Now that the people in my life know about my blog, they often ask, “Are you going to blog about this?”

I always say, “Yes!”

The real answer is, “Maybe, but probably not.”

Except in the case of my parents, because my mom is responsible for the title of this post and my dad does things like this. I like them.

An email sent to my family this morning:

I’ve been meaning to tell you something.  I doubt it will surprise you much, but I have a blog.  I have for more than three years now and it’s a pretty big part of my life.  There’s no good reason I haven’t told you about it before, but there is a good reason I am telling you about it now: I recently attached my full name to my blog, because as you all know, I want to be a professional writer and writers have full names (and websites: ashleyriordan.com).

My blog is at writingtoreachyou.com. I’ve written more than 600 posts, so I can’t say I remember everything I’ve said, but I don’t think you’ll find anything all that startling.  Except for two things, which I want to tell you about now.

First, I was once in credit card debt.  A lot of it.  So I spent 14 months working 15-hour days, 6 days a week until I paid it all off.  I want you to know about it not just because I don’t like that it’s a secret, but because paying off my debt changed my life.  I blogged all about it at astoryofdebt.com.

Second, I did not go to San Francisco to visit my secret boyfriend as you might suspect.  I went to spend New Year’s Eve with six of my favorite bloggers.  I’ve met a lot of bloggers over the last couple years and not one yet has tried to kill me.  Far from it.  They are some of the best people I have ever known.

I’m sorry to announce all of this in an email.  If not for the debt, I probably would have just blurted it out in conversation by now.  If you have any questions, you can call me, but we all know how great I am at returning phone calls, so text or email is probably better.  You are welcome to share this information with anyone and I will pretend to be completely comfortable with that.

I’m not great at introductions, but please wave hello to my family, internet!

When I was home for Christmas, I made my mom cry.   We were shopping and I was anxious about other things, and I said something that seemed innocuous to me, but that touched a nerve with her.  She accused me of treating her condescendingly and said that what hurt most about it is that she knows she treated her mom the same way and she regrets it.  All of this seemed to come out of nowhere to me.  It is rare that I have been accused of hurting someone like that, and it made me sick to think about it.

I apologized and tried to explain that really isn’t at all how I feel about her.  It was a quiet ride home from the mall, but we didn’t talk about it again.

Fast forward to last weekend.  I sent my mom flowers for Mother’s Day and when she called to thank me, she told me she’d been very touched by the note I’d written in her Birthday card the month before. We’d talked several times since then and she’d never mentioned it and in truth, I couldn’t even remember what I’d written.

She told me that I’d said I was proud of her and asked me what I meant by that.  The truth was that it was another nothing comment.  Saying, “proud of you” is just this thing we do in my family and though we are proud of each other, I guess, it doesn’t refer to anything specific.

But, I am proud of my mom.  I told her something I have been thinking about a lot lately: the older I get and the more I experience, the more respect I have for the way she handled a really terrible divorce and then went on to be a single mom to my brother, sister, and I.  When I think of the way I’ve been knocked to the ground by heart break and failed pretty terribly to do adult things like support myself financially without debt, I realize that she must be a million times stronger to have survived all of that and come out on the other side without bitterness.

I followed up with, “And, you know, you’re just a really good mom.”  But, she didn’t know, because maybe I’ve said it a few times, but never so explicitly and I think that for comments like that to have any lasting meaning, they must be repeated often and made obvious through every action.

This is my mom! One of the people I am closest to in the entire world!  And I don’t even think of how my offhanded comments might hurt or touch her.  Yes, I am sensitive and I pick up on the feelings of others very easily, but I am completely farsighted.  Up close, everything mixes with insecurity and need and projection, so that I have this big ass blind spot that prevents me from seeing that the things I say might actually matter to people.

Sometimes I do hold back for fear of giving too much away or caring more than the other person, but most often I just don’t even think about it.  I don’t recognize the power I have to make someone’s day or, in a rare instance, ruin it.

Even if I don’t say it, I probably am thinking that you look nice today and I think we should be better friends and I admire that thing you do and I only tease out of love and is that a new dress because it looks fabulous?  Am I missing the point?  Okay, fine!  I will try to say these things.  Someone please remind me that they matter if I forget again.

