November 7th, 2003

It has been quite some time since I wrote a post about grief.

I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it’s that I’ve had so many things happen recently that I’m too distracted to think about my dad. Maybe it’s because I typically write during downtime at work and am unwilling to go there. Maybe it’s part of getting older and distancing myself from my dad’s death. Don’t get me wrong – I miss him often. The Eagles Super Bowl, my brother having a baby, my nephew’s music career taking off… but it has been awhile since I’ve felt true grief.

Today I’m breaking that streak.

I’m writing a book about the year my dad died. All of the time I’ve spent on the book so far has been on the events leading up to his accident. The weight of replaying his death was pushed aside as I reveled in taking a walk down the path that led me to my 8th grade friends. It stung a bit when I talked about the ways my dad and I didn’t quite see eye to eye but I’ve made peace with a lot of that.

Maybe I’m more of an optimist than I give myself credit for because I didn’t think it’d be hard to replay the days right before his accident. I thought that since I replayed them in my mind hundreds of times, writing them down would be no different. Oh, how naive I was mere hours ago. Because as I started to write about the last time my dad picked me up from school, I had to choke back tears and fight to keep myself together until I got to a good enough stopping point to grab my stuff and head back to my apartment.

I know writing this book is ultimately good for me. It’s helping me realize things about myself that I truly didn’t know existed. It helps me process my thoughts and gives me some sort of control over such a horrific part of my life. But sometimes it reveals parts of me that I wish didn’t exist.

My guiding light is to be as truthful as humanly possible when writing about events that happened fourteen years ago. The whole reason I’m writing this book, aside from my own selfish desire to record my life and prove that I went through it for something greater than pure pain, is that I want other kids going through similar situations to know they’re not alone. I would have given anything to know a story like my own when I was a teenager. I would have loved to be told by someone who has been through it that it’s okay not to be okay. That I’ll never fully have it all figured out but the good days will eventually outweigh the bad and at the end of the day, the worst year of my life would also hold some of the best days of my life. So I’m not masking how I feel, which I’m coming to find is hard as fuck.

The chapter that got me today is called November 7th, 2003 and is about the last time my dad picked me up from middle school. He called me out on wearing a skirt that my mom told me I couldn’t wear to school and I was irritable. He took me out for ice cream and our conversation was forced. He was trying to reach me and I just wasn’t there. I didn’t want to be reached. I was a pissed off teenage girl who just wanted to be anywhere but with her parents.

I told him that he needed a new car. I was embarrassed because we had an old car and I was now going to a school where a lot of my friends were more well off than we were. He told me the only way he could afford one would be if someone crashed into him. I secretly hoped it would happen. I didn’t want him to be hurt, or anything like that, I just wanted the car to be banged up a bit so we could get a new one. That’s not what I’m having a hard time with. I understand and accept that it was an uncanny remark that ironically foreshadowed what was to come. While I was convinced at first that those words caused my dad’s death, I didn’t live in that ridiculous theory for more than a day or two.

The part that haunts me the most is what came next. My dad parked in our driveway and sat for a few seconds in the driver’s seat. I wondered why he wasn’t getting out. I followed suit and allowed the awkward silence to float over the car. After a few more seconds he looked at me and said the sentence that I wish I could erase from my brain.

“Sometimes I feel like you don’t love me.” 

“Of course I do!” I shot back. But despite my best attempt, I don’t think I convinced either of us. He smiled at me, got out of the car and headed into our apartment. I remained there and felt like I had just been punched in the gut. Because the truth was, I couldn’t find it within myself in that moment to love him. I wanted to. I knew my dad was one of the best around and that even our recent inability to see eye to eye couldn’t erase that.

I sat in the car for a few minutes eating my ice cream between sobs. I wanted so badly to be able to tell my dad that I loved him and mean it. I searched and searched for the love I knew he deserved but kept on coming up empty. I wanted so badly to be able to run up to him, throw my arms around him, and tell him that I loved him but my broken thirteen year old heart had been through too many changes in too short of a time and I blamed him for all of it. In the moment, I couldn’t tell him that I loved him. And I knew I couldn’t fool either of us.

I felt like the worst daughter in the world. I knew my dad was a good man and that I was lucky to have him as a father. I wanted so badly to say that I loved him, I knew deep down I did, but I didn’t feel it in my heart. I couldn’t help but wonder – What was wrong with me? Why was I so broken?

