On Tuesday my friends Becca and Sean lost two of their daughters; Olivia aged 6 and Emma aged 3.

The danger of tragedy is fear that God didn’t answer our prayers. In the face of a loss there is space and in that space fear can all too easily grow. There will never be a reason that my rational mind will understand for why these two beautiful little girls are no longer alive. Were God to explain it to me, I still wouldn’t understand, as I do not hold all of creation in my grasp.

I have never seen more love, more generosity, kindness, care and hope, poured out by friends and strangers. God hears the words of our hearts, for the words from our mouths will never be enough, and gives that forth in our actions.

Without doubt and without fear we mourn two lives lost.

(2 Years, 6 Months, and 4 Days Sober)

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Kevin and I on St. Patrick’s Day 2007.

Almost everyone is still asleep. I know the car is waiting for me. Sunlight is starting to shine across the living room floor. I step gingerly between the people curled up in sleepingbags, searching faces, desperately looking. Des, Leah and Alissa are in the corner. Rueda is sprawled out on the couch, Christian and Toke on the floor below. With each familiar face, every friend I know, I grow more frantic. Time is running out. Suddenly Charlie grabs my shoulders.

“Andrea, you have to leave. It’s time to go.”

“I can’t Charlie. I didn’t say goodbye. I have to say goodbye.”

“It’s okay. He knows. You have to go now. Can’t you hear that?”

I wake up suddenly, the pounding at my door almost thunderous now. Whoever is there has been trying to wake me up for a while now. I grab my house sweater and stumble to the door, confused by my dream and even more so by why someone is trying to wake me up so early on a Sunday. Bleary-eyed, I open the door. Jennie is there.

“I have to tell you something but I don’t know how. Kevin died.”

That was five years ago.

I spent the rest of the day with Jennie, eating way way too much Italian food and going to a movie, just to not have to say anything for a while.  There were a lot of words that day.  It seemed like I spent the entire day on the phone, calling out-of-town friends who hadn’t heard, or who I didn’t think should find out via the internet.  I repeated again and again the few details I knew.  Finally the sun went down and the wine came out, and we all sat in my apartment, smoking and drinking and not knowing what to say.

The next few days were pretty much the same.  The evening of Kevin’s wake I came home to find a rejection letter from CUA, telling me that I would not be offered a place in their PhD program.  It was perfect timing, because I couldn’t care less that my future was basically shot to hell.

I cried, but I didn’t cry excessively, and I tried my best not to cry in front of his family.  They were devastated, it wasn’t my place.  But also, I could feel my grief inside my chest, sitting there, isolated and detached.  I’d had plenty of experience with death and I knew different types of grief (confused anger for my grandfather, overwhelming shock for my father, sad relief for my grandmother that she was no longer suffering from Alzheimer’s) but for Kevin, I could see the grief inside, but wrapped up, I didn’t know what was in there.

I knew something was wrong with me.  I knew I was reacting strangely.  But I didn’t want to think about it.  I just wanted to drink.

Kevin’s death pushed me out of the DC area.  I’d been unemployed for months.  I was broke and had already had one brush with eviction for not paying my rent.  Everyday I consumed more wine and sent out less resumes.  And after Kevin’s death I couldn’t look at any of my friends.  I was ashamed of myself, but at the time I couldn’t say why.  Within weeks I called my mom and asked to come home.  I convinced my landlord not to charge me for breaking my lease, sold all my furniture and appliances, drunkenly boxed up the things I wanted to keep (many of which broke, a discovery I made last summer when I finally opened those boxes) and threw one last night out at the bar.  That was a good night.  Everyone celebrated and my friend Dark Dan got so drunk he knocked over a line of potted trees like dominoes.

And I went home.  I refused to talk about Kevin, unless I was so drunk that I was about to pass out.  I would mention him, start to cry and immediately stop, have one last drink and sleep the whole next day.  Even when I moved back to DC-ish, got a job, etc. I refused to talk about Kevin.  My grief for him, still in its box, simply stayed in my chest.  I wasn’t ignoring it, I knew it was there.  Once a year, on March 15th, I would look at his Facebook page, write him a little message, cry for a few minutes, and then make myself stop.

One night I was walking home from an AA meeting.  I was few months sober and my interior was total chaos.  Suddenly, standing on the corner waiting for the light, I started sobbing.  The wrapping had fallen off the box and for the first time I could see my grief.  But not just my grief.  I could see my secret.