You should know that away from the internet, I have a reputation for being difficult to get a hold of.  I almost never answer my phone, either because I’m at work or in class or didn’t hear it ring, and if you leave me a message, it could take me a week to call you back.  I’m better with text, but not always.  My family teases me about this in a way that’s always at least partly serious.  I have a lot of good reasons, but the bottom line is that I’m a self-involved punk.

I try to talk to both my dad and my mom once a week, but I notice that it’s more often once every two weeks and sometimes by that point, I’m getting the, “I just want to be sure you’re still alive” call.  Then I do talk to my parents and realize that I haven’t told them about the job I resigned from three weeks ago and they ask me weird questions that make it obvious that they have no idea what’s going on with me, because I haven’t told them anything.

What’s worse than making them worry about me is that I make them think I don’t care.  They act like I’m doing them a favor pausing my busy life to actually answer my phone.  This makes me feel like the worst daughter ever, because my parents are with no exaggeration, the kindest, smartest, most reasonable people I know.  And I love them to pieces.

In the last couple years, I’ve gotten a lot better about keeping in touch with friends, and now I need to make more of an effort with my family, especially my parents.

Finally hearing from their long lost daughter led to some interesting questions.  A few highlights:

Me: “I decided to cut back on hours at my part time job.”
Dad: “Is there a new boy in your life?”
Me: “No.  And what does that have to do with anything?”
Dad: “Boys take up a lot of time.  I thought maybe that’s why you decided to work less.”

Mom: “How’s school.  You’re still in school, right?”
Me: “I’ve been in school for the last 22 years.  You think I’d drop out?”
Mom: “You never know.  Your priorities might change.”
Me: “I’m in way too deep to back out now.”
Mom: “I was just checking.  Still getting straight A’s?’
Me: “With a few minuses.”

Dad: “Ashley, are you having any fun?”
Me: “Yeah, I have fun all the time.”
Dad: “Good.  Because life is short and you shouldn’t just spend it working.  Now, when are you going back to San Francisco?”

I came across this picture yesterday while looking for something else.  This is my family.¹  All together in one place.  I think this picture was taken in 2005.  We have, of course, all been in the same place a few times since, but it becomes rarer all the time. Five kids and we live in five different states.  We’re getting older and building lives of our own.

Even though tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am not going home to see my family, coming across this picture did not make me sad.  It made me thankful that despite having as much drama as any blended family, we like each other.  We have so much fun together.  We have history–the good times we look back at and laugh about, as well as the bad times we also look back at and laugh about (remind me to tell you a story about a tsunami and another about Sasquatch).  I get to be a part of this and there’s nothing I could do to make myself not a part of it.

Still, I miss our time together.  When my mom and step-dad were visiting in May, I suggested that we start a tradition where every Summer we choose a destination and then all go on vacation there.  It would be a great way to see each other and see the country.  I thought Yosemite would be a good place to start.  Now I just need to convince my sister to do all of the planning.  I’m more of an ideas person.  She’s the type who gets stuff done.  My brother will cover drinks.  My step-brother and his wife will make sure we eat well.  My step-sister and her husband will find things for us to do.  My nieces will bring the fun and the fashion.  And, my mom and step-dad will take all of our good-natured teasing in stride.

This picture is not the best we’ve taken (you can barely see my step-sister and it was her wedding day!), but it captures something about us.  In the words of Tom Hanks, “We are an American family.”

I am quite curious to know how easy or difficult it is to tell who in this picture I am related to by blood. From left to right: brother, brother-in-law (front), step-brother (back), me, sister, step-sister, mom, niece, step-dad, niece, sister-in-law.

1. Except for my Dad.  My parents are divorced.

My brother is nine years older than I am. With an age difference like that, it seems we could so easily have no relationship at all, but as it happens, we’ve always been very close.  He claims to have invented my sense of humor, which is probably what’s sustained us all this time, because we really have nothing in common aside from 26 years of inside jokes.

My earliest memories of my brother are back in the house we lived in before our parents divorced; I was probably five, which would make him fourteen.  He had this sweet basement room with huge speakers that hung on the wall.  He would blast my favorite song at the time, “Centerfold” (I just liked the “Na na na na na na” part), and I would jump on his bed, while he cleaned his room.