After calming myself down, I made my way up to our apartment. My dad, resilient as ever, already outwardly moved past what must have been one of the most heartbreaking exchanges of his life. He was all smiles when I walked in, as if nothing had happened. Looking back, I’m sure I hurt him. Every parent fears the day their child resents them. While they recognize that it’s the natural way of things, and that it’ll pass, no one enjoys the moment it knocks on their door.

And I know every teenager goes through a period like that. But not every teenager’s dad gets in a car accident the next night that would eventually end in his unexpected death.

That’s what’s so cruel about losing a parent at thirteen. You don’t get to grow up and apologize for how selfish you were as a teenager. On the day you finally realize everything your parent did for you, they’ll be long in their grave. You don’t get to look back and laugh at the way you acted and you don’t get to make up for your mistakes.

With my mom, I was able to have that conversation where I tell her I see how much she sacrificed for us and she tells me it’s a mother’s job. Where I tell her that I’m sorry for the way I treated her and she reassures me that every teen is like that. I didn’t get to do that with my dad.

And yes, I know he knew. I’ve been told every single comforting phrase from every single person in my life. He’s watching over me and knows. Everyone is like that as a teenager. He would never want to see you beat yourself up. He loves you and you love him and that’s what matters. I’m a good person.

But there’s a difference between the closure you get when you can have that physical conversation with someone and trying to read the mind of a ghost.

No matter how much I’ve tried to forgive myself, or how many times I’ve been told that he knew I loved him, I’m sitting here fourteen years later with the same pit in my stomach and hole in my heart. And honestly I don’t think it can be repaired. The only way I could ever patch it is if I had been able to have a conversation with my dad about that day. That opportunity is just something that can’t happen.

And that’s okay.

We all have sharp, broken pieces. We can smooth out as much as possible, but there will always be some holes. It’s part of being human. We try to ease our suffering as much as possible but there will always be some things that hurt as bad as they did on the day we got those wounds. And we will spend so much time trying to twist them and pretend they’re not there. We’ll search for any words from friends, family, therapists, teachers, books… anything to try and fix it. Our loved ones will try and patch it up for us because it hurts them to see us hurt. But at the end of the day, we can’t fix everything. And that’s one of the most beautifully human things about us.

I don’t hate myself and don’t live every day regretting what happened on November 7th. It’s one unfortunately timed day out of a million wonderful moments that made up my relationship with my dad. It wasn’t the defining moment. My worth isn’t defined by that single exchange and I can live with what happened. Most days I forget it even happened.

But sometimes it creeps up, or you decide to rip it wide open by writing a book about your life, and you want to crawl back into your thirteen year old body and hide away in you reading teacher’s classroom or group therapy room or behind your stack of books. Those nights are hard, lonely, and unable to be smoothed over with good intentions or reassurance.

I’ve been down this road before, and know that at this point in my life, it ends with waking up tomorrow feeling fine. But tonight I’m sad. And that’s okay. Because my dad died as the result of car crash when I was thirteen and that really fucking sucks.

That’s what grief is.

It’s ugly, it’s uninvited. But it’s real, and it’s the truth.

Teens these days.

(Photo: Carol Kaliff, Hearst Connecticut Media)

Today kids across America walked out of school to protest gun violence and the inability for our government to pass common sense gun control.

That’s incredible. I can only imagine being a government & politics teacher, or any other branch of history/American studies, and witnessing your students actively participating in and organizing peaceful protests. Or deciding not to participate because they didn’t agree with the protests. Either way, it’s a teach by doing moment. It’s teaching kids to be actionable instead of simply memorizing facts or spitting out theory.

Facebook is flooded with posts of alum, teachers and parents talking about the school walkouts or walk ins, where assemblies are being held in memory of the students killed due to gun violence. CNN is live-streaming the walkouts and the words of our CT Senator Chris Murphy. Across the nation kids are holding up signs stating their beliefs and desire for the adults in charge to be actionable. They are no longer complicit and trusting that adults will get the work done. The Parkland students showed them that their voice matters even when they are unable to vote. That you don’t have to wait until you’re 18 to voice political opinions.

