Yesterday running was a sob fest. Going to Texas makes me feel guilty. I do not honor my family, but I go honor his? I felt like the nanny because they didn’t ask me any questions about me. They only asked me questions about the kids. They don’t want to know me. They want to know my children and I am a chaperone.

I used the time that I was running yesterday to apologize for not thinking more often of my dead. As long as I am alive, as long as I remember what they taught me–they aren’t really dead, right?

I remember you Francesca Bennet. I remember you Traci Williams. I remember you Frances Mae Carr Schmidt. I remember you Lenora Bried Archer. I remember you James Arthur Archer. I remember you Orlando Archer. I remember you Vernon Schmidt. I remember you Thomas Wayne Archer. I remember you Robert Lee Abbott.

I do not remember Frances and Lenora because I knew them. I was told lots and lots. They are my grandmothers. I didn’t get to meet either of them. Lenora died of cancer. Frances just didn’t want to live any more. It hurt too much. I understand.

I do not remember Orlando either. Ory. That’s what he was called. He died before I was dreamed up. He was my grandfather. I remember Vernon though. He was not a loving man. But I remember him. I remember him scornfully looking at my hair and my niece’s skin tone and saying, “There’s a nigger in the woodpile.” That’s what he gave me.

I remember the friends who have passed out of my life. Usually because I did something I really shouldn’t have done. It isn’t as nice to name them online. They still want their privacy and all.

But sometimes I chant your names. I love you. I miss you. You are part of me. I am sorry I hurt you.

Amanda Palmer has a new song she released. The Thing About Things. It is a pay what you can/want download. I paid $5 for the song. If you need to download it for free she won’t be mad at you. I promise. I met Amanda. She’s really neat.

23 years ago Thomas Wayne Archer gave me a gold chain. The same Christmas Sissy gave me a gold pendant that says “Special Someone”. Here’s a picture.

Despite my general policy of not wearing gold (I think it looks bad on my skin) I put it on yesterday after the run.

I don’t know what it means to be special to my sister. It didn’t mean that she would be kind to me. It did mean that I am the singular sibling she never had sex with. I was too young then I was too nasty and uninterested. She missed her window.

I don’t feel the family ties. I was told and told and told that pride in your family would carry you through. Your family are the people you can call in the middle of the night and they have to come get you no matter what.

When I called my sister in the middle of the night she hung up on me and told me it was my problem.

Very special.

Going to Texas was weird because my children have a lot of traits from Noah’s side. Shanna spends a fair bit of time just sitting around strumming an ukelele and making up songs. That’s not something that anyone does in my family. All of Noah’s family is very musical.

“If you’re not allowed to love people alive, then you learn how to love people dead.”

“The thing about things is that they can start to have meaning that nobody actually said.”

In the traditions of Burkina Faso your dead more or less follow you around forever. They are tied to you. You can ask them for favors. You can berate them. You can cajole them into helping you understand things.

Daddy, why? What happened? Why did you need to turn around and hurt us like that? Frances, what hurt so bad?

I wish you had wanted to meet me. I’m told I’m pretty special. You were alive until I was thought of. I was inside your daughter and you knew it. But you just didn’t want to keep going. Was Vernon so bad? Why was Nicey enough and you didn’t want to meet me? Did you know what was happening to Sissy and you just couldn’t stop it and you couldn’t watch any more?

Lenora, did you take pride in your children?

Ory, maybe if you had stopped drinking… maybe James wouldn’t have been so broken. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. What else happened anyway?

I will never know. The dead keep their secrets.

But I’m sorry. I love you. As complicated as this is, as much as this hurts, I remember you.

Francesca, Traci, James, Tommy, Lee, Frances, Vernon, Ory, Iain Turner, Uncle Bob, I remember you. You aren’t gone. I promise I will keep remembering.

Even if it hurts I will remember you. I won’t let those memories slip away. I won’t let you die. This is all I can do for you now. I can make sure I remember you. I will rehearse your stories in my mind as long as I live.

I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did and didn’t do that I was supposed to do.

I feel like it is smart to name my living family members less online. They don’t really want to be tied with me. I’m sorry to you all as well. I’m sorry Mommy and Auntie and Big Brother and Niece and Nephews and Cousins.

I didn’t mean to hurt you so much. I was just trying to stay alive in the only way I saw forward for me. I don’t want to be like Frances.