When I was younger, I always associated my brother with Zack Morris.  They looked alike and had the same resourcefulness that bordered on rebellion, but then hearts of gold to keep them from getting into too much trouble.  My brother is different from me.  Like everyone in my family, he’s very independent and likes to spend time alone, but he’s still far more social than I am.  He tells stories and makes everyone laugh and he has more friends than I’ve ever been able to keep track of.  Not just a lot of friends, but good friends he’s had since childhood.

After my parents divorced, he was not only the oldest child, but also the only guy in the house.  My mom provided everything we needed, but she was exhausted from work and couldn’t be everywhere at once.  My brother would take me to tap dance lessons and pick me up from school when it was my turn to take the class hamster home for the weekend.  It’s a family tradition to pick on each other as much as we possibly can, but we all have that innate no one messes with my brother/sister but me attitude.  My brother is fiercely protective of my sister and I, though we’ve never needed protecting.

My brother is really good at what he does; he flips houses and develops properties and rents out the ones he can’t sell right away (my sister manages them for him).  We’ve long since passed the point at which I could keep track of each house, though he refers to them all by the street they’re on and I nod like I know what he’s talking about.  His eyes get that same glazed-over look when I talk about grad school.  That is until he starts making gagging noises, because the thought of going to school longer than necessary makes no sense to him.  When he calls me at the library, he asks when they’re going to close the doors and throw away all the books.  He’s mostly joking.  Just like I’m mostly joking when I make fun of him for thinking sewers are endlessly fascinating.

So we laugh and quote movie lines and reference things that happened 15 years ago.  I would really like to break every rule of inside jokes and list them all here, but there’s a reason those rules are in place.  Context is everything.  I will, however, show you a framed picture that can be found in my apartment.  When I was in high school, my brother walked into my room and thought it was a shame I had 20 pictures of Justin Timberlake and zero of us together, so he found a piece of paper, wrote our names on it, and taped it to the wall.  Some time later he left me the Zoolander post-it, which I attached to the picture. A few years after that, he bought the frame.

]]> http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2010/09/14/me-my-brother/feed/ 17 http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2010/08/09/where-i-used-to-sit/ http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2010/08/09/where-i-used-to-sit/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000 Ashley http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/?p=4899

I’m sitting over the heat vent on the floor next to a window. I’m in Washington and it’s cold here. Summer came and left last week. I suspect it will be back, but for now it’s raining. I used to sit in this same spot and write. I used to make lists here too and plot out my life of perfection.

This is not the house I grew up in (there isn’t just one of those). We moved here the Summer after I finished high school. I took off for college a few weeks later, but then came back to finish my last three years locally. There’s so much said about childhood homes, but what about the one you lived in when you discovered all of the things you love and became the person you are?

Not that I feel particularly nostalgic for this place. Home used to come with such heavy baggage and now it’s just a nice vacation away from the real and a place to spend time with those people I’m forever connected to. I don’t get homesick or sad or wish I was here when I’m living my life in California. I’m happy there. I needed a place to go and figure things out for myself.

But, I don’t have it figured out. Sitting by this window like I used to, I have this strange confidence I’ve always had that if I just think about something long enough, I’ll understand it. But the longer I think, the more things become about feelings and fiction, so I can’t remember anymore how it all really happened. I’m not sure whether to make up my mind to move on or just try harder.

I’m struck by how feelingless home has become now that I don’t live here and it doesn’t hold much power over me when I’m not here. I thought maybe things would become clearer to me just being away and they haven’t. That’s for the best, I think. Now I can enjoy being with my family, seeing the few friends who haven’t taken off for other parts of the country, and spending time in a really beautiful place.

I have an amazing family. The solid kind of people you don’t have to worry about all the time. The kind who make it possible to go live anywhere you want and occupy yourself with dreams and introspection. The kind who are there for you if you need anything, but are otherwise willing to let you live the way you want.

Thinking about all the things I’ve done since I last spent long hours sitting here writing, I’m optimistic. If you can come home and be proud of all the things you’ve done since you were last there, then you must be on to something. Especially if you’re a hyper self-critical, anxious, kind of perfectionist. I’m going to be okay.

I leave tonight and there’s a lot of coffee still left to drink.

