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.

Moving on.

When I moved to Chicago, I thought I’d leave before college graduation.

I wanted to be a teacher and it made sense to my seventeen year old self to only go to an out of state college for three years then come back to CT or NY to get certified within that state. But when I changed my major three days into my freshman year, that plan went out the window.

I was supposed to move back to the East Coast after college graduation. Actually, I did move back to the East Coast. Well, kinda. I did not renew my lease in Chicago. I packed up and planned to move home but was called in for a job interview. The day before going home, I put all of my stuff in storage then went on the interview. I figured that if I didn’t get the job, I could come back and get my stuff. Then I packed all my clothes and headed home. We immediately went on vacation for a week where I found out that I was being called in for a second interview. After vacation, I headed back to Chicago and took the job. So essentially, I just over packed for vacation

When I started working in Chicago, I had no immediate plans to leave. I always knew I would eventually end up on the East Coast, but I never had a definite time frame. My standard answer was that I would be in Chicago for two more years, which turned into three, which turned into four. Two years ago, I was ready to pack up everything and move to Los Angeles but breaking my knee put those plans on hold. I wasn’t too upset about that though because Chicago always pulled me back.

I’m nine and a half years into my extended stay in Chicago. I love this city with my entire heart. I love the people I met and the strangers who greet me with the kindness and optimism that can only be traced back to the Midwest. I love taking an hour long walk after work along the lake and finding myself still in awe of our skyline. I love the neighborhoods I lived in – Lincoln Park, the Southport Corridor of Lakeview and now Uptown. I love that I always find something new in the city like how expansive Montrose Park is or where to order the best Chicken Shawarma plate. I love when I find myself back on DePaul’s campus and replay the memories: the quad where I used to run through the sprinklers after a night of drinking, the dorm where I met my best friends, the hall where I was initiated into Chi Omega. I feel the pit in my stomach churning when I find myself by my old place on Cornelia, wishing I had enough money to buy the townhouse that I loved so much. I like the way we all gather inside for long nights of beers and Christmas lights in the winter and eat outside every night in the summer. I love Eagles games at Mad River, our annual Christmas Trolley and late nights after comedy shows at Old Town Alehouse. I love how it’s in the middle of the country so flying to either coast is not a hassle. In college I cried on every ride to the airport down Lake Shore Drive. I knew I would be back soon, but I never wanted to leave. I would strain my neck looking back at the skyline on the way to Midway until it was completely out of view.

I never wanted to permanently live in Chicago. I stand by that. For every reason I have for loving Chicago, I have another reason I want to be home. The thought of raising children so far away from my family is worse than leaving Chicago. I don’t want to be a long distance aunt anymore. I missed a lot of my nephew and cousins growing up and while I don’t regret my time here, it’s bittersweet to see all the time lost whenever I realize how old they are. While I pride myself in being a lot more present these days because I’m more financially stable, I want to be able to join in on all the little things the next generation of my family will bring. I want to be at sports games and school plays and whenever I have my own kids, I want sleepovers with cousins and dinners with grandma. Beyond family, I miss New England. I miss having four seasons instead of two and being so close to so many major cities. I don’t like that each time I come home it’s an event. I want to be able to visit with friends without feeling like I’m stiffing my family. I’d like to be able to relax instead of making sure I got to see everyone while home. And I miss New England falls. GOD how I miss New England falls. I miss the hills and the trees and the mountains. I miss the foliage and the scent of October. I miss being able to hike up real trails instead of city paths.

But each time I think I’m ready to leave, something pulls me back. It’s not easy being in love with a city so far from home. I wish New York or Philadelphia had the same vibe as Chicago.

I know that in the next few years I’ll be leaving this city. Where I’m going next I’m not too sure of. I don’t know if I want to spend a year in LA living in warm weather for once before returning to the East Coast, or if I just want to head straight home. I’m not even sure of where on the East Coast I want to live. While I’m 90% sure I’ll end up in New York City, which would split the difference between my extended family in New Jersey and my immediate family in Connecticut, I’m not positive. I may jet out to California in a year then head over to New York City a year or two later. But whatever way I split it, I have two years max left in Chicago.

