to sleep. I want to watch your tiny chest rise and fall; I want to marvel at your skin that is too big for your body; I want to breathe you in, my beautiful, stubborn, tiny, yellow-tinged, precious, absolutely perfect, early-to-the party baby girl.
We don’t have long. All of those loving people, your family and friends, who rearranged their schedules, dropped everything and probably broke many traffic laws to make it here to meet you, even after you decided to show up three weeks early, will be back from dinner soon. They are completely drunk on you and, honestly, by the time they get back from Don Pedro, probably a little drunk on margaritas. However, for now, it’s just me and you, kid. So, I’m going to take this time, this quiet time, this me and you time to begin to tell you a story, a collection of stories, really. My stories. Our stories.
Although you will not be old enough to understand or even read these stories for many, many years I am still compelled to write them down and save them for you because the stories that have gotten us to this hospital room – the interesting ones, the harsh ones, the hysterical ones, the complicated ones and the sad ones – are what have shaped me into your mama. And, as many interesting, harsh, hysterical, complicated, sad, life-shaping stories are these are also stories of love, loss, learning to dress your wounds, heal your heart and not take any of the shit that the world often heaps on you. However, when I strip away the adjectives and the commas the beating heart of every one of these stories is family. My family. Our family.
Admittedly, I’m wearily laughing to myself as I write about this compulsion to tell you the stories of my family. The irony that I’ve had a family of my own for a whopping 20 hours and suddenly I must tell the tales of people I’ve spent most of my adult life smugly distancing myself is not lost on me. Although I may have, as my grandmother likes to remind me, gotten above my raisin’, I’m still acutely self-aware. See, it has been my long-held belief that my association with a family of addicts, alcoholics, bartenders, bookies, convicts, outlaws and religious nuts will mire me in their drop-outs, their lock-ups, their food stamps, their bible-thumping and their disability checks. But, even more than that is my gut-wrenching fear that even a passing relationship with their loud, abrasive acceptance of our white-trashiness will expose me for the fraud that I am.
Despite my distance and my fear of exposure, I feel them whispering to me. None, more so than your grandmother, my Mom. My blazing, falling Starr. Well, sometimes my Mom whispers and sometimes she bellows. As there is no doubt that my mother was two very distinct people who were locked into one body. One of these people I loved above all others but the other is the one that I needed to get the furthest away.
I was so confused by my different and distinct Moms when I was younger, but the older I get the more I understand it. You see honey, as unalike as I like to believe my Mom and I are, I know that we’re more similar than I want to admit. I know that I’m also two different people. I am smart, confident, gregarious, even full of myself. I know how to dress for the occasion and what fork to use. I have excellent manners and great timing. I got a full ride to college and I have bullshitted my way into great jobs. Yet on the inside, deep on the inside, the place that I keep hidden away, I am different. Scared. Angry. Damaged. Broken.
The stories of my life have shaped me into these two different people. The person who appears strong, fun-loving and certain but who is actually fearful, untrusting, and insecure. I push people away, acting as if I don’t care about them, when, in reality, I love them deeply, fiercely, with my whole being. I want to wrap them in my arms, pull them in close and tell them how much I love them. But I don’t. Instead, I fold my arms over my chest, roll my eyes at any sliver of sentimentality. I grit my teeth and remind myself that if I let anyone in, if I let them see how warm and fragile I really am on the inside, they will take advantage of me, lie to me and most certainly leave the bitter remnants of me shivering in the cold. And, one of my greatest fears is that if that happens again, if one more person leaves me, I will freeze to death.
So, I proceed with caution and I’ve learned to use my fear. My fear has made me responsible. It has made me hard-working. It has made me loyal and trustworthy. In many ways my fear has helped me carve out the successful, normal life I always craved. Yet, it also stifled me. It never allowed me to take a chance. It doesn’t allow me to tell someone how unbelievably fantastic I think they are even as my insides swell with love and admiration for them. It didn’t let me be wild and make crazy, irresponsible decisions when I was at the age to do so. My fear didn’t allow me to move to New York and live in a crappy, over-priced apartment and chase my dream of becoming a writer. I’ve always played it safe. I’ve never dared listen to the confident but tiny voice inside of me that whispers, “Go all in, you can do this. Jump, Sosha, jump.” Instead I have stayed safely on the ground listening to the loud, booming voice that tells me I’m not not good enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough. Not worthy. This voice has caused me to be a buttoned-up, watered-down, walled-off version of myself.
I wasn’t always like this. When I was little I was lively, goofy, and unabashed in my love of life and those around me. But then I got broken. A little bit at a time. I was broken by the one person who I loved more than any other, my Mom. My Mom broke me. My spirit. My will. She broke my trust. And, if I couldn’t trust my mother, the one who was supposed to guard me with her very being, why would I think that I could trust anyone?