If there’s one thing you should know about my Dad, it’s that he collected dead Christmas tree lights as a kid.  If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I think that’s the most hilarious thing ever.  Not just Christmas tree lights, but dead Christmas tree lights.  Who does that?

I’ve always had something of a unique relationship with my Dad.  My parents divorced when I was 5, so while I lived mostly with my mom, I spent every other weekend with my Dad.  My Dad remarried soon after the divorce, but then when I was about 11, that marriage ended as well.  That’s when Dad and Ash weekends began.

It’s hard to ever make up for not seeing your dad every day, but we did our best.  Our weekends consisted quite simply of doing whatever we wanted.  We ate bad food (tacos on Fridays, pizza on Saturdays), watched movies, and spent hours in our favorite used bookstore. My brother and sister were older, so they didn’t go to my Dad’s house like I did.  It was my chance to play only child, my chance to spend time with my dad, and my chance to escape the normal life I lived in another town 40 minutes away.

Maybe if I’d been a kid who needed more parenting, then it wouldn’t have worked.  But, my dad and I got to spend our weekends together just relaxing and hanging out.  I don’t know if I realized then how lucky I was to have that time with my Dad, but I enjoyed it.  Per the custody agreement, I only had to spend every other weekend with my dad until the age of 12, at which point I could decide for myself what I wanted to do.  I kept going until I left for college at 18.

My relationship with my Dad has changed as I’ve changed. Though he loves business and numbers, and I love fiction and theology, we’re such similar people.  The kind who write lists and have goals and can happily spend hours on end alone.  The kind who are confused by people who don’t do what they say they’re going to do.  The kind who work too much.  We used to bond over our love for reading and now we talk politics.  He makes fun of me for being so liberal and I don’t comment on how he grows more liberal by the year.

He held out for me doing something more practical.  Getting a business degree, for instance.  But when he realized I wouldn’t be happy doing that, he became the biggest cheerleader of my academic pursuits and my writing.  He asks me all the time if I’m working on my fiction and tells me just how cool he thinks it is that I’m getting a Ph.D.  No one else in my family has a love for school like we do.

My Dad is above all the most dependable person I know and maybe that sounds like a boring quality, but it’s really nice knowing that every time I step off a plane at SeaTac, he will be standing at the bottom of the escalator waiting for me.

Written December 2009

I have always been the youngest in my family.  Up until the age of 10, I was the youngest of 3, and since the age of 10, I have been the youngest of 5.

I don’t fit a lot of youngest kid stereotypes.  I’m certainly no wild child, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.  I guess I’m pretty independent, but so is everyone else in my family.

Still, I see ways in which I’ve been shaped by being the youngest child and I’d be lying if I said it had nothing to do with why I currently live 1,000 miles from home in a big state all by myself.

Being the youngest means I’ve never really had to look out for anyone else.  I’ve always had the freedom to do whatever I want without thinking of what kind of example I’m setting.

That freedom is a privilege I’ve never even thought about, but I spent a week at home with my two nieces who for some crazy reason really like me, the youngest especially. They look up to me.  They watch me; I would look around the room and actually find them staring at me while we were sitting at the dinner table.

I am deliberate in most of the things I do, but having two impressionable young girls watching my every move forced me to thinking about some of the things I do by habit and unconsciously.

We were praying before dinner one night and I didn’t even realize until I saw my oldest niece look over at me that I didn’t have my eyes closed.  I don’t know why I didn’t have my eyes closed; when I was a kid, I used to do it to be defiant—because I knew it was risky. Now I had no reason and wouldn’t have given it a thought if I hadn’t caught my niece watching me.

Later, they were begging me to try on my prom dress.  I didn’t want to.  I don’t like the dress that much and if it didn’t fit, I really didn’t want to know.  Trying to get out of it, I said, “I don’t think it will fit anymore!  I wore that dress 8 years ago.”  From my oldest niece, I got a response that suggested to me that she was concerned I had body issues, and fuck!, she is way too young to even be aware that some people (everyone?) have body issues and that is absolutely not the impression I want to give.  I distracted them from the issue entirely by suggesting we go rollerblading.  That is more the influence I want to have.

