Raising Zoeyjane

I want to clarify that this particular post isn’t directed toward anyone specifically, nor is it meant to imply that I am either ‘hot shit’, ‘warm shit’, an ‘authority’ or ‘awesome’. After reading Angie‘s post and Meredith‘s, my brain just had words. Evidently, a lot of them

PS. I am ‘awesome’ (ironic quotes intended).

Okay, so high school. Everyone’s experience was different, even if you were a nerd in the corner of the caf, with a tray barely weighed down by food, listening to Tori Amos on your Discman, just like that other woman you know who did that, too! Social media/blogging is also different for everyone – their experience, their ‘success’, their presumed ‘success’ and everything outside and in between.

The two venues are not inter-changable for one simple fact: you choose whether you participate in social media or not. High school, for most, is kind of a mandatory thing – at least to a certain level. Then drop out, feel free.

I did. Twice.

Anyway.

Here’s one thing that they have in common, but I’m pretty fucking tired of hearing about it (I never proposed to be eloquent): if your self-esteem is what determines your experience, your experience is likely to suck.

If comment numbers determine whether you care enough to write, because, holy fuck, you are a writer, then a) you’re normal and b) it’s not going to get better if you regularly start to get more.

If whether the ‘popular kids’ retweet you, or anyone at all, determines how many conversations you feel relevant enough to start or participate in, then I hope that you have the ability to put that notion away when it comes time to speak up about things that matter to you. And if you don’t? You’re a) normal and b) the only one holding yourself back.

Here’s the thing, and people who I’ve read embittered posts from about this subject and their victimization because of it (again, please see disclaimer above) tend to argue its possibility: the ‘popular kids’ are just like everyone else. They may have more exposure or traffic or retweets or followers. They may have poignant posts that result in millions of comments ranging between “I love you” and “This made me cry” and “I wish I could write like this”, but they are also nervous about hitting publish.

The ‘popular kids’ will reread their posts for errors, unfunny jokes, a trace of something they feel proud of. They’ll read their comments – whether they respond personally to every single one (or any). They will be aware of the reactions their words have brought about and it will matter to them.

How you feel about those people not replying back to your comment or tweet or Facebook Like is, from my experience, you judging yourself as unworthy and seeing self-fulfilling prophecy where you seek it out. I know this part because I’ve been there. I know this is universal because those ‘popular kids’ have been there, too.

This year marks my seventh year blogging. I’m, by no means – in my own eyes, or really any one else’s – popular. But you know what? Fuck being popular. Quinn may be fucking annoying every week on Glee, bemoaning how frightened she is, but her point is sound (if not merely fictional): being popular and looked up to? Begets expectation.

Those ‘popular kids’ who aren’t acknowledging presences are instantaneously thrust into a valley made of snotty names said under the breaths of some (unquantifiable) mass of people. They’re snobs, elitist and just plain too good to _____.

But you know? They’re not. They’re busy, just like you are.

They have soccer and piano practices to drive to, after getting their oil changed and prepping dinner. They have to help with homework. They have to wash the underwear of every non-effective ass-wiper in their home. Just like you do, too. They don’t have the time, necessarily, to jump into their WordPress dashboard and ensure that each and every comment they’ve received is replied to, lest someone feel targeted with silence. They don’t have time to RT everything that shows up in their Twitter stream, because, quite frankly, they’re doing stuff like Tide Bleach Penning another blood stain out of the knee of their hyperactive (but rad) daughter’s white tights.

And stuff does not allow for them to read all of the blog posts that have been auto-tweeted, comment on them, digg them, email you, tweet you, RT your funny 130-character synopsis of  New Moon, or frankly, shave their armpits. Because when you’re a ‘popular kid’, it’s quite easy to follow 270000 people on Twitter and have you ever tried to even READ, never mind act upon 270000 people’s average one to sixty daily tweets?

You couldn’t do it. And they’re no superhero, either.

With more money comes more spending. With more readership comes more friendships. Define those how you will. You’re no richer, if you’re still spending proportionately to what you used to at your old income, and you don’t get more hours in the day, just because you have more relationships in social media.

So here’s what the embittered posts argue, but it seems to need repeating (frequently), so I’ll restate it: the cool kids aren’t ignoring you (most of them, anyway) (I assume) (But I guess some are and hey, who wants them, if they are?). The cool kids? Really don’t think they’re cool kids.

The cool kids I’ve known are the people who hide in bathrooms and hope people will talk to them there, because they’re too anxious to be in the crowded room.

The cool kids I’ve known denigrate themselves, for an apparent lack of popularity, traffic, comment numbers and/or relevance.

