Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

family

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If you were leaving right now, what would you pack? I found myself thinking about that question last night. Would i bring my suitcase stuffed full of memories and spare socks, or just a tiny bag with what i felt was really necessary. I packed and repacked both bags several times, trying to find out exactly what i needed to get by, and here’s what i came up with (even if i still don’t know where to fit it all):

a box of tea bags and my favourite mug; all of my underwear and a week’s worth of socks; two pairs of jeans; my signed garbage cd; scissors; my checkbook; my poetry book, a pencil, and a pencil sharpener; four unionbay teeshirts, two short sleeved and two long; my flip flops; a picture of my aunt joyce and her daughter Cary; my camera; two pairs of gloves and a hat; my guitar; a toothbrush and q-tips; my red bandanna; a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt; my stuffed wizard.

So, at least i’ve identified my essential needs. Now i’ve just got to figure out where to go with them…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/2087717/

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Everyone in my entire family commented on all of the weight i’ve gained and how good i look now. In a way it’s nice, because none of them ever compliment me on anything so i know i must look healthier, but since i’m not entirely comfortable with my new 20 pounds i’m not exactly thrilled that it was a big subject over Christmas Eve dinner. I think my issue is that i’m filling out well enough, but i’m not really shaping any of the weight, so if i gain any more i might look a little pudgy, which of course would make me very upset. My whole body-image is a very fragile thing, and i know i sound like a teenaged girl, but i’ve always been very thin and this is taking some getting used to. Not to mention that i definitely have a big wheezy fat gene on my father’s side of the family. I should obviously give up meat again… and god help me if i ever start drinking beer… (well, god help us all…)

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1769939/

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Speaking of god, today i saw in religion everything i don’t like about it. All of the families in my aunt’s parish flocked to church on Christmas Eve, so much so that the church was holding two simultaneous services at once to accommodate the rush. This alone was telling; on any given Sunday the church is no more than halfway full yet the Christmas season twists everyone’s arm and they all show up to look good in the eyes of their neighbors and god. Secondly, the parish is almost entirely composed of families with children under ten years of age, yet despite this the service was as long and dull as any other church service and made no attempt to accommodate the children in the room that easily outnumbered the adults.

Church has always been a silly and irrelevant thing to me, and that view has always put me at odds with the rest of my entirely catholic family. I just never got the point of doing something every week that you took no pleasure in, and that was so stodgy that it never bent to accommodate the ever-changing crowd that attended. To the church’s credit, at the service today there was a whole gang of people with guitars and basses who accompanied all of the songs, and the long readings of scripture were kept tidy and relevant, but still i don’t feel as though anyone in the room could have possibly been re-affirmed by what went on.

I’ve always been a sucker for small Baptist congregations that welcome you with open arms and clap madly when they sing their hymnals. The way i see it, why not have a smile on your face while you’re in the house of God? Of course, God and I have some issues other than a bit of smiling, but i think after all these year’s she’s managed to respect my avoidance of church service as much as i’ve managed to grudgingly respect those who attend every week with their faces set in stone.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1763377/

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For years i said i didn’t ever want to have children. By my reasoning it wasn’t entirely fair to force another human being into a increasingly depressing world, especially since the world doesn’t really have enough room for them. Furthermore, i was always of the mind that one shouldn’t have children until sure that they could finance the whole ordeal through college and beyond. Of course, such assurances are ridiculous, and what it all comes down to is really the whim of the parents. D o you hear that? Every child brought into this world is brought in because parents are bored, or lonely, or they want to see if they can fuck up children less than their parents did.

I think the view of not wanting children was ultimately a sign of a period of relative depression and disillusionment, as indicated by “it isn’t fair to bring someone into the world when they don’t know what they’re getting into.” In the end, my newfound appreciation for the magical little elves that we call babies isn’t so much a “maternal instinct” as it is my willingness to acknowledge that the world really isn’t as entirely horrible as i made it out to be, and that you can shape it to be what you need. As such, it’s the healthiest whim i’ve ever had. Thank god for small favors.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1763317/

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Yes, so, now my emotional life rests on the whims of a four year old, which honestly makes me feel a hell of a lot safer than when it rested on the whims of any number of nineteen and twenty year olds. But, this is just a symptom of my newfound adoration of young children. There’s this question on theSpark.com’s mating test that asks “Aren’t babies special?,” with the obvious intention of trying to suss out whether or not you are interested in having children any time soon. I always answered no, but this week i was thinking about it and i suddenly wanted to get online and change my answer to yes. I think it’s an age thing – i spent the entire week with three women aged roughly 75 who are slightly erratic and senile but also very funny, warm, and engaging. At the same time, tonight the only person who was missing from my family dinner was my paternal grandmother, who is in hospice care and not even 70.

My mother has a 26 year lead on me, so when i’m 40 she’ll be a venerable 66. She had the good fortune of having me while she was young and also forming a career for herself, so she now gets to watch me grow to be an adult as well as working at something she somewhat enjoys. All of my tiny cousins were born to aunts in their 40’s … when Audrey is my age her mother will be on the other side of 60 (and i’ll be 38… dear lord, let me find the fountain of youth before then…). How old will she be when Audrey has her own children?

I’m obviously biased by having such a young mother and father (it’s his 50th birthday today), but in my reflections on when i want to consider children in my own life a very certain and relatively small window of time is developing. I obviously would want to be out of college and securely in a job, but i’d want to have children while i was still young enough in body and heart to truly enjoy the experience and still have a life afterwards. That leaves a span of years that’s something like 26 – 35, which in today’s society (and recently in my family) is relatively young. But, what’s a boy to do? I might not be done living my own individual life by then, but do i really want to be in a retirement home when my kids graduate from college?

These are the thoughts that run through my head when i’m trapped in a condo in Florida at 4am with nothing to eat other than a bag of mini Twix bars and nothing to do except watch teevee or dream. These dreams are almost nightmares in a way, not because they’re frightening in and of themselves, but because they make me realize just how small the span of life really is. I somehow expect myself to mature into a lover and father in the next decade and a half… doesn’t that mean that i need to start dating eventually? Or, that i should start experiencing the things i want to do now rather than assuming i’ll get to them later?

Or maybe i should just start packing benadryl with me when i go on vacation so i’m not left with the time to ponder this sort of stuff. Either that or bring my guitar next time…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1763273/