Maybe I would be more used to it if I had younger siblings or if I was around impressionable youths more often.  Until that moment I was being watched, as if under a microscope, I had no reason to even consider the influence of my own actions on the actions of others.

On Christmas, I made a grown man cry.  My step dad isn’t big on presents and I know that.  But, he is big on taking people out to coffee.  I know that too.  So, instead of getting him a present, I just wrote in a card that I was going to take him out to coffee.  Apparently, that was the perfect gift, because it brought him to tears.   I didn’t know I had it in me to illicit tears like that.

A few days later, we had our coffee date.  I wouldn’t say I was disappointed that there were no more tears involved, but I would have appreciated maybe a single one rolling down.

At a certain point in our conversation, my step dad told me that he and my mom had been talking and it seemed to both of them that something had really changed with me lately.  I asked, “What do you mean?”  He said, “You seem softer somehow.”  I asked, “You think I’ve changed since when?”  He said, “Since you were here last Summer.”

My first thought was, they think I have a secret boyfriend.  Because they always think I have a secret boyfriend.

I feel like I’ve changed over the last year, but I didn’t pinpoint it to the last few months.  Now that I think about it, though, it makes perfect sense.  I spent the Summer stressed so much over things on the horizon that I couldn’t yet do anything about.  Now that I’m in the middle of it all, I feel much calmer.

When I am anxious, I tend to close myself off from other people.  I like to deal with things on my own, even though I know I feel so much better when I talk about what’s going on with me.

The surprising think to me is that I think I’m so damn clever.  I think that people don’t understand me, because I don’t let them.  It turns out that I’m not nearly as hard to read as I let myself think.

The other day, I heard someone say, “It’s like my father always says . . . .”  I tried to fill in the blank.  I tried to think of the little pearls of wisdom my parents always repeat.  As it turns out, my parents aren’t big on cliches and catch phrases.  But they have taught me a lot.  More than I can write here, of course, but here are some of the highlights.   If I had to sum it up even more concisely: work hard and be responsible for yourself.  I don’t always live out these lessons, but I always value them.

From My Mom

• Don’t lie.  You’ll only makes things more difficult for yourself; it takes a lot of energy just to keep up with your own stories.  Plus, it’s disrespectful to other people.  Not because you’re being untruthful, but because they know you’re lying and they have to watch you squirm.  Tell the truth.  It’s easier.
• Women need to watch our for themselves.  Actually, everyone does, but women have been less likely to.  My mom never would have imagined that her marriage of more than 15 years would end and she would be left a single mother of three kids.  It meant going back to full time work.  I always wonder, what if she hadn’t had an education already?  What if she hadn’t had so much work experience?  Even with all of that, she struggled for years.  It’s not that you should never depend on anyone.  It’s just that you should be able to support yourself, because you might need to one day.
• Make self-improvement a regular part of your life, but accept who you are, even your limitations.  You can only do your best and you don’t have to apologize for not being perfect.
• There is no shame in getting eight hours of sleep every night.  Or leaving work after you’ve put in your time.  Take the time to eat your three meals every day.  If you don’t set these priorities for yourself, then life will set other priorities for you.
• My mom has taught me a lot about being a good parent.  She is more intentional in her parenting than any of my friends’ parents, even while being a lot more hands off than many of them.  From the time I was I five, I received an allowance every pay day.  That was my money to spend and when it was gone, it was gone.  She would also give me an allowance for school clothes and it was up to me to choose wisely.  When I wanted the Crimp ‘n Curl Cabbage Patch Kid, she bought it for me and then it sat in her closet until I’d earned enough money to pay for it.  As I got older, she made me handle my own problems rather than swoop in to rescue me.  Later when I was in college and living at home, she dropped all the rules and nagging, but asked me to take a more active role in keeping up the household.  Even now, she is very careful not to be the mom too involved in her children’s lives, but she is always there for me and she makes sure I know that.  She also makes sure I know how proud of me she is.