The cool kids I’ve known see their stats and go Ugh, just like embittered people may, and it doesn’t matter that someone else would fist pump multiple times for the same Ugh-inducing Analytics report.

The cool kids I’ve known? Are cool because they’re people I’ve enjoyed knowing. They’re humble and valid and insecure and will talk at great lengths about a post they read that made them think or feel something in particular — and 99% of the time, that post they’re talking about isn’t written by another of the awesome posse. It’s not an inner-clique member. It’s a post they came across, because someone with more time – for the tweeting or the Digging or the Facebook Liking – shared it.

These people don’t feel like they’re popular, just like you might. And they also wonder why so-and-so didn’t say something back to them. These people are (again, in general) nearly completely oblivious to any coveting of their attentions. These people?

Are just like you and me and her and so on.

I’ve been lucky to be friends with some of these kids because they were them, not because it meant anything specific about my success. And I remember my reaction after someone that I used to be friends with told me that I may be looked at as a name-dropper because of who I was publicly friends with.

I stopped using my friends’ names. I stopped tweeting their posts and linking them. I made our conversations and that’s-what-he-said jokes happen in the background. I was afraid of being judged as a lessor-than, attempting to get in the good graces of the head cheerleader.

I even kind of drew away from some of them, lest I be looked at as the chick who screws all of the football team for popularity, who ends up only being known as the chick who screwed the whole football team. And gave them syphilis.

I don’t have syphilis. It’s a metaphor.

I’m not sure what for, though.

So. I’ve been blogging for coming up on seven years. In terms of popularity, let’s just say that I’m equal to the person who may one day earn her PhD, but first needs some high school courses, and then college and her master’s – and she’s doing it one course per semester. At this rate, if I’m to achieve popularity, I’m looking at being really well-known by the age of 83.

I’ve blogged about everything – the usual mom shit, the unusual mom shit, the crazy shit, the ex boyfriend shit, the abuse shit, the happiness shit not-shit. I’ve been naked both metaphorically and literally and I’ve wondered why I wasn’t ever asked to be in any damn eating disorder calendar (I say that with love, really).

I’ve also blogged professionally for coming up on five years – again, about the crazy and mom shit, and abuse and happiness. And other bullshit and other lightness. I’ve worked with some clients who weren’t anyone in the ever-changing immeasurable ruler of mommy-blogger popularity, but who had so much optimism and ego, I figured they must have at least a ten-incher in their pants; I’ve worked with clients who were absolutely fucking amazing in their growth, content, numbers, intentions and follow-through, who felt that they weren’t worthy of some of the popular kids’ acknowledgement. They were popular kids, by anyone else’s definition.

See? Oblivious.

And I’ve, on a personal level, had amazing feedback, zero trollism, and made money while doing it, and have been called relevant and popular and a known presence by those fucking amazing people (who I assume are working with something much more manageable in their pants, like eight inches). I’ve also been asked to speak on various conference panels, have been written up and questioned for a few magazines and papers, and have been an interviewee on CBC.

Just so you know how impressive that is: this blog has, thus far, earned 2278 page views in the past 30 days. A month’s traffic for me lately is a piss-poor day to another’s. It’s a maybe I should just quit moment, to a seasoned veteran that you may consider epic. My highest traffic has been somewhere around 12K in a month. That’s three days, to someone I consider fucking fabulous, who considers themself lazy and under-whelming.

The universal truth is simple.

Blogging, social media, whatever the definition now encompasses, and especially in the frame of mommy-relatedness, is not like high school.

It’s like life. You know this.

You know that that other mom, who brought three dozen perfectly-iced cupcakes to the end-of-year preschool potluck may be surrounded by cupcake-adoring fans and that you’re there, with your Tollhouse cookies, feeling like you suck. What you might not know is that that mom feels like she should have used a better chocolate for the ganache and she’s worried that people will try it and know that she’s a poseur.

You know that that woman on the street, waiting for the light to change, is fabulously attired, down to the current season’s Manolos, and you’re in Chucks and cut-offs, so you find yourself looking down, self-consciously, hoping to shrink away from public scrutiny. But you might not know that this woman’s dressed like a ten because she’s pretty sure her husband’s seeing an eleven that’s a decade younger than she is.

You know that the three-child, six-figure earning family who has time for lessons, practices, church, volunteering and throwing a party every season – often featuring the best burgers ever to be BBQed, since man first put beef to flame – has it all together, while you’re struggling to pay off the new water heater and your kids have just eaten KD. Again. Today. You don’t know that the husband grew up in poverty, with abusive, addicted parents and does everything he can to not allow his family to face the same reality – even if it means that he’s got major ownership in a adult film production company, because it brings in the extra money that he worries will never be enough.

Every one’s experience is different, but, excepting the rarities, everyone’s is also the same.