I’ve set dates on moves before, so I know things can change. But the problem is that I keep on delaying my departure which makes it more difficult to leave. I fall more in love with this city with each passing year. There are some good reasons why I haven’t left Chicago, like breaking my knee and wanting to stay with my medical team until completely recovered, but the truth is that I’m also terrified. I wasn’t scared of going to college. Everyone made some sort of leap that year. And while I was constantly scared after college, it was also a normal transitional period. But here I am, in my late twenties, and there are no external forces like going to college or joining the workforce to push me out. This decision is completely self-motivated and I’m the only one that can execute it. I’m scared that I won’t find the same support group I have here. I’m worried that moving closer to my family will keep me from hustling in comedy. I’m concerned that my constant indecisiveness on where to live will be what keeps relationships from forming.

My friends in Connecticut and Los Angeles will all confirm that I’m not a great long distance friend. I miss and love them but get distracted when I’m in a different city. I push away from the ones I’m really close to because it hurts to know we no longer live close enough to be dependent on each other. I try to separate myself so I’m not disappointed when their life eventually goes on and they find someone to fill my void in their new city. I want to change these things about myself, but I know that it’s something I struggle with.

I know that Chicago will always be here to visit. But I loved being a resident. I know my close friends will remain my close friends and I’ll probably come back as often as I jet to the East Coast right now. And I know that if I ever find that I made the wrong decision, there’s a three story walkup on Cornelia Ave. that I’m more than happy to put a down payment on.

I chose the perfect city to become an adult in, both legally and mentally. Any pain or hurt is almost always the result of loving something, so I’m thankful that I found myself in a city that I loved so hard.

After almost 10 years, I’ll finally answer the most frequently asked question of an East Coast transplant: Chicago is WAY better than New York*. But sometimes the thing we love most isn’t what fits best.

*(Except for the pizza. NYC thin crust over Chicago any day.)

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.

Striving for Normalcy.

I’ve been thinking more and more lately about myself as an adolescent. There’s something about being 27 that makes my heart hurt for my teenage self. As the kids in my life are making their way into high school and college, I am realizing how young I was when my dad died. I wish I could time travel back to my thirteen year old self and just let her know that her ability to get through the day, however great or horrific it was, is admirable. That everything, indeed, wasn’t fair and there was going to be one hell of a road to come. That a single unfair death wouldn’t prevent losing others she loved prematurely. I’ve become increasingly interested in myself at that age and often try to remember every moment of those days.

Earlier today, a friend posted a status that made me think back to my teen years after my dad died. It reminded me about all of the ways I just wanted to be normal again. I think it’s fair to say that most teenagers just want to be “normal” – whatever that means to them. I wish I could go back and tell myself that I would never be normal again. That when there’s an earthquake nothing ever settles back into place. Instead pieces fall into a different pattern. It doesn’t mean that things won’t be be okay, it just means that you’ll always be defined by this life changing event.

The day after my dad died, my best friend and her family came over. After a long night of tears, denial and pure exhaustion, it was a relief to have them there for me. To be able to talk to someone my age, or not talk at all. She hung out with me in my room for awhile and we cried, talked about school and I’m pretty sure we napped. Eventually we made our way to my kitchen where her parents tried to get food in my family’s bellies, a large task when so much of the real estate is being filled with grief. After lunch, her dad mentioned that it was almost time to go to cheerleading practice. I assumed I was going, and asked if he was driving me as well. All the adults looked at each other until one finally broke it to me that it wouldn’t be the best idea to go today. I protested, saying that my squad needed me there, and I was told that they would understand me missing this practice.

