My father also taught me how to mask my mental illness like an absolute champ. My father was extremely mentally ill. He was a pathological liar amongst other things. I won’t get into all of it because it’s not really anyone’s business now and he spent his life covering up huge chunks of who he was. Partially because his illness was harmful not just to himself but to others. Even if you knew him well though, you probably had no idea how sick he was on the inside.

The thing is we learn from our parents in many ways. Sometimes because they actively teach us and other times because they actively or passively model things for us. My dad taught me the value of honesty because I saw how much lies could hurt people. 

But he also taught me how to parrot other people’s behaviors and mannerisms. He taught me how to carry on a conversation with someone when it feels like your skin is on fire from standing there and pretending to be ok. He taught me how to pass. 

I have multiple mental illness diagnoses. Most of them are genetic, passed on from both sides of my family (thanks guys). A lot of people don’t know that. Especially my colleagues and professional connections. My success in my career has been in large part because I am very good at masking. I don’t think there’s anyone in my life who could tell you I’m bipolar, who doesn’t know because I told them... that doesn’t live with me. People are shocked when I tell them I have paralyzing social anxiety. 

I have a lifetime build-up of coping mechanisms from years of therapy, lots of online research, and admittedly many failed attempts at unhealthy coping.  It’s been years since I’ve self-harmed, longer since I’ve put myself in dangerous situations compulsively, and so long that I no longer keep track since I have abused substances. 

But a lifetime of learning started by watching how my parents carried their burdens, albeit very differently. My mother went to therapy and was on medication most of my life... she also chain-smoked cigarettes every day. My dad rejected his diagnoses, refused therapy, and struggled daily to put on his mask, but he wore it, and rarely did it slip. He wore it for me, he wore it for his friends, his church, his family, and most of all for himself. Even though both my parents' mental health impacted me in negative ways as well it also gave me a lifelong example that you CAN succeed while carrying heavy burdens. 

We are all a summation of our experiences. How we let those experiences mold us and how we respond to them is up to us. I didn’t get to choose who my parents were and which of their genetic traits I’d get stuck with. But we all did the best with what we had, and we loved each other despite all of it. Maybe not the way “traditional” families do, but I seem to have turned out alright.

 In my younger days, I did some pretty messed up shit. I crashed my mom's car into the median of the highway drunk AF. The officer who pulled me over gave me a ride to a friend's house and then home. He called and checked up on me the next day to make sure I was ok. I got pulled over with weed, and alcohol in my car while underage. The cops confiscated and let me go. I got caught illegally smuggling cannabis and alcohol over the Canadian border at SEVENTEEN years old and they confiscated and let me go. I’ve had cops drive behind me and follow me home when I had a tail light out to make sure I got home safe. I got caught shoplifting while on drugs as a teenager and the cop didn’t even arrest me. He took me to the hospital and stayed with me till my parents got there.

I grew up in a small town, where the police were my friend's parents, and my parents always heard about my shenanigans the next day through the local gossip network. My local cops were undoubtedly pretty decent guys, and I like to think that they would never have hurt me even if I’d been of a different color skin or different sex. But I can’t sit here and say that’s not part of what’s happening nationally.

My parents never once told me to be scared of the police. In fact, I was encouraged to find a police officer if I was scared or lost. 

Because the cops don’t kneel on the throats of people who look like me while they cry for their mothers and beg that they can’t breathe. I had the immense privilege of drinking in the woods with friends and all of us acted wild, talked back to the cops, and were never any worse for the wear. 

If you’ve never been scared to take a walk, or do a normal everyday activity never mind act a fool then you have likely benefited from white privilege. 

I grew up poor, and I’ve been homeless. I was a teen mom and I struggled and worked my ass off to get where I am, but there have been many, many times when things could have gone a different way for me but I was lucky to be in the skin I was in. 

So before you spout off that it’s not about race, it fucking IS.

 If you won’t show anyone the deep dark broken corners of your soul, then how can anyone fall in love with them?

Maybe your storm feels ugly to you, but maybe there’s somebody out there who’s been waiting their whole life to chase and calm  a storm exactly like yours. 

Life is so impermanent. Why spend a single moment inauthenticity? And how can you find your people any other way?!

 Pride exists because of a woman. 

Pride exists because of a black woman. 

Pride exists because of a black trans woman. 

Pride exists because of a black trans woman who was a sex worker. 

Pride exists because of a black, bisexual trans woman who was a sex worker that threw a brick at a cop. 

Pride exists because of a black, bisexual trans woman, a sex worker, who threw a brick at a cop and started a riot against the state.

Don't lose this month in rainbow capitalism and unabashed racism because of the privilege of being white while queer.

