Sometimes a story doesn’t necessarily start – it happens in the middle of everything else.

In media res, we call that.

So the setting – in media res: I’m on my phone listening to my mother ask me about my wedding and how it went.

This is four months ago.

My wedding was thirteen years ago. She was there.

The next calls have their moments: surprise at the existence of grandchildren, consistent confusion over which kid I am, but still that attitude; that anger and passion and humor.

I’ve never hidden that I have a weird relationship with my parents. I respect them and even love them. I’d say “like” – on an interpersonal level – is probably too strong a word. They’re too flawed and I’ve learned more from their failures than their successes.

Something was, no something is wrong. Two months later I hear about the missed bills. The apartment needs to be sold. There’s a trip to Florida that ends in an entire week where she disappeared with her boyfriend without a word. I only find out because I call to wish her a happy birthday and it turns out she left her phone behind in NYC.

Back in NYC, she’s the same. Never knows who I am when I call.

After New Year’s, I get a call. An infection. Hospitalization. An SICU stay. I visit and she looks like she’s in her 80’s. She recognizes me but asks me about the baby she delivered. I realize she thinks we’re sitting in Albert Einstein Hospital 20 years ago on the day my brother was born.

My mother had me when she was 20. She had my brother when she was 38 – same age as I am now.

Dementia is in the family. I know this because I watched it eat my great grandmother away slowly, but she lived to 89. She lived 30 years longer than my mother had with this.

I’m doing a lot of math lately.

The infection is clearing up. The SICU stay won’t last for long, but there are so many tubes in her – it’s not an easy thing to see and I’m pretty sure I am actively avoiding it even if the guilt is gnawing at me. She recognized me at least, but still, what the hell happened?

Then there’s next. What’s next? I beg for a stay for her in a rehab maybe; figure out the logistics of moving a woman with dementia down the coast to Florida where the cost of living isn’t horrific and family can help out with setting up a nursing attendant.

I wait for something else to happen while I try to process this mess the only goddamn way I know how.

 

 

I’m late this week on a blog post thanks to a flu/strep/ear infection that my kids decided would be awesome to make friends with.

They’re on the mend if you care about those things (I mean, who wouldn’t? You some kind of asshole?)

Anyway, that means they’re controlling a lot of the media in the house this week because I feel bad that they’ve been feverish and boogery and miserable. This means I’ve spent most of my day watching non-stop My Little Pony on Netflix (kill me).

I’m not going to get into the brony stuff, I mean, everyone deserves to enjoy something, but it does have me thinking about the entitlement culture surrounding nods or easter eggs – items in children’s media made to appeal to the adult forced to sit through the program. Sometimes, those nods are great and help to foster a bridged fandom (take Gravity Falls. Me and the whole family adore the show and it became group viewing for the long haul) but other times, I feel like there’s a false sense of ownership that people have over media that’s simply not for them.

Case in point: My Little Pony. There’s really nothing wrong with the show. It’s colorful and the voices are all distinct and the characters are visually appealing to my kid. All standard stuff. What I don’t see? I don’t see anything for me. Know what? That’s fine. I don’t need all media to cater to my ass when the other 95% already does. I think it’s important that the spread become even wider. Hell, that’s the whole point behind why we need more diversity in our media – broad appeal just doesn’t cut it when “broad” merely translated to a single group (and let’s be real, it does).

I often wonder whether people realize that our parents catered to us. I’m pretty fucking sure my mom hated He-Man and my father stares at me blankly whenever I remind him my first movie memory was Return of The Jedi with him when I was 3. Sometimes we age out of things and I think that’s fine. It’s the same with music – things don’t always have to be about us specifically.

I can go deeper. I can touch on how that sense of entitlement is probably worsened with social media and FOMO; how when we once screeched about individuality we’re quite often terrified of NOT being in the crowd these days. It’s an interesting social switch, I guess, but here we are.

Anyway, if you have kids, let them watch whatever the hell appeals to them. Or not. I’m not sure if I can survive another two or three hours of this fucking show, man.

 

Terrible, terrible pun for a headline. I’d regret it if I wasn’t shamelessly writing weekly blog posts for attention.

You ever find yourself in that place where almost everything you say or do is wrong? I’m not talking that internal version of this – the insecurity that can come off with sticking your neck out – I mean like, folks literally shitting on every single thing you say or do? People correcting your course because you’re either not “conveying it right” or aren’t laying out ideas in a way that’s “consumable to everyone”.

Basically, you’re not bending to the crowd and you should feel bad about it and go away into a dark hole forever, you rat bastard with your inability to make everyone around you float on pink, fluffy unicorn clouds or whatever.

It’s a head trip.

You’re left with the bag in hand wondering whether or not you are actually wrong or your perspective isn’t shared merely because of misaligned experiences. I’d hazard to assume the latter drives a lot of the issue, but we often ignore that insecurity can drive those responses as well.

I’ll stop a sentence to stress that I’m not elaborately writing “It’s not me, it’s them!”.

I think it’s infinitely more complicated than making it about blame. We’re all incredibly capable of being stupid wrong – even based on our experiences. We make mistakes, we hopefully learn from them, and we come back stronger (again, hopefully).

That said, there is the factor of surrounding ourselves with those who constantly poo-poo on our every decision and action. How do you deal with that? Where is the line where you made a misstep versus being the King of All Fuck-Ups?

I’m finding it harder and harder to 1) deal with folks like that (misery loves company, but I ain’t miserable and I don’t mind quiet) and 2) people who are insistent I navigate those insecurities instead of navigating a path to betterment or simple success. The downstream impact that comes with focusing on those conversations only ends up hurting your work and your mind.

In the spirit of the new year, I say make a couple of mistakes. Don’t look to others for validation on what you want to do or say in your art (so long as you’re not like, espousing disgusting/immoral ideas – grow the fuck up edge-lords), and try to push the misery away. We’re not here for long and we’re not here to please everyone.

Besides, those people? Money bet they’ve never interacted with your work in any meaningful way.

Move on.