I don’t want to be like you James. I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want to have shit roll down hill in my house. I want my house to be safe.

I want to take pride in my family. Mostly what I take pride in is having the strength to walk away and not be like them. But I’m so sorry it has to be this way. I am so so so so so sorry.

I missed my first chance to be special in a family. It’s over. I can build something different. I can try to not break my children. That is all I can do.

I can take pride in them. I can teach them that being “special” to someone does not involve being hit or raped or told you are worthless.

Noah’s family seems to take a lot of pride in my kids. My children reflect well on them. Bah. My children reflect well on me.

Children learn what they are taught. My children are taught that they should be spoken to in civil ways. My children are taught that it isn’t ok for anyone to scream at them. Not me, not someone else. When someone starts screaming at you *that person has a problem* and you should walk away if humanly possible.

Be nice to people if you want them to be nice to you. Figure out what being nice to them means because it is very different in different places. No matter what your Great Aunt thinks. People are not “all alike” and being kind to them means treating them how they need to be treated. Is that hard? Yes. So are lots of other things. It gets easier with practice. So start practicing.

I’m still working on it. Yes, it is hard. It is the work of a lifetime. Learning how to really see different people.

“Things can start meaning things nobody actually said.”

I will not forget where I came from. I will choose to remember. It isn’t the same thing as pride, but there is resignation in it. I think this is part of that “forgiveness” I am supposed to work on. Less for those people and more for me.

I forgive me for wanting to remember. I forgive me for wanting a story when other people are ok with just forgetting. “Just don’t think about the bad things” is the most common advice I have ever gotten.

I will not forget. I will remember. This is the only honoring I can give.

I love you. I love you Mommy. I love you Tommy. I love you Daddy. I love you Sissy. I love you Jimmy.

I don’t think I will ever stop. I wish I could. It would make my life easier.

I think there will be exactly two people who share blood with me at my funeral. I have to make peace with that.

My family will not be there for me. Ever. In any way. Noah is my family. He will be there.

I wake up every day and feel grateful for Noah. I am a very expensive, very high maintenance pet. I’m grateful he took on responsibility for me. I don’t feel very deserving.

I am special to Noah.

The folks in Texas didn’t ask that much more about Noah than they did about me. I see why he doesn’t go back more.

Sometimes I feel very sad when I think about how much Noah and I cling together because we don’t really have anyone else. Neither of us have ever been all that loved. Noah wasn’t treated like me, but he wasn’t loved much. That’s a big void.

I’m really glad he is here. I like him. I love him. When I was a kid people would tell me that I didn’t understand what love meant.

Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I still don’t. But I’m glad for what I have. For now love means believing that this person makes me better than I am alone and I make him better. Together we are capable of a lot of things that neither of us can do alone. I think he is competent and wonderful.

He makes me breakfast and Christmas cookies because I don’t actually like the process of cooking that much. He’s awesome. Then I give the cookies away and he doesn’t get mad. The perfect symbiotic relationship.

He made enough cookies for us to share with all of our buddy-neighbors and the home school group cookie exchange. That’s effort.

Thank you. I see your labor. I appreciate it. (I’ve already thanked him several times in person. I’m not just passive aggressive or anything.)

But sometimes I have trouble remembering that Noah really does work hard to make my load lighter. He isn’t just doing his stuff. He does stuff for an us even when it isn’t his first choice of how to spend time.

But he makes my mother’s cookie recipes so my children can grow up with them. Because I wish it were so.

I am special to someone. When I was a child I would react with such anger and hatred if anyone in my family tried to tell me I was special or that they loved me.

If I was special you wouldn’t turn a blind eye to how much horror I experienced. But they did. And I was expected to as well and I couldn’t. I couldn’t be nice until I stopped being hurt all the time.

I’m sorry I’m not a big enough person to be nice to people who aren’t hurting me when I’m being hurt that bad. I just can’t. Other people can, I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I am so small. I am sorry I am so unworthy of pride. No one ever took pride in me. My behavior was disgusting. I was berated and told that I wasn’t welcome to be seen in public. No one wanted to be seen as being part of a unit with me because then they would have to admit they knew the horrible child.

I remember all of you. I will never forget. Even though you didn’t and don’t love me very much. I have to love me enough to make up for that.

Sometimes that is very hard.