Everyone’s got doubts, fears, intimacy, daddy and abandonment issues. Everyone worries that they’re not good enough. Everyone uses some measure, usually involving numbers – whether in terms of income, followers or shoe price – to determine their worth.

And we do it to everyone else, too.

So when you’re feeling like blogging or Tweeting or Becoming A Fan Of is just like high school, consider this: if it is? So’s everything else.

Daddy,

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the last day that you took a breath.

It will be, as it usually is, a bittersweet day. Because this day reminds me of how I’m basically little more than an orphan. 50% self-imposed; 50% biologically-determined. It’s a reminder that I don’t miss you, but I do miss the concept of a you. Of a man who earns and holds dear the title of Daddy. Of a person who seeks to fulfill that title, and if he can’t, aims to try better.

Maybe you did, but actions speak louder than could’ve beens, right?

The optimist in me thinks that maybe you did, but you just weren’t cut from the right cloth.

When I think of the could’ve beens, I think that really, it’s sad you died before you reached 50. It’s sad that you never got to know the shape of what Zoë looked like while she was still in my belly – the belly that was so swollen and stretched out on your last days that I couldn’t do much more than sleep sitting up, while holding vigil next to your hospice bed. It’s sad that your vision was so affected, that you couldn’t see the movements of Zoë, already protesting her entrapment, or come to know her – as she’s been from day one – her own saviour, protector, defender and spokesperson.

It’s a shame.

But it’s better this way, I think. I would be a different parent. Likely cautious how you saw me in my role of Mama. Worried you thought I was too lenient, radical, tough, inflexible. Too much like you.

The past two or three years wouldn’t have let me move on so much, I think. I would still be seeking your approval, and some figment of a moment when it seemed like I was good enough, or, gasp, that you were proud of me. I would be too worried that your critical eye – something that’s sadly built into me, too – would be cast upon my beautiful, creative, intelligent and shit-disturbing daughter. I would be too worried about leaving her with her grandfather, in case she did something inherently Zoë-like, and it made you snap. Or that some comment about the shape of her belly was made. Or worse, that you admired her for her gorgeousness, while also verbalizing that you didn’t know where it came from.

My daughter doesn’t need to know that compliments can cost other people.

I’d be too worried that her relationship with her grandfather would echo my relationship with my father. And that my relationship with my father would have continued as it was, some twisted format of hatred, mixed with Stockholm Syndrome.

See, as much as I may have a temper, and I may have my moments of snapping, too, I know I’ve done better because my daughter doesn’t worry first whether life is worth living, in comparison to making me angry. My daughter doesn’t shrivel away from me nearly always, just in case. And she doesn’t (yet, at least), try to carefully plan her words so that she can protect herself from an unpredictable likelihood of a roar from my mouth.

She’s still herself and I try to show her every day, in some small or big way, that what matters most is what she wants and needs. Not whether I might hate her or beat her for what she wants and needs.

Your life was, on some level, a necessary sacrifice, I think.

I don’t know if I would have been able to leave you, if you’d lived. I don’t think I could have exorcised you from my life, knowing that I was one of the only people that you ever let in, and one of the only people that saved you from being a full-blown hermit. As much as I might not have wanted to be a part of your life, I don’t think I could have taken on the responsibility and guilt I would have felt, if you were alone.

Even knowing how much it was costing me to not cut you out, back then.

So now, five years later, my life is better because of you dying. I’m better.

Her life is better, I think, than it would have been. She doesn’t have anything to need to be better than.

I don’t know how many people out there might miss you. I honestly think that maybe the ones that do, miss the concept of you. The Jim they sat down with for coffee, who gave them advice; who made them feel attractive, as he took what he wanted from them; who seemed to be so involved and in love with his daughter; who was a brother, lover, friend, father.

I don’t know how many people really knew you. How many people saw more than your public face. I don’t know that they need to – why take the sunny image away, when to do so would be kind of cruel.

What I know is that you left a wake.

I’ve had to heal, and I still have more to do.

Zoë knows that her grandfather died and that he wasn’t a very nice man, but she doesn’t know the extent of that, and the concept is still abstract – to her, you could have made me clean my room five times a day or not bought me Starbucks.We talked the other night, her and I, when my patience had been pressed too far and I was begging her for five minutes to just calm down, about how some parents hurt their children. How they snap, they don’t cool off, they let their anger be bigger than their love. Her eyes got big and wide and she grasped the concept, but the pieces are far from fitting together for her.

Her father is just starting to grasp how inappropriate it might be for him to say to me, “you shouldn’t say things like that about him”, when some little figment of my childhood comes out in conversation.