I was young for my grade and didn’t turn 18 until I was in college. I remember being furious that I couldn’t vote in the primaries that year, even though I would be 18 by the general election. I was always highly opinionated when it came to politics, thanks to my mother who was always a well-informed citizen and my brother, who walked into the Democratic Headquarters at 16 to start volunteering. I would tag along with him, making calls to remind democrats and independents to vote, checking in on our elderly residents to see if any needed rides to polls, attending Chris Murphy’s debates when running for Congress, joining the Young Dems chapter my brother helped start and my favorite part of the process: going from poll to poll on election night to watch them count then ending back at Headquarters or a restaurant to hear the results roll in. I couldn’t vote, but I was more engaged in the political process than most adults.

Which was why I was furious when adults would undermine my intelligence in my teenage years. I would often hear that my opinions, and the opinions of my peers, were just echos of my family’s beliefs. I understand the thought, and recognize that may be true in some cases, but I could never understand why my civics teacher would take so much time explaining our nation’s workings to us, only to tell me that my opinions were just something I inherited from my parents when I got in a fight with a classmate over Bush’s reelection. Of course my family influenced my beliefs, but I was also smart enough to research and act on my own. I was old enough to hold opinions.

I remember a car ride where my mom and brother were talking a politics. I listened without much input, thinking instead of my recent civics lesson on political parties.

“What if I’m a Republican instead of a Democrat?” I asked my family.

I was constantly the lawyer of the family. I always wanted to think about situations from a different angle. A contrarian, always thinking of the other side before agreeing with my family.

“Your beliefs line up with the Democratic Party,” my mom replied.

“But what if they don’t? What if I’m a Republican instead?” I asked.

“Then you can be a Republican.”

I went home and did all the research I could on both parties. I spent hours trying to understand the difference and political platforms. I weighed policies against my moral beliefs and found that I did side with the Dems.

All of this was done my freshman year of high school. Clearly I was already intelligent and thoughtful enough to question my beliefs and recheck them against my political affiliation. My thoughts and opinions haven’t changed much. They evolved slightly with the times and my maturity. Whereas I used to think we should eliminate marriage entirely, calling everything a civil union, so we can eliminate the religious context of marriage, I’ve realized that battle gets misconstrued and calling everything a marriage is a better angle. I used to be much more fiscally liberal that I am today. I used to be pro-choice under medical necessity but am now entirely pro-choice. Tiny tweaks, but my adult mind is still in line with my teen mind.

So I still get angry that I was always underestimated. That adults did not believe that I researched my policies enough. To be fair, this still happens. I was constantly accused for siding with Hillary instead of Bernie because she was a woman, when in reality I thought she was the most qualified candidate we ever had and her fiscally moderate policies enabled me to reap benefits while still covering costs of social security and welfare.

People may say that I was a different type of teen. That not everyone was as mature. Well then, why not teach them to find their own opinions instead of dismissing them?

I think adults fall into an awful habit of thinking kids don’t know enough. We talk down to them and assume they can’t possibly understand. But clearly they do.

Today’s teens are living in a world where any question they have can be answered in a matter of seconds on their phones. Teenagers are actually MUCH better at recognizing “fake news” than we are. Aside from their obvious increased technical literacy, they’re also taught how to seek out information. As students, they have access to online encyclopedias and academic research. They’re constantly being told not to trust sites like Facebook and Wikipedia, and instead fact check every piece of information they want to use. They’re writing research reports and getting graded on whether or not their facts are confirmed. They’re much better at finding the truth than we are.

Without the ability to vote, I believe they’re getting antsy. I remember talking to my cousins, just shy of 18, about how much it sucked to be unable to vote in such an important presidential election. And now here we are, with massive school shootings happening at levels that I can’t even comprehend, and they’re done with us adults. They can’t vote, but they can speak for themselves and remind politicians that they’re voting very, very soon.

We need to stop underestimating kids and instead listen to them. That’s how I treat the kids I babysit. I never want to influence their own moral and political beliefs, so I just listen to them and encourage them to think about where they stand. The other day a kid I babysat was doing a project on trans kids and I found that she knew way more than even I did. I offered no opinions and instead just let her inform me on the topic. When I was watching some younger kids, someone came to the door who was running for local office. What followed was an hour long conversation with the kids about what their platforms would be and how they can run for office within their school. While I would steer at times, like suggesting they invest in scientific research when they said they wanted to stop all hurricanes, I let them carry the conversation.