If you aren't supporting queer people of color, trans women, and queer sex workers, you aren't celebrating pride, you are celebrating rainbow capitalism and police brutality.

Her name was Marsha P. Johnson.

 After you watch it enough times you realize the plot of Fixer Upper is the same every single time.

A husband and wife are looking to buy a home in a specific neighborhood. They disagree somewhat on what makes a smart home purchase. The husband has specific concerns about the house's structure, location, or ROI. The wife has aesthetic concerns. They "compromise" in a way drastically skewed in the wife's favor. Somehow the professional flippers don't notice massive problems with the home. They overcome the mountainous problem through a stroke of luck and the Gaines absolute genius. In the end, the couple is ecstatically happy.

its not enough to just not be racist

 A helpful guide on how to respond to these tired, obviously racist, talking points: 

1. “Black people commit more crime”

Black neighborhoods are more heavily policed than white neighborhoods. Nearly every police department has arrest and ticketing quotas. Black crimes are simply better documented, also given the corrupt nature of many departments sometimes crimes are just made up.

*and let's not forget that we rarely criminalize white collar crime*

2. “More white people are killed by cops than black people”

There are 200,000,000 non-Hispanic white people and 40,000,000 black people. By sheer numbers yes more white people are killed by police. But black people are shot by police 4 times as often. Also do you not think cops killing unarmed people generally is not a problem?

3. “White privilege isn’t real”

One of the most effective ways to transfer wealth generationally is through the property. Black people were excluded from owning good property until as late as the 1970s. White people have had a 300-year head start where all the institutions, economic rules, and laws were created by them with them in mind. That doesn’t make you, in particular, a bad person and it doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard. However, it’s an acknowledgment that your life would be more difficult if you were black.

4. “This is all sad but I can’t support rioting and looting”

As black support for congressional legislation rises from 0% to 100% the chances of Congress's acts fall from 40% to 30%. That’s not true for white people. If you get punished for taking part in the normal political process by voting, lobbying, petitioning, running for office, etc....and peaceful protesters are arrested and abused, you’re literally being told: “non-violence doesn’t work”. You should be made at every level of government for making people feel that desperate.

5. “All Lives Matter”

No, they don’t and they should hence the reason we’re protesting. Would you say “All Neighborhoods Matter” during natural disaster clean-up? No, because that’d be horribly insensitive and ignore that there is a neighborhood in particular that is suffering right now. Exactly.

6. “White people have been oppressed too!”

Yeah, by other white people. When Black people create a nation enshrining in their founding documents the right to own and trade white people, we can talk.

7. “How come (insert race here) doesn’t riot or protest or loot?”

I promise you they do, but it’s not well reported in the media you consume. White people burn cars and buildings if a sporting event goes wrong.

8. “What about black on black crime”

Black people don’t kill each other because they’re black. America is still very segregated, many neighborhoods are nearly all white or all black. People aren’t driving 20 miles across the county to kill, they kill whoever is nearby. Whites kill about as many whites as blacks kill blacks. Also, ask yourself do you only bring this up in conversations about police brutality? Have you literally ever posted or talked about this in any other context?

9. “Blue Lives Matter”

You can stop being a cop, you can’t stop being black. Getting hurt, shot, or killed while on the clock is an occupational hazard, cops signed up for that. People of color did not.

10. “Many of those killed had prior criminal histories. They were no angels”

Many of the cops also have prior records of DUIs, Domestic Abuse, and other on-the-job murders. Also, there are no perfect people, and do you deserve to die because you have excessive parking tickets or have been evicted or have tried drugs, or yes have even been arrested before?

11. “If they just followed the law, they’d be fine”

Eric Garner was killed for selling loosey cigarettes, which isn’t even a misdemeanor. Even if you do commit a crime, it’s up to the legal system to determine the consequences. What traffic stops warrant a death sentence? Also, innocent people have been killed for simply fitting a description.

12. “Why can’t they just peacefully protest?”

We still get tear-gassed, shot, harassed, and arrested. Martin Luther King only peacefully protested and was literally murdered. Also, peaceful protest is easy to ignore. A riot is the voice of the unheard. 

13. “Not all cops kill or brutalize people”

But many do and face no pushback from other officers or the systems in place to catch “bad cops”. A system that allows a class of people to exist above the law and above all reproach is not for anyone’s benefit.

14. “Cops are people too and have human reactions”

Famously being a cop is a high-pressure job. If you don’t have the mental fortitude to not beat the living hell out of someone because they yelled at you, then you shouldn’t have a gun and you definitely shouldn’t be a cop. Police departments should require anger management, more extensive background checks, and yes regular mental wellness evaluations. But they’d rather spend money on riot gear and drones.