I was jealous that Kevin got to die and I didn’t.

I wasn’t jealous of how many people loved him.  I wasn’t jealous of how his wrecked family would never be the same without him.  I wasn’t jealous of what a wonderful person he was.  I was jealous that his journey had ended, that he was with God and there was no more suffering for him.

I had wanted the peace he had.

I couldn’t put that into words at the time of his death, but it was true nonetheless and the shame of that truth was almost worse than the truth itself.  That shame enveloped any conversation I had with Kate about her brother.  And until today I don’t think I have ever said aloud to another person what I really felt.  Who wants to admit that while others were mourning a life cut short and a world less lovely for his loss, she was cursing what a lucky bastard he was that he didn’t have to deal with any shit anymore.

(Truthfully I can’t believe I’m writing any of this.  I guess I can’t have it inside me anymore.)

So, Kevin, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I dishonored your life by wishing your death upon myself.  I’m sorry I could not comfort those you left behind because I was too twisted up in trying to destroy myself.  I’m sorry I never believed in myself the way you believed in me.  I’m sorry I ran.  I’m sorry I bailed the last time I could have seen you because it was too much of a hassle for me to show up.  I’m sorry I couldn’t grieve for you these last 5 years.

I’m sorry I don’t talk about you.  I’m sorry I don’t tell people how you were funny and loyal and kind.  I’m sorry I don’t tell people how you never gave up on those you loved, how everyone always got another chance because you had an unwavering faith that anyone can be better.  I’m sorry I don’t tell people how proud I was I of you, how you turned your life around, and lived your faith so beautifully.

I’m sorry.

I met Kevin my senior year of college when he arrived as a freshman.  He was my friend Kate’s younger brother.  We immediately bonded over sarcasm and my ability to provide him with free coffee.  He was the best bullshitter I’d ever met, and I spent some of the best hours of my life sitting with Kevin, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and talking about nothing.  Years passed, and the conversations became less about nothing, but they were no less enjoyable.

I miss him.

I miss my friend very much.  I hope that now I can grieve for him, not for myself.

(2 Years, 5 Months, and 25 Days Sober)

I’m sure that there are millions of small revelations that new parents experience. Minor annoyances or obstacles that no one mentioned in their homespun wisdom, or PhD riddled books, or their holistic blogs.

One of the correlations in teaching is lice. When you’re interviewing, observing, practice teaching, etc. no one once mentions lice. They never tell you how often you’ll have to check for it, how much work you’ll need to put into erradicating it, how many decisions you’ll have to make about proper lice procedure, about how to deal with the parent who doesn’t care so won’t do anything, or the sadness you feel when you have to say that one child can’t hug another because one has bugs and the other doesn’t (yet). Lice is such a common school-age problem that no one thinks to tell you that it will be a part of your future.

And it’s ok that way. You shouldn’t be informed of every eventuality in your life. It’s not that it spoils the surprise in life, but rather that it builds common sense. Common sense is the ability to differentiate between a problem and a tragedy and to respond according in the most straightforward and helpful manner.

Common sense is being aware of context.

Not all situations have equal potential for dire consequences, not all actions have equal moral weight, not all opinions have equal validity. And being able to tell the difference is what separates the adult from the child.

Of course, even an adult sometimes need another adult to pull them aside and say “By the way, you’re being bat-shit crazy about this, and it’s not that big a deal, so calm the fuck down.” I need that a lot.

But I feel a sense of pride when I can accept a situation for what it is and work through it without throwing a fit. Lice is an annoyance. A time-consuming, expensive, exhausting annoyance, but an annoyance none the less.

I spent almost 3 hours this morning nit-picking students. I had to spend almost 50 dollars on supplies. By the time it was finished it was lunchtime and I was totally wrecked. I had been so concentrated on such a detailed task for so long that there was no way I could think anymore. The afternoon was a giant waste; we did the bare minimum of work possible.

And that’s just the way it goes sometimes. You can’t prepare for every single thing that could happen in a day. If I had my way no kid would ever get lice, and I wouldn’t have to give up a huge deal of teaching time to sifting through hair. Be that as it may, I’m grateful for a chance to solve something new (to me) and to be on the other side of something I used to fear with the knowledge that it isn’t as bad as I thought.

It is a relief to learn a small lesson in a safe way. Doesn’t happen like that for me too often.