We invest so much time and money into our kids and their education. But often when they want to show us the results of that investment, we don’t listen. While what happened at Stoneman Douglas was horrific, it is inspiring to see the students use their voices and speak up for themselves when a politician is dismissive of their question. Unless you’re a teacher or school employee, the topic of school shootings will ALWAYS impact the kids in your life more than it will ever impact you. Empower them to use their voices, especially if they’re teenagers. I’m so proud of these teens who are speaking up for the students in Sandy Hook who are still too young to speak for themselves. There are no longer only parents representing their students, but students themselves being actionable.

Keep going teens. Stand up for what you believe in and know that your mind is worthy of respect and your opinions are worth being heard.

Let people lead their own stories.

As a Chicago resident who is also a huge Eagles fan, I spend almost every Sunday of the football season at Chicago’s Eagles bar, Mad River. This past season I went alone for the first time. I was scared of going to a bar alone but figured if I got there early enough, I could grab a bar seat which would make my solo journey a little less noticeable. When I got to the bar there was one seat left at the end next to a woman around my age. I figured she was saving it for a significant other, because I’m a bad feminist, but decided to ask anyways. To my surprise, she was also alone. I soon found that there are a lot of solo riders at sports bars. East Coast transplants who don’t have the energy to convince their Bears friends to peel away from their own game for an afternoon to come to an Eagle’s bar. I spent the rest of the season sitting at the bar and getting to know new Eagles fans.

Over the season, I inevitably made new friends. When you’re spending 6 hours, or 12 hours during playoff games, at a bar, you get to know people well. We exchanged stories of superstitions, trash talked Chip Kelly and shared fond memories of watching games with our families.

After the super bowl, one of my friends and I went back to Mad River for one last drink at the bar that brought us so much luck that year. Without the distraction of the game, we got to chatting about our lives. During the season I had been at Mad River healthy, was absent for a couple weeks, then came back on crutches. As I recovered, I went down to one crutch then eventually was able to start walking without them. Everyone knew I had knee surgery, and made sure to keep a close eye as I stood on the bar pouring champagne into the mouths of fellow fans after our NFC championship game, and she wanted to know the full story. I proceeded to tell her all about the accident and struggles with my first doctor. Before I could get into the story with my first doctor, she asked: “Did he let you get an MRI?” “No!” I responded, with a hint of excitement of recognition in my voice. “You always know a bad doctor when they won’t prescribe a MRI,” she responded. I could tell that she had experience in that area.

She proceeded to tell me a story about how she almost died due to a doctor not prescribing a MRI. When she pushed for it, her doctor still wouldn’t budge so she stopped complaining. On a visit home, her mom forced her to a different doctor, who saved her life with emergency surgery.

I was speechless. Here was this person who I got to know well over the course of several months, and I had no idea that she had such a near death, life defining experience. I knew she preferred American to Whiz but didn’t know why she had a scar on her head. It’s not so much that I didn’t notice it, I just didn’t really care when I saw it. Chalked it up to a childhood accident, or car accident, or who cares what, it’s not my business.

One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I don’t really ask anyone their story. It’s not that I don’t care about the story… in fact, I often find it the most captivating part of a person. I have just realized over time that people will tell you their story when they’re ready to tell you their story.

There are large chunks of my life that I’ve told to a stranger but am not willing to share with my close friends. There are things I don’t want my coworkers to know but broadcast on the internet. There are points in my life where I would tell telemarketers that my dad was traveling, or tell guys at a bar that he worked in IT, because I didn’t feel like being reminded of his death.

I’ve also learned a thing or two through life. My mom always taught me that there were things about people that were far more important than race and when I would refer to someone as “my Hispanic friend” she would press me to help her remember who the person was beyond their heritage. What was their personality? Where could she have met them before? My friends have expressed how much they hate that the “where are you from” question is the first question asked of them. I’ve learned that friends have hometowns they don’t like to be reminded of and asking about family life is not always a warm opening.

Through all those experiences, I’ve learned that we never need to feel pressured to hit every base right away when getting to know someone. I remember I used to hate when I would disclose that my dad died, only to be asked how immediately. I thought that was so self-indulgent. Why does it matter? So you can quantify my hardship? So you can make sure it was a freak accident that wouldn’t happen to you? The only time I was ever cool with it is when people asked because they could relate. My dad died in a car crash, their mom died in a hospital. Not an exact match, but enough of a community.

