Just Lucky I Guess

I’m sitting in my parent’s guest bedroom listening to the rain and wind beat at the window in front of me. Outside, it’s freezing. Wet. Frantic. I am about a foot away from the glass, right above the vent that is pushing hot air into my sweatpants. I’ve got a mug of warm coffee, four dogs at my feet, and my mother is making a salmon dinner in the kitchen. Inside, we are warm, dry and calm. And quiet.

The past few months of my life have been filled with movement. Working, fighting, relocating, rearranging, cleaning, crying, arguing, creating, flying, landing, celebrating, debating, planning, learning, growing… I’ve been in a state of constant motion, so concerned with the next immediate task needing completion that I successfully blurred out the rest of my life—the consistent, reliable part that ironically seems to change only when you neglect it. And here I am, in a moment of silence, forced to see the reality of what was happening to my family when I was too busy with my life to check in on theirs.

On November 11th, 2010, on my amazing father’s 51st birthday, he was forced to turn his fishing-bound car around to rush straight to the hospital where my grandparents were. On frightened ears, from sorrowful lips came the heavy words “terminal lung cancer.” There were no birthday cakes for my dad that day. Only wills, talks of the estate, and wet eyes from both parties who were too proud to cry. A few days later, I turned 24 and from the other end of my cell phone a coughing, painful, cracking voice attempted to wish me well before my aunt grabbed the phone from him and, amidst her own tears, tried to tell me grandpa was going to be alright.

Well, here I am. Back at mom and dads. Back from grandma and grandpa's. He'll be alright, but he won't be around soon.

My grandfather is the rock of a family the size of a football team. He and my grandmother have raised eight incredibly talented, grounded children, with no divorces, no health issues, no broken homes. Thirty-four grandchildren, and an ever-growing population of great-grandchildren dance at their heels. No stray animal crosses their path without finding a home, and no lonely stranger has ever passed through their neck of the woods without leaving with a sense of belonging. My grandfather taught me how to garden. He taught me how to drive a tractor. He taught me to love literature, to be loud, to appreciate nature. My grandfather sat in the bunk out with me for hours, nothing but a bird book and binoculars, and we wouldn’t stop looking for birds until the sun set. He was the best Santa Claus any little girl has ever had, the best soccer fan any athlete would ever want, and the best grandfather any family could ever hope for. I love him. And I don’t know how to say good-bye.

Yesterday, as I lay next to him watching the football game (my grandfather played for Stanford the BEST football year they ever had, and we are all die-hard Stanford fans in my family) he turned to me and said “say a prayer for me, okay?” I looked into his eyes and saw the tears he was so stubbornly holding back. I looked at all the deep wrinkles of wisdom in his face, his frail form, his sagging eyes. He started coughing—that horrible cough. I hate that cough. If I could separate it from him and confront it in psychical form, I swear I would kill it in the most horrible way. I reached out and rubbed his back. He choked up. Silence. I realized he was trying not to cry. 20 seconds must have passed. I know he wanted me to leave, but I couldn’t talk. Or move. Or think. I finally kissed him on the forehead and left. I feel lost.

My father gave me the biggest gift when I was young. He gave me a relationship with my grandparents. Out of the 8 kids in the family, my father took it upon himself very seriously to have his family grow with and around his parents. Because of this, I feel the inevitable loss of my grandfather deeply. But it is also because of this that I have some of the most amazing childhood memories. My father loves my grandpa more than anything else in the world—he is his hero (they are both my heroes), and if losing my grandpa isn’t hard enough, knowing how hard it is for my dad is almost just as painful. This past week, I’ve seen too such sadness from the two men in my life I rarely see without a smile.

My grandpa used to ask me “how’d you get so pretty?” when I was little, and I’d always look up to him in bashful confusion. He’d bend down and tell me “whenever somebody asks you that, say “just lucky I guess””. In this moment of sadness, surrounded by a quiet house in suspense of the moment when their core might pass on, I sit here meditating on so many mixed emotions—pain, sadness, loss, happiness, gratefulness. They all lead me to the question “how did I get such an amazing family, and why have I not been more present with them in the past few years?” The answer to the second one is something I need to stop wasting time trying to answer, and instead change it by actions. The answer to the first, perhaps, is “just lucky I guess."

Here's to you Grandpa,

For all the joy, the amazing memories, your gentle soul and strong hands that showed me how to love and appreciate nature and family and all that is good. I will always stop and say hi to you every time I find myself marveling at the simple beauty of the earth around us, you will always be in my thoughts. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I love you.