Sure, people tell me that they love me, they show me – over and over and over again – that they love me. But, I know that eventually they will stop. They will see, like my Mom, that I am not someone worthy of their love and I will be left in pieces again. Therefore, I don’t let the real me out. And, I don’t let anyone in, not fully. Not even your dad or your aunt Lynn, my two best friends, my male and female soul mates. They’ve literally flanked me on the best and worst days of my life, they’ve proven their love and loyalty at every turn. Yet, there’s still a small part of me that fears that even them, even the two who know my heart best, will one day leave. That one day I won’t be worthy of their love anymore.
Although I am still a little afraid that I will contaminate you with my past, with my ravaged DNA, I suddenly know, with the type of clarity that only the knowledge of finally loving someone more than I love myself, that there is not anyone who I’ve wanted to be more worthy of their love than I do of yours. I’m not afraid. I want to go all in. I want to jump. I want to stand on top of this hospital bed and yell out how much I love you and how unbelievably fantastic I think you are. And, I may just do it. Ok, I probably won’t do that but I’m going to try to fix the broken parts.
When I held you for the first time I could actually feel those broken parts start turning, creakily twisting and stretching, yearning to come back together. The wounds seem a little less fresh. The hard edges are rounding off. The fervent stinging is cooling, scabs are now protecting the cuts. And as the adrenaline rush of your birth subsides and I begin to wrap my brain around actually being someone’s mom, I realize that I am – well, I think, I’m pretty sure that I’m happy.
When I think about our future, the stories we will write, I’m happy. However, remember how I told you that I have a habit and a history of following straight paths? Well, deciding to have you was like suddenly jerking my life off a familiar, scenic Sunday drive and suddenly plunging down a unknown, curvy, mountainous road. I’m incredibly excited about finally taking a chance, but it would be a massive lie if I said that I wasn’t scared, skeptical and stressed. I fear that I won’t be a good navigator, a good driver (and, not in the way that your dad says I’m not a good driver.) My main fear is that I’ll let you down. I mean, I know that I am going to screw up, occasionally, in grand fashion. I don’t like to screw up in general but there is nothing more right than this, than you.
I want to give you everything that you deserve, everything that I deserved. Where there was yelling and hard edges for me, there will be reassuring voices and soft places to land for you. Where there was cursing and whipping for me, there will be explanations and hugs for you. Where there was chaos and uncertainty for me, there will be structure and stability for you. Where there was complexity for me, there will be simplicity for you.
When I was a little kid I spent a lot of time in the back seat of my parents’ half-broke-down cars speeding down winding, mountainous roads of West Virginia. The blaring sounds of AC/DC and The Eagles often made it hard to concentrate on my homework or the book that I brought with me. I would rest my head against the cool window, eat my dinner out of the fast food bag, try not to breathe in their cigarette and pot smoke and play the game I called, If That Were My House:
If that were my house, we would be sitting down to dinner: spaghetti and then
chocolate cake.
If that were my house, my dad and I would be shooting hoops in the driveway.
If that were my house, we would be watching Family Ties and eating popcorn.
These were my made up stories with my made up parents in my made up life. When I was scared and tired from being in that back seat too long, I gazed into windows and imagined myself in someone else’s story. They were always happy, warm stories. I want my made-up fairy tales to be the lines of your daily diary.
Therefore, instead of burying the past, rather than distancing you from the harshness of my stories, I want to tell them to you. In my words. I want you to know why you carry the name Conley, what caused my Starr to fall to the Earth, why I don’t go to church (we live in the South, it’s a big deal here), why I want to control everything, and why I am still so afraid that my damaged interior will be exposed.
So, I’m going to keep writing and continue the story I’ve started here. Writing’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do but have always been too scared. Well, I guess before I start writing, first I need to do some research. I need to track down some of the people, some of the people I’ve spent years running away from, the people that were present for my past. Contacting these people, asking the questions I know that I’ll need to ask, terrifies me, but it is time. I’m scared but I’m hopeful. Hopeful that they can provide the details I don’t remember.
Plus, I hear that taking care of you is going to take up a little bit of my time so I know that this is going to take a while. However, my promise to you is that I am going to do this. I’m not going to run. I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to distance myself. No, I’m going to write this. For you. For me. For my Mom. For everyone who has ever wished to be anywhere but the backseat of their parents’ smoked filled car – anywhere but where they are.
Ready?
I think I’ll start with what I consider the most pivotal story of my life. It came right in the middle for me, my life was always defined as before and after this day. Then I’ll go in order and share it with you as it unfolded for me, as I remember it today. Sound good?
So, here we go. I’m going to tell you this wild, heartbreaking, loving, incredibly complex, unique, funny story. This isn’t a story that can be sugar coated and I’m pretty done with lying. So, with that being said, it’s gonna be a while, a long while, before you can read this, young lady (sorry, I had to try that out). But, one day when we’re both considerably older, we can sit down with a good bottle of wine and I will let you read it. You can read your story, our story.
Buckle up, baby! Mama’s taking you for a helluva ride.
Thank you for being mine. I sure do love you, Conley Marie!
Love,
Mama
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