A lot of times we ask abrupt questions because we genuinely want to know more about people. The intention is fine – we’re curious beings and want to know about the others around us. But after my dad died, and I hated being asked that question, I started challenging myself to not ask other people questions that are too pointed. When I did that, I started finding out that the stories eventually come out anyways… now they just come out on the owner’s terms. I have to imagine that’s a much healthier way to go about things.

For quite a few years, I’ve trusted that I’ll eventually come to know the things about my friends that I’m curious about. I’ll learn their heritage when we’re in the middle of a conversation about our grandparents and they talk about their immigration process. I’ll figure out where they grew up when they tell me about their favorite baseball team. The reason they limp will become evident when they disclose their birth defect after a long night of chatting about god knows what. Eventually everything comes out, we just have to decide who sets the pace.

I usually find more out about people when I’m willing to talk about my scars. I expose some of mine, which makes them comfortable to do the same. Humans want to connect and we will unravel those complexities eventually. Let’s just find a pace that suits both of us.

I don’t always follow my own advice, and sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me, but I try to remind myself to work on letting others tell their own story. Allowing them the space to tell it, but also not asking the type of questions that will force them to. We always get there eventually.

I think the world is a little healthier if we let people lead their own stories.

I don’t believe in writer’s block.

I don’t believe in writer’s block.

I had a writing teacher a few years back that was the first person to tell me there was no such thing as writers block, there are only lazy writers. It changed my outlook on the writing process.

The only time I really felt a true writer’s block was when I wrote poetry in high school and had to meet weekly deadlines. Sometimes I felt too uninspired to write, which is especially hard when you’re trying to write within a rhyme and rhythm scheme. But thinking back, I don’t think it was that I had writer’s block. I think I was just never taught how to write.

In school, they typically teach you everything you need to know about structure. When taught to write, you learn how to write through the lens of learning a format and using correct grammar. You’re taught how to edit more than anything – learning to avoid comma splices, run on sentences and how to keep tenses consistent. Then you’re taught how to cite work and format quotations. It’s more about composition than content.

So when I sat there not knowing what to write, feeling like I hit a wall, it was just that I didn’t have the proper training for pulling out content.

Writing slam poetry helped with this. In my senior year of high school, we had a poetry class that took up the entire year so there was room for learning every type of poetry out there. I loved slam poetry and spoken word. As a performer, I enjoyed the ability to perform at a higher level. As a writer, I loved the freedom to write in any style you wanted. It wasn’t so much about format as it was about the way it rolled off your tongue and captivated an audience. Instead of feeling the pressure of generating an idea, I was able to write my thoughts down as they came then go back and piece them together. Many times I found that there wasn’t much editing to do because my words came out the way I wanted to speak them. I would come up with an idea, like “wow, I really have senioritis” then go from there. It usually evolved into something more profound than I could have expected. My senioritis thought became a satirical poem about poetic structure. Doing my homework at musical rehearsals got me to start a poem about our warm up dance which became a metaphor for my dad’s accident. I loved writing freeform, or within the genre of spoken word or slam. It allowed me to follow the flow in my head instead of forcing myself to seem sophisticated enough to write a sonnet, which never fit me.

While I rarely write poetry anymore, I wrote over a hundred poems that year, and I believe that writing style contributed to my current writing process. I usually start with an idea, sometimes as insignificant as what I ate for lunch that day, and follow the thought until I land on something that I find interesting enough to expand.

Content never runs dry. There’s never going to be a point where there’s absolutely nothing left to write about. So in that capacity, I can’t see how writer’s block can exist. If you find yourself uninspired, you just need to write through it until you find the path again. In my current book, there are so many non sequiturs that I know I will edit out because I found myself at a point where I couldn’t think of what to write next. But it’s much better to keep running on, knowing that you may be writing junk, because it’ll lead you back to your story.

But there are times when we doubt ourselves and recognize that what we’re writing is shit, so instead of just continuing to write, we pause and let our doubt creep into our heads for long enough to come to a complete stop. Then we don’t know where to go because we turned our motor off. We call it writer’s block, because it’s easier to put a name on something and blame it on a universal outside force than to admit that it’s really our self-doubt and the easy remedy is to keep writing until you find yourself again.