(2 Years, 5 Months, and 20 Days Sober)

So the last post I wrote was kind of a downer.

Well, only if you replace the words “kind of” with “a complete.”

I think I recall saying something at the beginning of this year about trying to be more grateful, looking for the good things in my life.  This sounds vaguely familiar.  But then stress, and disappointment, and fear set in.

And there is nothing like a call from your parish priest asking if you’ve got cabin fever to snap you right out of your self-indulgent malaise.  When you hear the question “Are you doing alright?” and you realize that you are WAY too embarrassed to answer honestly and say “You know what, no, I haven’t been doing alright, because I don’t think anyone loves me enough, or appreciates me enough, or showers me with enough affection, dammit, and therefore I have been having a crying, angry, pity-party for like a week.”  Wait, no I can’t say that.

“I’m okay.  I took a walk.”

And I am okay.  And I did take a walk.  I finally mailed my tax worksheets to my accountant, which I had ready two weeks ago, but I’ve been too busy crying or sleeping to mail.

I vacillate easily between having zero expectations (I would like another human being to acknowledge that I exist) and have fantastical expectations (I want someone to make it their sole mission in life to please me in every way and wrap me in comfort and protection so that I may never be troubled by anything ever at all for the rest of my life).  As my heart becomes more fixated on the later, the former comes crashing down. They feed on each other, reinforcing anxieties and doubts that only thrive in dishonesty and darkness.

In seeing both as united, as dimensions of a single lack of faith, then the way out is much easier.  If I do not believe that God truly loves me, completely, fully, as I am, in hope of all I will be, with patience for my failings, with no desire for reward, then I will always look for love to be “proved” and I will always be disappointed.

Now, this seems like I’m still being a downer.  And maybe I am.  But I don’t mean to be.  Lent beings tomorrow.  This is the last day of celebration before 40 days of penance, prayer, sacrifice.  I’ve kind of skipped Lent for the last couple years.  I start out on Ash Wednesday with the idea that this year I’ll be amazing.  I’ll give up everything I enjoy, I’ll pray all the time, I won’t complain about anything, I’ll be a radiant font of joy to my fellow man.

By Friday I have given up, and usually decided to test run some new sins that maybe would fit well into my regular rotation.

Then Easter arrives, I act like I’m surprised it did, rush to confession (at least by Pentecost) and say “Next year, next year I’ll do Lent right!”

I’m going to try something different this year.  I’m going to try being normal.  I’m going to try giving up one thing and adding one thing.  Not big things.  I’m going to try giving up Diet Coke.  I love Diet Coke.  I drink about equal amounts water and Diet Coke each day.  It has been a part of my life since I can remember.  But it is also a burden.  It stretches my tight food budget.  It’s heavy to carry home from the grocery store.  It gives my acid reflux.  Clearly, it’s not something helpful for me that makes my life happy.  It’s something that I am used to.  Something that I enjoy, but that I could probably do without.

It’s not a sacrifice equal to Christ sacrifice on the Cross.  It couldn’t be.  Nothing I could do could be.  And I shouldn’t try to make it into such.  Or pretend that it is supposed to be such.

So really, for Lent, I’m just going to try being a little more realistic.

(2 Year, 5 Months, and 14 Days Sober)

You know what I really hate?

I hate the fact that when you act like an asshole, there’s no way to escape it.

I was losing it all last week, and by Friday I was unfit for human company. That didn’t stop me from going to work, acting like a hysterical tyrant to my students and then throwing a hissy fit during a staff meeting.

I could say that there are a lot of reasons that I went down to crazy town. It’s been a long winter. I’m too demanding on myself and others. I’m trying to handle too many issues at once. I’m underslept. I’m underpaid. The list could go on and on.

The truth: sometimes I’m an asshole.

Sometimes anyone and everyone can be an asshole. I’m not special in this. I just find it particularly unpleasent when I am the one being an asshole, because then I’m trapped.

Open Facebook? Oh, there are the co-workers I spewed posion at. Go to Mass? Yup, there’s one of my students with her family. Stay at home and read? Well, fuckballs, then I have to be alone with my thoughts, regrets and guilt.

There is no way to say, “Can we all just pretend THAT didn’t happen?”

People are forgiving. They do pretend. It doesn’t mean they forgot, just that they’re too nice to pile on when I already feel ashamed of my behavior.

And that is it’s own form of torture.

(2 Years, 5 Months and 12 Days Sober)