Losing My Father

Just when I thought I had fully processed and healed from the tragic death of my father almost 12 years ago, cue tonight's episode of This Is Us.

After months of alluding to Jack's death and showing teaser scenes of how it might've happened, the writers finally revealed all tonight. I knew he died by fire. I knew it was hard on his wife and kids. Still I wasn't prepared for the raw emotion that would wash over me like a torrent of rainfall.

I'm talking heaving sobs. It's the unexpected loss of the jovial soul that glues your family together. The not being able to say goodbye. The sheer shock of it all. I'm not putting grades on grief; death is death and losing a close loved one is tragic, no matter how it happens. But losing someone so suddenly, at such a young age, and with no chance to fully process it...it feels like you were cheated. Randall likened it to acute bursts of lightning that strike without warning.

Tonight's scenes had me sobbing and blowing my nose as it reopened the wounds of watching my father die within a day or so of even knowing he was sick. Turning off the machines and listening to the jarring beep of the heart monitor as it agonizingly slowed to silence. Hearing nothing in that room that had all of a sudden sucked all of the oxygen from even the living souls who kept a helpless vigil. 47 years young, and me a newly engaged 22-year old young woman. My sisters were only 19 and 15. My mom had never had to make it on her own. The death of my father was nothing short of brutal and to date, has been by far the worst thing I've ever lived through.

Twelve years later I find myself sobbing at a television show. You think you'll never recover. That life will never be the same. The former is a lie. The latter is truth. You will never be the same because that person's life can no longer dance and intermingle with yours. You'll always wonder what life would've been like if he had been here for your wedding. For your career failures and wins. For the birth of your children. What would he have thought of the election? What would he think of you? Would you be making him proud?

Eventually just breathing becomes easier and the pain in your chest is gone. Life begins to have color again and you find yourself smiling at memories instead of breaking down. But you're never immune to another bolt of lightning that might hit you out of nowhere. Eleven plus years later, when a television show captures the love of a father for his children, the love of children for their father, and the abrupt unfairness of this meandering journey we call life. 

Heartache is a mother effer. My chest feels split open wide and I had to slather myself with lavender just to feel sane again. But what good is a heart if it is not allowed to rehurt all over again? For on the other side of suffering is joy, and if you're cut open raw for one, there's a good chance you're a willing vessel to receive the good stuff too. Tomorrow I'm sure there will be joy. Some brightly hued sunset. A giggling baby. Some unexpected good news. As for tonight, I will sit with my grief and watch it wash over me and wait for that soothing calm that comes with the ebb and flow of ocean waves.

The Pizza Line

You know how your subconscious mind can invent a million things to distract you from doing something you know you should be doing? And the reason for it distracting you, is that deep down, there is some fear in doing this thing you know you should be doing?

That's been me. With this particular blog post. 

Although I've put off writing this post for months now, luckily the Universe keeps finding ways to inject it right back into my mind. Situations and conversations keep coming up that arouse The Pizza Line back into the front burner of my consciousness. Last night was the last straw. And so here I find myself in front of my laptop, telling the story of The Pizza Line.

***

Growing up, I had a mostly wonderful childhood. My parents loved and doted on me. I was raised with the mentality that I could do anything I put my mind to. My parents made me feel smart. Pretty. Talented. Loved. 

One thing we didn't have a whole lot of, was money. For most of my life, my dad was the main breadwinner and he often worked multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Mom was a housewife and made sure we were fed and taken care of. She also paid the bills, and I remember her yelling at my dad because he would often spend our hard-earned money (the money HE worked hard for) on beer and cigarettes--vices that had a stronghold on my pops.

When you're the firstborn, there's like this unspoken feeling of owning responsibility. And what your parents fight about (especially when your room backs up to theirs and you can hear them screaming about money), you tend to internalize and pair it with a feeling. For me, the feeling was fear. Instability. Wondering if we would come home to the electricity being turned off. Or worse, would my mom finally get so fed up with my dad that she would leave him? Oh the stories a young child comes up with when faced with adult situations they have no business thinking about...

But, by and large, we survived financially. We made it through each month. Usually it meant that dad worked harder and my mom pinched pennies. And my mom always stuck by my dad while he did his best to make sure that our needs were met.

In fifth grade, our family moved to a "more economic" side of town in a well-to-do city. I had no problem making lots of friends at my new school. Fifth grade was a breeze. And then came middle school, where all of the elementary schools combined and I became painfully aware that there were kids from wealthier families, with cooler clothes, and no understanding of what it meant to conserve money. Middle school is the time in a kid's life when fitting in is paramount, and comparison is soooo the thief of joy.

My best friends lived in two-story houses. They had computers. They went on family vacations. I didn't even know that family vacations were a thing. The closest thing my family had to a vacation were the day trips to nearby Galveston Island, when getting candy at the Strand confectionary and a souvenir from the Seawall was a real treat. (Galveston still holds a special place in my heart because it was the closest thing I had to luxury.) And yet, I grew up friends with what I called "the rich kids" and none of them cared what my parents drove or the brand of the clothing I wore.

