Birthday rambling

On January 10th, 1982 I was finally squeezed out of my Mother's vagina.  Delicious birth.  

If a person's personality is stable for a lifetime I can know with confidence that I was extremely comfortable in the land of Wombdom.  I was my Mother's first run at giving birth, and I gave her a good run (although I guess I could have done better - she had four more after me).  She won the birthing battle hands down.  I couldn't find anything to hang onto in there.  It was all slimy and I was fresh out of resin.  

The only birth I have partaken of is my own, so I am still amazed that after 20+ odd hours of labor and losing every shred of dignity, a woman takes the tiny alien-like creature into her arms and kisses it (well, "her" in my case).  A more logical response would be to throw the thing across the room.  

Birthday fact #1:  I'm glad logic is not the strongest force within my Mother.  

In the matter of my who I am at the age of twenty-seven, the word "purge" feels apropos.  

Over the past six months I have felt loss.  At times this loss has felt like I'm picking up a piece of trash and throwing it into the trash can - no big deal, trash just needs to be in the trash can, right?  At other times it has felt like someone ripping my arms off and leaving me bloody and howling at the moon.  

Loss is like a stomach virus that demands you keep heaving, even when there is nothing left in your stomach.  And just when you think it's over, another wave begins.  The memory of food is in itself enough to restart the violent retching.   A soul straining and retching: "Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out" - sometimes all you can do is double over and wait; ride the wave or drown.     

In September I watched the trees shrink down and slowly reveal their bones as their leaves were lost.  My body mimicked the trees.  

In October I felt the air begin to grow cold and felt my hands become stiff and slow from the chill.  My soul mimicked my hands.  

In November I watched my once-invisible breath leave my mouth in a cloud visible to the world.  Who I had been six months before without a thought was suddenly visible and awkward to me and - like an exhaled breath on a cold day - visible to everyone around me.  I was exposed.  Warm breath is exposed in cold air; my desire was exposed in my loss.  

In December I watched the snow fall in places and in quantities it normally does not.  It fell until the roads closed and until my car got stuck.  It fell until there was no difference between "road" and "sidewalk" - there was only snow.  Familiar places looked foreign - paths I had normally taken became pointless.  People I called "friends" were inaccessible, gratuitous.  I trudged and slipped and fell where I could normally run. 

In January I made two satirical resolutions.  1.  Lose 30 pounds.  2.  Get re-married.  Making these mock resolutions made me laugh.  

I love flirting with the edge of appropriate - the frayed edge of comfortability/societal norms is one that I forever want my wardrobe to include.  As I have been so starkly reminded: the places where I cry are the places I will laugh.  There is freedom to cry and to laugh, to BE, in the shadow of this reminder.  

Being purged is freeing.  It's a bookshelf suddenly bare: what books do I love, again?  And why?  What books have I put off reading?  What books were only there because I thought they should be?  What books have I forgotten I loved long ago?  And where is that list of banned books?    

At the age of twenty-seven I am surrounded by creative, loving, ridiculously beautiful people.  Their arms hug me tightly.  Their bodies sit beside me in movies and over coffee and through many, many pints of salty beer.  And tea.  They make me laugh.  They text me and e-mail me and let me explore my soul with them.  They make me want to dance and travel and write.  They laugh at my jokes and remember my stories and delight in me.  They even make me blush.  These people are my witnesses.  They witness me.  

There is much truth to the idea that with pain and loss comes the potential for something beautiful.  I am surprised that being purged has left me with what feels like a naked soul.  Logically I would imagine an impenetrable wall being set up around my heart in response - a wall made up of stones like bitterness and hurt.  Stones with graffiti on them that says things like "Fuck men."  This sounds nice, actually.  It sounds safe and good and logical.  I don't know why - and I am guessing it's because of my loving witnesses - but there is no wall.      

Birthday fact #2:  I am glad logic is not the strongest force within me.  

Once upon a time there was a girl who was making a cake.  It was going to be the best, most perfectly made cake in the world.  All other cakes would bow before the deliciousness of her deluxe cake creation.  She even sifted the flour.  She also researched the best cake pan, joined a "bake a super awesome cake" club and she talked about baking cake with her friends all the time.  She googled the history of cake and the different styles of cake and the nutritional information of cake.  She was a cake whore. 

Then one fateful day, her stove broke.  "Shit" the girl mumbled.   And then her pans melted.  "Son of a BITCH" the girl yelled.  And then her ingredients evaporated and every meticulously collected and perfected cake recipe accidently got run through the washing machine.  "AM I TAKING GODDAM CRAZY PILLS?" the girl screamed as she kicked her useless oven repeatedly.  The girl was devastated of course.  She could never make a cake now.  So she cried and got drunk for a few weeks - luckily beer had not been a cake ingredient and thus remained unevaporated - until her fairy godmother showed up and smacked her over the head with her wand.  "GIRL, don't you realize that this isn't sad!? It's HILARIOUS!" the fairy-godbitch said to the girl.  The girl was of course confused, and with a cake-crazed look in her eye and a swollen foot said "How the hell is this funny?"   The fairy godmother replied with a smile, "Dear girl, you don't even like cake."  

Comments

[Meghan]

Just a few comments:
1. Fairy-godbitch might be the single greatest thing I've ever heard.
2. I'm glad you made it out of the vagina
3. Hugs

[Heather]

I'm gonna cross into virtual peeping Tom-ness here, but holy mother! Thank you for your painstaking honesty and humor and life...truly.

[Erin and Amber]

You are a most wonderful kind of honest and very, very funny to boot. I like Heather, have crossed into virtual peeping Tom-ness.

[Kensey]

Oh my goodness i LOVE this blog. It's perfect. It's like taking a huge deap breath and letting it out.. and along with that breath, letting out all your troubles.. and for a second you have a moment of peace. Or atleast a moment of laughing at your idiot exhusband and laughing that your life is actually turning out BETTER. That you're happy again. And i can see that.

[Karen]

It's me who makes you blush, right?
(xoxo)

[Charis Brice]

Karen - of COURSE it's you, sweet darling twin. There has never been anyone else.

Taking a stroll through one of your blogs is like getting to be first in line at an extravagant, eccentric estate sale. I find unspeakable treasures at every turn, joys the likes of which I never ONCE imagined existed. I gather them to myself and move to pay whatever is required. But to my delight, they are all free; and to the delight of everyone else who takes the stroll, they get to be first in line, too.

[DAD]

Sorry; my arms were full and I was unable to sign the last comment. :)

[Charis Brice]

Dad - eccentric and extravagant? I love that you used those words to describe me/my writing.

Peeping Tom's: that's the point and draw and deliciousness of a blog. You get to be a voyeur and hopefully be a BETTER person for it, rather than a creeper. =)

[Welles]

Charis - this picture of you is absolutely beautiful!

[Stephen]

Are you sure you weren't born on January 12th?

[Dana]

Hi, I love you, see you soons kay?

[Collin]

Or January 13...