All I wanted to do was go to cheerleading practice. I wanted to work out, be with my friends, and get the hell out of my apartment. I didn’t like the idea of my squad sitting there and finding out that my dad died. I wanted to show up like nothing happened. It was the first time I learned that things weren’t magically going to go on as planned. A few days later, I finally convinced my family to let me go to practice, but with the caveat of my aunt coming with me. I remember thinking it was weird as hell, but if it got me back in the gym I’d roll with it. I walked into my gym and had a pep talk in my head. I knew that I was going to have to set the tone for the rest of the season. As it was before the funeral, no one but my best friends had seen me yet, and I didn’t want to be treated differently. So I decided to go in as happy as I could. After a few good friends who knew my dad got the opportunity to tell me how sad they were, I changed the tone to focus on the practice on hand and had a normal practice. It felt so good to do something I knew how to do. Something that was in my everyday schedule. As I was out of school, and my small apartment was busting with family that lived far away and priests making plans and fruit baskets and cold cut trays and a freezer with so much food in it, we had to find creative ways to store it, I was so happy to be in my element.  A part of me that existed long before my dad died.

The second time I realized people were always going to perceive me as “different” was my first day back at school. I had already seen my friends and some of my teachers at this point, so I wasn’t too nervous to go back. Again, I gave myself a bit of a pep talk at my locker and told myself I can either be pitied or show everyone I was back to being the funny, charismatic little eighth grader I was at the time. I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember cracking some sort of joke in my homeroom that felt like the weight of grief was lifted and I could let everyone know I was normal again.

The day I got back was the last day of presentations about the Salem Witch Trials, or something like that. Before my dad died, I finished my project. I wrote something on a piece of paper, and aged the paper over the flames of my stove and pasted it on a little piece of wood that I carved to make it really authentic. I was insanely proud of my creativity. It was actually a bit of a relief to have something to work on during the week I was away. It gave me a distraction and a chance to sneak away in such a crowded apartment. Throughout the day, my teachers would ask who didn’t get to present yet, and we would raise our hands. One by one, the students left to present got called on. Eight kids with their hands up went down to four then down to two. After the second to last person was selected, I figured they were having me go last because I was out for so long and it was only fair. After the last person went, I prepared myself to present, only to find my teacher offering closing remarks and dismissing us back to our normal classes.

I was confused as hell. I had my project – I even made sure she knew I had it by raising my hand. I went up to her after and she explained to me that I was excused from the project due to the circumstances. That I wouldn’t have to worry about the grade because the teachers discussed it and I was good to go. While that may bring some relief to one kid, I was devastated. I tried to hide my disappointment but my chest burned and my eyes were welling. At the time, I couldn’t comprehend why I was so upset. I probably attributed it to how hard I worked on my project only to be deprived of the opportunity to show it off. But I think I realized the last shred of normalcy, the last bit of my life before my dad died, was gone.

With that project, I could have proved to my entire class that I was fine. Nothing was different about me just because my dad died in a car crash. Look – here’s a witch’s poem (or whatever shit I wrote) to prove it! This was made by me before my dad died, and it’ll carry me into the aftermath and prove to everyone that I’m just fine! The first day back at school, and look at Annie presenting in front of the ENTIRE class! But instead I was raising my hand until I was the last kid left and never called on.

I tried to keep my life as normal as possible and looking back, I see that pattern seep into every element. I hated going to the school psychologist, and literally ran away after two sessions. I hated being in her room. Normal kids didn’t have to step foot in it, normal kids didn’t even know who she was. Walking out of her office was a visual representation to anyone who was around that I was different. Instead, I responded much better to hanging out with one of my teachers during lunch and talking about everything (to which I’m in lifelong debt for). While a lot of it had to do with how much I loved her and she cared for me, part of it was also that it was a familiar setting. I knew her before my dad died, I spent plenty of time during the day in her room so it was comfortable to me, and the worst anyone could think was that I was a teacher’s pet. I wasn’t seeing a specialist who was only there for special kids. She was my teacher.

I didn’t respond to any child psychologist. Instead of working one on one, I very much preferred being part of a teen grief group. Instead of having to tell a stranger about my life, I was able to sit in a room of peers and talk about anything from boys to our dead dads, or not talk at all. It made me feel less alone, less like a sad story, and more like a typical teen.

In high school, I hated the inevitable day where a teacher found out about my past. I didn’t like the way people looked at me when they found out that my dad died. I absolutely hated telling them how. I didn’t like people trying to fix me, or break down my walls. At that point, I was still close to my former teacher and already had the people I needed to go to. I wanted to just be like any other student – I didn’t want to be anyone’s Ellen submission tape.