I, however, was painfully aware of it. The messages I heard surrounding money were:

• We are always fighting to make ends meet.
• We aren't wealthy and will most likely never be.
• We can't have X, because we don't have enough money.
• We buy the off-brands because the name-brands are unaffordable.

From an extremely young age, it was deeply imprinted on me that money was scarce and a source of stress. 

Fast forward 20+ years, and I'm walking the dog with my husband. Over 10 years into our marriage, and we are finally making decent money and pulling out of debt. My business is beginning to take off, and yet, there are still some things holding me back from hitting that next level in my business financially. And I know exactly what it is. It's my relationship with money. It all goes back to my childhood experiences with it.

On this walk, I begin pouring forth my sentiments about money to my always-focused husband. (His listening ears are often my saving grace). And I begin telling him about having to get the Payless version of these chunky black sandals that were all the rage in middle school. Only you could tell I had the knock-offs because the stitching was horrible and they were poorly made. They weren't shiny like the Dillards sandals. I told him about my parents letting me try out for cheerleading and drill team, thinking I probably wouldn't make it because I'd never taken dance or cheer lessons, and then when I did, struggling to find ways to pay for the trips and the uniforms. And how guilty I felt that I put my family in that situation, just because I wanted to be a part of a team. Just because I wanted to dance like the pretty girls.

And then I told him about The Pizza Line.

Let's travel back to middle school. 6th grade, when all the schools converged into one brand new middle school. I made all of these new friends who wore spiffy clothes: Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger. And there was a new weird cafeteria arrangement. Ya see, in elementary school we all stood in the same line for the same nasty cafeteria food. We all had the same tickets that we showed to the lunch lady, even though some parents filled those accounts with money, and some parents had the government pay for it. My parents always filled out the application for free and reduced priced lunches and we always got it because of our income, or lack thereof. But no one knew. The tickets looked the same and we were all in the same lunch line.

In middle school, we again had that school lunch line....But there was this new line. A line where they sold slices of Pizza Hut pizza. Or maybe it was Dominoes, I don't remember. But it was clearly outside food and it was CASH ONLY. If you were on free and reduced lunches paid for by the government, you couldn't stand in the pizza line. The pizza line was for kids with cold hard cash. Kids whose parents gave them cash to eat yummy, greasy pizza for lunch instead of what the cafeteria served. The Pizza Line was for the ELITE.

Day after day, I watched the cool kids stand in line for pizza. Sometimes my best friends would buy a slice for me, which was super nice of them, and I'd feel cool for a day. But most days, I ate the cafeteria food and stared at the kids in the pizza line and longed to BE them. But the message in my head was, "you aren't pizza line material". "Money is not your friend." 

Fast forward two decades later and that money-gremlin was still inside of me...telling me that I don't come from the stock to be making thousands of dollars a month. I'm not Pizza Line Material. When I make money, I SPEND it. It's mine and I want to own nice things--things I had to forego as a kid--so I spend it. If I don't spend it, it may not be there for me. This lack mentality has been dictating my financial decisions, since I've been financially on my own in college. Yes, college...when I took out ginormous student loans because my parents didn't have a college fund for me...college, where I worked part time to pay for my rent and gas and food, while maintaining a full-time load of classes.

This scarcity mentality is why I always bristle when the subject of paying bills comes up. I've always been waiting for the axe to fall. As I was telling Erik about this, I felt my voice waver and all of these emotions were welling up in my chest. Was I THAT affected by that middle school pizza line?! Holy shit. Yes, I was.

I had worn this money-mindset for so long, and just putting a voice to it and staring it in the face felt like the first step to taking it off.

Erik looked at me and said, "The Pizza Line is gone, babe. Money is not a symbol of division or unworthiness. Money is our freedom." And do you know what? In that moment, I believed him. I wasn't going to let this Pizza Line mentality hold me back anymore. From that moment on, I decided to choose to believe that making money was my birthright and that was a good thing. Eating pizza didn't make me an elitist. I could share my pizza like my friends sometimes did for me. And having pizza didn't make me a rich snob that treated others like second-class citizens.

I'm not gonna lie...I'm still working through this. The stronghold from certain messages I held onto for so long isn't completely gone, but I SEE it now. I know it's there. And I daily choose to move past any finance-based fears and into creating a new narrative about money. I don't fault my parents one iota. They did the best they could for us girls with limited means, and I've built up a lot of character having lived through some hardships. I don't expect anything to be given to me; I know what it means to EARN.

So what about you? Do you have a Pizza Line story? What was your childhood narrative about money? Does it serve or inhibit you today? If the latter, stare it down and choose to write a new story. 

Love always,

Michelle