Photo reblogged via The Society Pages.

Hello, friends. I’ve been M.I.A. lately. Between Valentine’s Day and my birthday, I’ve just been chilling out more than usual I suppose. But my husband is out for the evening and I’ve got some potatoes boiling, so let’s chat…

I’m going back to therapy. Hooray! No, seriously. I’m going back to therapy.

My mother told me, over the phone on Christmas Day after she’d refused to pick my husband and me up from the airport on Christmas Eve, that my personal essay about my childhood had made her try to blow her brains out and that if I ever wrote anything again, we would not be having the conversation because she would be gone. The most condemning thing I wrote, in her mind, was not that she’d neglected me in my tween years while she fell in love with my second step-father. I found that to be the most hurtful thing I’d written about her, though still the truth. No, she was livid that I’d said she had three husbands. She never tells anyone that, she said, and I needed to think more carefully about how my words could hurt other people.

I think a lot about the way my words effect people. I almost do nothing else with my life. I know how to use words. I know what they mean and I know what they do, yet I did not know that a fact, like saying my mother has had three husbands, would make her want to blow her brains out. Well, because I know that it doesn’t. It makes her want to tell me she’s suicidal so I’ll be too scared to ever say anything about her again. But I’m not a child any more. I know what words mean, even when they mean something else.

She told me this after she’d called me in California to say that I should come home for Christmas, that she’d overreacted to my essay. Come home, she said. We’ll make candy together, she’d said. Then this. She would not relent until I admitted that her throwing us out had caused me to cry all night and had rattled me to my core. Then she told me it was time to come home. I didn’t want to go. The Accountant’s Wife was coming, to save me, my savior, my friend. But my mother commanded us home. We went home, to two people that acted as though we’d just flown in for Christmas. My mom. My step-dad. Presents and food and the feeling that I may never be okay again.

Friends, close friends, have been using the term “mentally ill” a lot more in our conversations. Words like “borderline” and “narcissism” come up too often for me to shrug off. I’m not one of those women who think that it won’t happen to her, though. If my mother thinks that my grandmother is mentally ill and I think that my mother might be mentally ill, it’s time to get my head checked. I want to be well, but I also want someone to help me if I’m not.

I have moments of excitement. Woot! Someone is going to help me handle these things the healthy way. Then rather swiftly my mood can swing to panic. I’m going to have to do things I don’t want to do, like telling my mother that threatening suicide is not the way to get me to stop writing about my childhood, that if she feels suicidal then she should seek professional help, that I am not responsible for her emotional well-being and she’s no longer in charge of mine.

So. I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about this blog and how it’s existence is both my freedom and would be my mother’s hell if she knew about it. I’m now 33-years-old and I wonder if that’s old enough to know better than to write such personal things on the internet.

Secret Fifty-Two, Revealed. I might actually just be old enough to speak my mind without fearing what others will do to me or say about me. Since my current heroes include people like Marc Maron, Caveh Zahedi, and Ayelet Waldman, I think my heart has decided even if my head is slow to catch up.

My head also tells me not to say hello to Marc Maron when I see him around my neighborhood—it’s very un-L.A. to acknowledge the famous. But when I listen to him talk about what a jackass he’s been and having to apologize to people, I feel a little more human. I’m a little less afraid of people. I think I’m a braver person because he’s saying it, a lot more publicly than I am. Maybe next time he’s in line for coffee ahead of me, I’ll just say hello or introduce myself as someone who also feels compelled to share her shit publicly. We’re of the same tribe. I think it’s a good tribe. I think we’re saner for wondering if we’re slightly insane.

I guess my new therapist will be the judge of that.

Joys of the Past Two Weeks:

My mentor called me “kid.” It’s been a while since someone has and I was beginning think those days were over.

I had the best sushi in San Diego. San Diego! It’s a new place for me and I think I liked it. A dash Portland. A dash San Francisco. A sprinkle of Los Angeles but without the traffic.

I went into Claire’s on my birthday just to make myself giggle. I hadn’t been in one since I was twelve. Found an amazing necklace and am no longer laughing. Three people have asked me what boutique I bought it in! I don’t see mine online but it’s similar to this.

Man, do I love a quiet evenings at home blogging.

I started reading Norwegian Wood and am really liking it. Library Thing used to recommend it to me all of the time but this is the first time I’ve read anything by Murakami.

I’ve discovered the greatest fish taco recipe ever. It tastes remarkably like the tacos from the food trucks in my neighborhood. I’ve substituted tuna, chicken, and beef in the recipe and it’s still great for all choices.

I also found the world’s most comfy flats. I’ve now bought them in brown and black. No blisters and they mold to your foot-shape.

My husband’s parents gave me money for Hanukkah and an Amazon gift card for my birthday. Put a little in for myself and got the greatest birthday gift—the Fossil Modern Cargo Tote. It’s like a new addition to my family. Love it so much.

I’ve been turning my radio up really loud in my car when a song comes on that I like and Jerry Maguire-style rocking out. It feels really good.

I read that Selema Hayek uses Bach Rescue Pastilles for stress relief. I’m now a big fan, too.

One of my co-workers made me angel food cake for my birthday. So sweet. So wonderful.

I saw my new favorite film of last year—A Separation. Totally worth the subtitles!

I had another birthday and it was pretty great. My husband, me, and San Diego. It was a good one filled with Turkish coffees and city adventures.