While I went to college in Chicago because I wanted to pursue comedy, I think a large part of my ability to move so far away was because I thought it would be a fresh start. After a teenage life of being defined by the worst moment of my life, I was eager to get the hell away and start new. And while it worked for awhile, I got to the point where I was just shoving every bad part of my past to the side until it eventually blew up in my face. My desire to be normal, in each stage of my life, meant keeping a tight lid on every emotion I had until I was in a situation that I deemed safe enough to spill out a bit – my teacher’s room, my grief group, or in my own room. This caused me to have panic attacks, insomnia and insane bits of anxiety.

I wish I could tell myself that “normal”, as I knew it, didn’t exist anymore. The harder I worked at getting there, the harder it was when I had my moments of clarity where I realized I wasn’t really normal. I wish I could tell myself that the best I can do is pick up the pieces and figure out a different way to put them together. A way that wasn’t quite the same, but still worked for me. I probably wouldn’t listen to myself, knowing myself back then, but I wish I just let shit crash all around me then figure out how to get through it instead of trying so damn hard to hold everything in place.

A few years ago, after suffering the loss of three friends, I got to the point where I couldn’t handle it anymore. I felt like I couldn’t catch a break, and it became impossible to try and pretend that I was normal. Everyone in my Chicago life knew about my friends, so I opened up more about my dad as well. I started writing and talking to my family about my grief. Since I was older, more friends could relate to me and I felt less alone. I realized that living in a new normal, where I acknowledged there was a line in the sand – the life I had before my dad died, and the life that was given to me at 2am on November 11, 2003. I was too far into my new life to ever think there was a chance to jump back. That brought relief to me. As I got older, grief started touching more people I knew and I no longer felt alone. I realized there wasn’t any such thing as normal, rather a set of circumstances we find ourselves constantly trying to navigate. While it sounds sad in theory, knowing that life could never go back was relieving. It’s much easier than striving for something that never really existed, only to come up short.

Everyone you know is just trying to get through the day with the hand they’ve been dealt.  Even the most normal looking person lost someone they loved and is just trying to navigate their new normal. Once we realize we can never go back, I think it’s much easier to move forward.

I’m back.

I decided to start routinely writing in my blog again.

There are a couple reasons for this.

The inciting incident is a conversation I recently had with someone where I was talking at length about my post “My Worst Moment in Improv”. I mentioned how, in the aftermath of that post, I started backing away from both writing in my blog and improvising as a whole. I didn’t expect so many people to read my words and wasn’t prepared for the reactions I received. I was contacted by classmates who expressed regret in not stepping in on scenes that went too far. I was contacted by too many women who shared the same sentiment. I was contacted by theaters in other cities that asked me for advice on how to implement change in their own theaters, like speaking out about an issue makes me qualified to write their harassment policy for free instead of hiring a HR rep. I started slowly, and subconsciously, backing away from improv as a whole. I was tired of having to speak on behalf of all women. I was disgusted by the handful of people who shared my words & were the same people I saw inflict harm on women in the community. I was sick of showing up in buildings, including the one I worked in, and having the words “So I read your article. To play devil’s advocate, isn’t it more dangerous to deny creativity?” being said to my face. I was frustrated that I was being asked to explain consensual scene work like some kind of expert, yet was not being paid for the energy it took out of me. I was done with men stepping up to prove that they’re “good ones” like I didn’t have the ability to read them upon meeting them. I didn’t expect the reaction to consume so much of my energy and just grew tired and disenchanted by the entire community. A lot of that was on me. I wasn’t bold enough to just tell people to fuck off. I felt a sense of responsibility to continue the conversation and educate people who were inquiring. But clearly it took more out of me than I thought, because when I look back, that article is what caused me to slowly back out of the improv game and stop writing in my blog.