My sister – the one you abandoned at birth, and again before she entered the double-digits – is possibly permanently marred from that. And maybe even more from the difference between what I’ve tried to not say in front of her, what her mother has said and her concept of a father she wasn’t good enough for. It’s hard to reconcile a ghost on a pedestal with a monster and a disappointment, when you have merely minutes with the person in question, enthralled with the concept of suddenly having a father in your life.

You’ve created a coven of women who were simply there for your torture, whether it was intentional or not. Women who may have been strong, healthy, full of self-respect and love. Women who have put things in their bodies, who have extracted things, who have cut into their skin and souls, all to brand themselves on the outside with the viscous mire that has blocked them because of you.

So, on the fifth anniversary of your death, I won’t miss you and I’m not sad you’re gone. But it would be nice if my sister and I had a Daddy. And it would be nice if those women had had a lover who loved with more than his body and kept his fists to himself. And if you’d been a brother and a grandfather and a friend.

I wish I’d known a different you. But now, I know a different me.

Terra

I don’t talk much about it here, but everywhere else, when the conversation or writing on the screen calls the conversation, I’m talking.

I know I’ve been away. I haven’t been posting much lately and some readers, knowing my ups and downs, I suppose, have emailed out of concern. I’m okay. I’m better than okay. I’m loving my life truly.

I haven’t had the time, or the negative mental inspiration to write. Because, let’s face it, I’m more charcoal than I am a sunny yellow, and without those shadows about me… I’m without words for blogging. This blog, all of my blogs, have began (and sometimes finished) on melancholy, sludge-laden quicksand – and I’m actually drawn toward the idea that personal blogging, as I know it and have come to participate in it, is kind of deceased to me.

But that’s for another time. Today is about something more important then my existential blogger revelations.

On March 22nd, the Trevor Project released their book. After six short months and hundreds of video submissions – from common folk like you and me, to the President of the United States and celebrities – more than 25,000 YouTube subscribers and countless occasions of hashtag usage, essays were bound together from the most pressing and inspirational submissions. Dan Savage is donating his earnings from the book in support of LGBT youth and >100 essays were contributed voluntarily.

This is not a cash-cow.

This book retails for less than $13 online and I’m asking you to take a pledge:

“I will buy this book for someone who needs it – for a local library, high school, youth group, church group, teenager I know, bully that’s one branch short of sociopath… I will do my part, for less than $13, to spread this message.”

Because there are kids out there that don’t and can’t believe it. That they’ll ever grow older, or escape the taunting they currently shoulder. That they’ll ever not feel ashamed to be who they are. That they’re acceptable and their life is of more use with a funeral in the near future.

Quite simply, they’re wrong. And I know this. And a lot of you know this – even if not from personal experience, but from the fact that you don’t believe the taunting should exist, or that shame should go hand-in-hand with any lifestyle other than heterosexuality, or that anyone’s early death is worth it, just for the sake of there being one less gay person on this Earth.

I’ve said it a million times, and I won’t stop: Love is Love. Period. It doesn’t matter the gender of the people it happens between, or their personal definition of it. If basic morality is followed – the golden sexual rules being no means no and don’t fuck your family – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Nothing.

So, I implore you. Take the pledge. And if you won’t or you can’t, please do this:

Help me with mine.

I’m buying seven copies of the book. I’m keeping one, and I’m donating one the the high school that Zoë might very well end up attending in nine years.

I’m giving the rest away.

You can win one of these five copies of the book if you leave a comment below that says, “I will pass this book onto {fill in the blank}.” No specific names are necessary, and I beg you to respect anyone’s privacy, if they would wish it to be – especially if they’re not currently Out. Make sure that your email address is correct before you hit submit, so I can contact you if you’re chosen by random number for one of the five copies.

Tweeting “@Zoeyjane wants you to say #ItGetsBetter: http://bit.ly/dMyUSJ” will net you another entry.

And you can get both of those entries everyday, until 11:59PM on Sunday, April 9th. That’s 20 entries. And given how well I’ve killed this blog, your odds are pretty good.

You can enter no matter where you live, your age, whether you’re straight, queer, trans or questioning. All that matters to me is that this message is spread as much as it can be.

I’ll announce the winners on Monday evening. Probably pretty late – as I do – so count on Tuesday morning, for you non-nocturnal folk. Hey, look at the time. Some of you are waking up, right now!

You can enter your own pledge in the comments, too, because even if you don’t need to win the book, you can share your support of it, right? Share this post on Twitter, Facebook or in your feed readers to help get the message out, or write your own post or share the book link from The Trevor Project’s site. Recommend the book, without an affiliate link. Don’t do this – at all – for the notoriety, income, traffic or link-love.

Do it for the kids.

Maybe your kids.