Also... to anybody who reads this, I have a new blog for my clothing line/everyday life, its fauxtaledesign.blogspot.com. feel free to drop in and follow it. and tell me whats on your mind. go give your family big hugs for me. and one for yourself.

xoxo,

kate

I don't understand how someone can walk away from love. I can't decide if I admire or despise that quality in a human--sometimes I feel like those people who are capable of boxing up their hearts are a step ahead of the ones walking around with it on a platter. Perhaps the middle ground between the two is where all the sane people in this world reside. It's finding that balance that is so difficult. I am Love's greatest enthusiast, and my lovers are always Love's skeptics.

There once was a woman who never thought she'd find love. And one day, in the most unlikely of places she met the most beautiful man in the world. When she met him, he was a hermit. He took no interest in people and spent his time with books. But his eyes were made of fire, and when she looked in him she believed in life again. Over the years, she fed and housed him, loved him selflessly--perhaps a bit too much, nurtured and supported his talents and passions. She patiently coaxed him out of himself, and learned every inch of who he was. In return, he saw her in entirety. She hid nothing. She had never known or been known by someone as much as he. Over time, the fire in his eyes caught the glance of others, and no longer was he a hermit, but a Prince. The woman rejoiced and celebrated her lover, the butterfly blossoming into full color! And yet he was able to sit up one day and see no more of what he wanted in her-her devotion, her love, were all things the world was lying at his feet now. And without hesitation he walked across an invisible threshold, up into a brand new castle the town had built for him, and shut the door in her face. Now he is unreachable, except for when he briefly opens a window in his castle to ask a favor or murmur "I love you," just to make sure she still sits, awaiting his return. From the porch she can hear him laughing, drinking, seducing other girls inside. And when enough time passes that she pops into his head, he walks upstairs to look down and make sure she hasn't left completely, that she's still miserably plucking daisies and waiting for a different outcome. When does she get the courage to stand up and walk away?

Stubbornness and the belief in "romance" is a woman's worst enemy.

"I'm going to make you mean it

With every single cell of me

I'm going to make you mean the words you sigh."

Not the Only Bird on Your Window Sill...

“These days just seem to pass invisible…” someone once sang to me. I wish I could describe my days like that. I wake up in an empty bed and stare at my ceiling, trying not to feel the vacant spot to my left. Hardly invisible, the walls and books and masks scream memories of a better time. My lonely organ mourns in the corner. If only I can get myself out of bed, I can get out of this house. I can get lost in Griffith Park with my dogs. I can search for a new over-priced, trendy coffee shop. I can talk to strangers that might someday be real friends. So many hours in a day! How do you talk yourself out of the anxiety and just relax when you’re constantly running from a sudden silence in your head, a break of thoughts, in which that horrible feeling returns and you remember that he is gone, and happy, and you are not?

 

I booked a meeting with an agency today. Unfortunately I look far from the smiling belle in the photographs I sent them. Walking through that door covered in bandaids and bruises with a stiff neck and broken ribs will at least provide for an interesting conversation starter. It’s been a rough month. I’m sick of telling people why I’m broken. The truth is the energy it takes to catch myself from falling down just doesn’t seem worth it. I’ve been hit with so many mental and emotional blows that the physical ones seem trivial enough. They say that one’s outward appearance directly reflects their inner state—I am walking (barely) proof.

 

How long can I pretend that he’s just busy? That he still thinks of me, as I think of him, and his heart still melts for me, and that my adoring eyes are his soul’s definition of infinite beauty. My texts are not answered. My e-mails are read, and met with silence. I only receive calls when he needs something. I never get to see his face, and when I do, I don’t recognize him. So many times now I’ve received his new, expensive boot in my teeth, and I sulk away like a beat dog, with nothing but love still resonating in my teary eyes. True love is loving someone through good and bad. I was always there through both. You leave every time it gets good for you.

 

I am not the only bird. There are others. And beautiful letters are flying from foreign places to different addresses other than mine, if mine even makes it. You will dazzle them with articulate words, buy them savory wines. But for me, I am the rock. I will always be there, always have been, and therefore you can kick me around as much as you want—for a rock doesn’t move when you kick it. A bird is crushed, or simply flies away. I fought the Moon and the Stars for you, and now I am realizing that I have become the least important person in your life, because you don’t need me anymore. And if I have nothing but my love to give, you can find love elsewhere, and in newer and more exciting places and people. I am a vision of your past that reminds you of a time you couldn’t stand alone, and now that you can you want to bury me away from the world so they don’t know that you weren’t always so strong and confident. But I am not that part of your life, I am a person. And I love you. And I feel shunned.

 

There are so many boundaries unestablished. I miss your family. You made me a part of them. I still get your mail, like you’re just “out of town”. You are surrounded by new people and places and are constantly moving, and I’m still trying to convince myself to get out of bed today. How do I start to let go? Because I will figure this out. And when all of this is over, you will look back and be the fool, not I. I am beautiful. I am the most giving and unconditionally loving woman you will ever meet. I am creative and smart and constantly learning. And slowly I will turn myself into sand, or mend my broken wings so I too can fly away.

XO kate