15. “I don’t see color”

That’s bad. You’re ignoring the experience of every black person in this country. You’re pretending everyone is treated equally or has equal experiences in this country when that’s demonstrably false. Just because you wish it true don’t make it so. Those differences and that diversity are important to recognize.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

 A friend posted last year asking what everyone’s favorite thing their father taught them was. I couldn’t pick just one. He is deeply embedded in who I am, and what I know.

He taught me:

To question and defy authority.

That laws are written by people and they’re usually idiots... so take them as suggestions.

How to fall and get back on.

How to use every power tool under the sun.

How to change my oil and tire.

How to shingle, roof and lay floor. 

How to shoe a horse.

How to sit damn near any spook, twist, buck or rear a horse could throw at me.

That I was just as capable, if not more so than any boy.

That there’s no such thing as “can’t”

How to parallel park a dual wheel, extended cab pickup truck on Main Street Hyannis in the summer (if you know you know)

How to drink whiskey the RIGHT way (straight).

How to swear like a sailor. 

Never to throw the first punch, but to make sure that when I hit back they hit the floor. 

Not to cry like a little bitch every time I get hurt, cuz the fun stuff is always a little dangerous and if you don’t get a bruise or a scar it wasn’t worth writing home about.

What unconditional love was (both my parents taught me this unfailingly every single day of my life until they passed)

Not to be afraid of needles. 

How to get the nail in in one swing, but also to take it slow on some projects... because some things need more care than others. 

Both how to give it out, and how to take it. 

Not to be too sensitive.

Endless sarcasm and some truly raunchy jokes. 

How to cook no matter what was left in the kitchen. 

To be a good host.

To feed everyone. 

How to rig weird combinations of parts into something functional for the job at hand.

How to mend a fence, both literally and figuratively.

Many lessons on forgiveness.

And probably a million and one other little things I use nearly every day that just don’t stick out in my memory.

And last but most certainly not least; he taught me how to die with dignity. I have witnessed a lot of deaths, both long and short. It’s usually easy to die dignified when it comes for you quick, but death followed my father around like a shadow the entire time I knew him. He was never NOT sick, but he lived unapologetically. He lived the life he wanted to, and he fought like hell to be here as long as he was. When it was time to go, he had his last whiskey and said goodbye. There was no blubbering or begging. No wallowing. No slow descent into an unrecognizable shell of his former self. He left the same man I had always known. 

May I be so lucky to have such an ending to my own saga. 

I hope I’m making you proud dad. Happy Father’s Day ❤️

Alternative Families Are OK

 My parents marriage didn’t look like my marriage, or any other that I’ve ever seen. 

They shared separate bedrooms my whole life. 

They literally only had sex to conceive me. 

My mom only married my dad because he wouldn’t go away after I was born and he needed health insurance. 

There was a lot of love lost between them over the years for reasons I won’t share publicly.

But

They created ultimate balance for raising a child together.

My dad worked nights while my mom worked days so I always had a parent at home when I was little.

My dad sped through yellow lights. Yellow = faster. While my mom came to a full and complete stop at yellow as well as red. 

My dad bent and broke the rules whenever he felt like it. My mom followed them to the letter. 

They supported one another through life’s trials and tribulations even when they argued about it. 

My mom was thrifty while my dad loved to spend $$ (even when it wasn’t his 🤣)

They both loved me unconditionally. 

My mom never drank or drugged (except a handful of times in her whole life)

My dad liked to get his party on over summer vacation and once I was grown drank atleast 1 whiskey a day.  

My mom took morality to the next level aka she was a square while my dad jigged to the best of his own drum, and wasn’t always the *best* example of morals or ethics. 

They’d both give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it.

My dad was an excellent host while my mom only knew how to give her ear or shoulder and wasn’t the type to grab you a drink or fix you something to eat. 

My dad was an excellent cook.

My mom could barely make decent spaghetti.

When it came to the “big” stuff they shared a lot of common ground. They shared their faith, love of horses and calling to serve those with differences. 

Anyways… to my point… 

Not everyone’s relationships look the same. People get married & stay married for all kinds of different reasons. My parents weren’t romantically involved and there were many times when I questioned why they bothered. It’s only recently I realized that the answer is simple. Going through life alone is lonely. My parents started as best friends, and while their relationship had a lot of ups and downs over the years they coparented their daughter together til the very end. 

Partnerships come in all shapes & sizes. 

If you’re holding yourself to some ridiculous standard of what marriage, partnership, parenting, family etc looks like, stop. Your life doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s to be valid and incredible. 

I had a pretty great childhood and I was raised by excellent parents. Despite their flaws and unique relationship, or perhaps BECAUSE of them- I am the powerhouse I am today.