I believe that writer’s block is the excuse for a lazy writer. I’ve been that lazy writer countless times. I just had a year long dry spell. I’ve been at the point where I lack the motivation to go through the process. Where the product I want to create seems so insurmountable I can’t bear to start climbing. I’ve looked down the tunnel and thought “nope, I’m perfectly fine sitting outside.” I’ve thought that the stories I want to tell are dumb and uninteresting and that I lacked the talent to put them to words. I’ve written five pages of about ten different books then jumped ship before I invested too much time. I stopped writing an idea because I got lost in the formatting of it. I fell out of love with characters while developing them and have countless maps that will never be surfaced. I’ve had days where I did my full writing prep routine: took a nap, a long shower, cleaned my apartment, got dressed, took time with my makeup, poured myself a glass of wine, grabbed my laptop and went down to my lobby, fully intending to write, only to be happily distracted by the first neighbor to walk by and abandon my piece after two pages. My incorrect grammar stared at me through my creative ideas, taunting me and telling me that I’m not fit to be a writer because I don’t remember every rule of the English language.

But that is all self-imposed. It’s not the lack of the ideas, it’s the unwillingness to do both the mental and physical work to write through the doubt and uncertainty to find my way back into the rhythm of writing. Writer’s block can’t exist because you can literally write about anything. What you did during the day, the cup next to you, a dream you had… there’s never a lack of content, there’s just the laziness to get started and the unwillingness to trust that your directionless start will end in something meaningful.

In the book I’m writing now, I’m taking a different approach than I typically do. Since it’s a story about my life, I already know my characters well. I remember the setting and the content comes easy. So instead of spending a month in book prep only to jump ship before I even start writing the book, I’m just writing. I’m getting everything I remember down, then going back and expanding, formatting and reworking until it is as composed as I can get it.

I recently became obsessed with Stephen King after reading “It” and “Misery”. I read an interview where he mentioned that he finished all his first drafts within three months because it doesn’t give him enough time to sit on his ideas and decide that they’re junk. When you have a such a short deadline, it’s harder to take the time to sit in “writer’s block” because you just have to finish.

Writer’s block is nothing but our unwillingness to put pen to paper. We need to stop using it as an excuse for being a lazy writer.

To the girls in my life.

Girls,

We usually communicate through snapchat and dance parties, cards and sleepovers and many, many jokes and laughs. I think about you more than you may realize and try to live a lifestyle that does right by you. I’ve watched you grow up into young girls, preteens and teenagers and I am so proud of who you are.

I’m usually the comic relief. The cousin coming home from Chicago for a party or celebration. The babysitter who lets you mix sour punch straws with popcorn because I’m just as curious as to how it tastes. The bridge between my generation and your generation… in return for me making sure that you don’t set the house on fire, you serve as as a distraction from the bleakness of adulthood.

I was looking forward to you seeing a female president so early in your lifetime. When I was your age, I didn’t think women could be president. I don’t mean that I didn’t think they’d be able to be elected, I mean that I genuinely thought there was a rule that women were not allowed to be president. I’m happy you won’t be as ill-informed. I was elated at the prospect that for some of you, you would only know a black president and female president in your lifetime, and ready for the task of helping you understand the historical significance of that feat.

Instead you have a president that does not respect your body or mind. One that is racist, islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic and sexist. I hope you learn what those words mean and then how to fight them. I hope you get bossy and fight back for any of your friends that may fall victim to the bullying or violence that your president elect’s words have incited. I hope you understand the privilege you have and stick up for those who don’t. I hope you are taught history as it happened instead of a PG, whitewashed version.

The adults in this country elected a man that says it is okay to grab your bodies. That criticizes women who do their homework and show up prepared. That has been accused over ten times of assault. That has bullied women for the way they look and harassed them on tape. Who sees us as sex objects or nasty women. And you weren’t able to have a say in it, and for that I’m sorry.

Because someone is an authority figure does not mean that you have to accept their behavior. If a man on the street were to say these things to you, I would have you run as far away as you can from them. Just because the president elect is saying them doesn’t mean you have to support it.

The president elect won’t be the first, nor the last, man to say or do these things to you. I’m not naive enough to think that you will never experience them at school, work or in the world around you. If and when you do, I hope you are bossy. I hope you learn how to say no and that no is the final answer. I hope you scream and yell and seek help when needed. I hope you speak up for other women instead of putting them down. I hope that if you are ever violated, you know that it is not your fault and that those who love you will help you fight back. I hope you never accept limitations and that you promote intersectional feminism. I hope you know that you can love whoever you want to love. I hope you fight like hell to be treated equally, and I hope you win. I hope your generation can be even nastier than mine. You have a lot of fighting to do.