Two years later and I found myself back in a class with an instructor I trusted and admired for years. During the class I did the same exercise that the article I wrote was based on for the first time since a bunch of dudes thought date gang rape is a great group scene idea and I checked out completely. I felt disconnected and just wanted to get through it. I did, without incident, and was proud and sad and just thinking a shit ton. I came to the realization that I allowed my experience a few years ago take so much from me. I was pissed at myself for letting that entire experience keep me from two things I love – writing personal posts and improvising. After a high quality long conversation on a sticky and humid summer night, I decided to throw myself back into both writing and improvising.

The second reason is because in a month, I’ll be having major knee surgery for a dumbass accident I had almost two years ago. During a rehearsal, I made a dumb physical choice and fucked up the cartilage in my knee. I have already been through one surgery and two counts of learning how to walk again and am dreading this last round. The surgery will require that I do not put any weight on my leg for about six weeks. Short term recovery (being able to walk well, swim, exercise lightly, etc.) will take six months and I should be fully recovered in a year. While I’m grateful that this will be my last surgery, and that I have really good insurance to cover a highly specialized and expensive procedure, I’m really dreading sitting on my couch again. It’s really hard to be in limbo for two years while I watch my friends go on with their careers and lives. I did not think that my mid-twenties would be defined by this injury. I hate thinking about where I’d be if I didn’t have to take so much time out for recovery. While I want to be happy for my friends and their achievements, it’s hard for me to hear about their trials and tribulations in the comedy world while I’m stuck in this knee limbo unable to do anything. Before this accident, I felt like I was constantly creating, performing, writing, and working hard to achieve my goals. I finally got some of that wind back this summer, and now I know I have a year of recovery starting soon. I cried like a baby last night upon realizing that I might have performed for the last time before my surgery. So I’m trying to be proactive and reintroduce things I can do while recovering. One of those things is this blog.

So I’m back. Because I need this outlet again. I have a lot of thoughts I’ve been bottling up and my Facebook statuses weren’t providing adequate space. 

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?

my father moved through harm of laughter

I used to write a lot of poetry. It was my main way of coping with my dad’s death. This evening, I happened upon my old portfolio. I found hundreds of poems… from when I was ten to when I stopped writing at about nineteen. Poems about depression, happiness, hope and anxiety. It was such a wonderful look back on my emotions & everything that I’ve been through. But my absolute favorite poem was one that I wrote when I was fifteen about my dad. It was inspired by E.E. Cummings’ my father moved through dooms of love. One thing that I didn’t even realize, until tonight, was that E.E. Cummings wrote this after his own father’s death. Mind blown. This poem is my favorite because I felt like I was able to describe my father in the most vivid way possible. Enjoy.

my father moved through harm of laughter

my father moved through harm of laughter

through duty of charity through need of release,

laughing as we woke as we fell asleep

my father moved through cheer of sadness

 

this strength he bared

though apparent and hidden

would break the sturdy tree in half

a glance of his eye would tear its roots

 

fresh and new though older than most

was the person who, since late october

planted feet in air firmly on ground

raised feet on ground to touch the air

 

and should a child start to weep

my father could sing her gently to sleep

but he kept his wisdom at a hush

though he knew how a rainbow could cry

 

Tearing the grass from a desert

my father moved through victories of defeat;

praising the day each sunset promised

preaching one’s dream into life

 

humor was his song and humor so raw

billy crystal would bow at the presence of a joke

and humorous so now and now so humorous

belushi would cry from one word

 

quick as a shooting start more quick

smart though not bearing a degree

so strictly(and rather apparent

to both of us) stood my father’s words

 

his skin was skin his breath was breath:

no unhappy man but one wished him happiness;

no mute frog wouldn’t croak

endless hours to hear one joke

 

a man just like any man

but a smile that put pearls to shame

his sweat smelled no glory in it

yet the work he put in was idolized

 

his parents were irish and damn proud

yet he was jamaican puerto rican italian

he had but four children to his name

yet a handful came with the new sports season

 

very careful, never foolish in risks

since he was grateful for being forgetful once

his care was not enough to save

for it was another who killed him

 

i am now moved through guilt of innocence

through a life of death

through failure of success

yet through humor i feel alive

 

and nothing quite so least as truth

–i say though carelessness is why i hate–

because my Father lived and entertained

the world will laugh once more.