Fight back with intelligence. He’s afraid of your potential. Reclaim the names he calls you. Own being a nasty woman, a bossy kid, an angry feminist. Speak up and work hard. That’s what scares him the most.

Know that there will be a female president. Personally, I hope that our next elect will be a lesbian woman of color. While I’m not sure if it’ll happen in our next election, I know that it eventually will. We just have to work at it.

Work hard, study hard, and don’t let anyone tell you what you should or should not do. Women are not limited. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

O Captain, my Captain.

When I heard that Robin Williams died, I felt like someone hit my chest. It hurt. I read the articles while on the couch with my roommate and tried to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly be this upset about a celebrity dying. But I was. I made up some bullshit excuse to leave the living room and went to my bedroom where I cried like a baby. I cried for hours, eventually fell asleep, then woke up and cried again. I have never felt this way about anyone I didn’t know and I felt like a psychopath.

I felt stupid. I was grieving a fucking celebrity while the world had so many more important issues that I should be upset about. I felt like a horrible and selfish person to be this wrapped up about an actor dying when more horrific things happened today. Other news hit a few hours later and I knew that I should divert my attention to those stories. That they should be taking up my newsfeed. But I was already encapsulated in the grief that was Robin Williams and was unable to process anything else. I felt like a horrible human for my selfishness.

Here’s the thing: it’s one of those dead dad moments. One of those times where you can’t explain the magnitude of your grief because it has so many layers. You want to process everything privately because you know that people won’t understand. You feel insane. But here I am, at 2am, knowing that I have to start my day in 3 hours, and I still can’t stop crying. So I thought I’d attempt to process my emotions by writing them here.

When my dad died, I didn’t like to talk about it. The only person I openly talked to was my teacher, but even with her, there were things that I wouldn’t touch. I didn’t want to deal with a few dark emotions. The depth of my guilt, my immense depression, and the fact that I felt like I didn’t deserve to inhabit this earth. I felt guilty for having the privilege to live. I didn’t tell anyone about this because I feared that they would mistake it for being suicidal. I wasn’t suicidal – I was never in a state of wanting to harm myself – I just felt guilty for living while so many good people died. It was a secret that I didn’t want to share with anyone, so I turned to movies and books to justify my feelings and teach me how to get over this hurdle.

I found Dead Poets Society among the stack of movies that went largely untouched since my dad died. I remember the first time I watched it. It was a winter night and I popped it into the VHS in my room. I was glued to my TV. I cried the entire time, rewinded it, then cried again. I felt like the movie was made for me. I was a high schooler unwilling to face my own emotions, so I used poetry to help convey them. I wrote dozens of poems weekly, but refused to share most of them with anyone else. I was afraid that they weren’t good enough, I didn’t think people would care about what I had to say, but most importantly, I didn’t want to let anyone in. I was someone who looked for mentorship in my teachers. I was a teenager who felt worthless. I felt like Dead Poets Society was written for me. John Keating became a mentor and his words became advice. I would watch the movie, come across a line, rewind it, then repeated this process for as long as it took for me to memorize his words. At a time when I could tell no one about my feelings of worthlessness, Keating gave me the advice I so desperately needed.

Robin Williams played so many different roles that I loved. Genie, Peter, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sy, Teddy Roosevelt… his roles in Flubber, Jumanji and A.I. (Yes, I loved the movies Flubber, Jumanji and A.I. and no, I’ve never seen Good Will Hunting. Shut up.) He appealed to me as a person and comedian – kind, silly, someone who smiled with his eyes and emoted with his face, able to reach an audience of all generations, someone who had a quirky personality that annoyed a lot of people but didn’t comprise to please them, dark and vulnerable at times but on fire when in front of an audience (I especially understood this).

But to me, he was always John Keating. I know that he’s a fictional character that someone else imagined, wrote and created. But to me, he was my captain, my vessel to teach me that my words, hell… my life, mattered. That I was here for a reason and my voice needed to be heard. The one-sided conversation that allowed me to get the mentorship I needed without having to open up. Through him, I gained the confidence to share more of my poetry, and myself, to the outside world.

Losing a parent does things to you. Inherently, you get attached to things and hurt deeply when they’re gone. To me, the death of Robin Williams felt like the death of John Keating. I thank him for bringing that character to life so that I could learn how to make the most of my own.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?