From My Dad

• Take work seriously.  Whether it’s a part-time job while you’re in high school or your career, it’s a job and you need to show up and work hard every day.  It’s a privilege to work.
• Deal with your problems.  I don’t know how else to say this.  Maybe it’s a silly example, but when I was filling out FAFSA for the first time, I was completely overwhelmed and my mom and step-dad were confused as well.  My dad said, we’re just going to sit down and figure this out.  And we did.  I think about that sometimes when I’d rather let myself be overwhelmed than work at something until I’ve figured it out.
• Self-discipline.   My dad is amazing in that he can make a goal and then achieve it.  It’s not that things come easily to him.  It’s that he works at them every day.  He wanted to lose weight, so he did.  He wanted to learn how to roller blade, so he did, even though it meant practicing in a garage for a while.  He wanted to write a business book, so he did.  Even when he messes up, he gets back on track.
• My dad has taught me to pursue my interests.  It did take him a minute to come around to the fact that I wasn’t going to get a practical degree.  I wasn’t going to major in business or nursing or go to law school.  But, once he accepted that, he accepted it.  He cuts out articles about young people who have published books and sends them to me. He tells me how cool it is that I’m in grad school.  When I was a rabid NSYNC fan, he would call me to tell me he heard they were going to be on TV, so I wouldn’t miss them.  When I was younger, we bonded over our love for reading and would spend our Saturdays in used bookstores.
• My dad is one of my favorite people to talk to.  We are both very strong minded, yet we can have these serious talks about politics, religion, and economics that don’t end in tears.  They are the kind of discussions that feel very productive, because we are not defensive and we are willing to explore ideas counter to our own.  My dad will tease me for being so liberal, but he takes my ideas seriously.  A lot of people are not capable of this kind of talk; it requires humility and intellectual honesty on a level that is difficult to maintain.

From My Step-Dad

• Looking for a job is a full time job.  Putting in an application isn’t enough.  Show you’re interested. Follow up.
• Live as honestly as you can.  Just do what’s right.  It’s easier that way.
• People like to talk about themselves, so ask them.  Show your genuine interest.  Don’t assume that people know how you feel about them.  Make it obvious.  Also, let people know you’re thinking about them.  Write them notes.  Surprise them with their favorite candy.  Ask them to coffee.
• Take care of your responsibilities.  Provide for your family.  Keep up your house.  Be supportive to your friends and extended family.  But, don’t forget yourself.  My step dad worked a job he didn’t love for a lot of years, because of his responsibilities to other people.  But, when he was finally able to, he took the risk of retiring early and finding a job he could really love, even though the wage and benefits are probably the worst he’s earned post high school.  He was responsible for years and years and it’s made it possible for him to take this big leap into the unknown.
• Be adventurous.  This is not something that comes naturally to me at all.  Or my mom or brother or sister, but over the last 15 years, my step-dad has taught us how to try new things and loosen up a bit.  He really values having fun.  He has this work hard, play hard mentality that I really admire.

When I get texts from both my dad and my mom (my parents are divorced) within the same week asking me if I’m okay and, most importantly, still alive, I know that I’m failing as a daughter.  The least I can do is keep them updated on whether or not I’m breathing.  Not that it takes a lot to get one of these texts.  Maybe two unreturned phone calls over the span of 2 or 3 days and then they don’t care if I have time to chat or not, they just want a sign of life.

My parents have never been overprotective.  I know they worry about me living in a state all by myself more than they ever let me know, but they support my independence too.  They’re totally cool as long as they think they know where I am, so when I fall off the grid, they start to worry.

I’m really very selfish with my time.  When I’m not at work or school, it’s basically me time.  It’s alarming how long I can go on my merry way without social interaction.   I’m always surprised, then, when I get to talking and connecting with people to realize how much I enjoy it.  Introversion is so much my default.

But, this isn’t really about me.  For someone who is highly sensitive, I can be really obtuse about what people need from me.  All my family really needs is my voice on the other end of the phone without them spending days trying to track me down.  I don’t know why I struggle with something so simple, but this weekend I did my daughterly duty and picked up the phone to call both of them.  I felt better for it.

All along the drive back across the state to Western Washington, I was thinking about how to write this post.  Seems dishonest to say nothing, but it’s not something I really feel like dwelling on or analyzing right now.

As far as families go, mine is pretty easy going.  No big feuds.  No two people who won’t speak to each other.  Even my divorced parents are on good terms.  But, that doesn’t mean I’m spared from all the emotional crap that comes along with being part of a family.

My sister and I do not have a good relationship.  I basically shut her out years ago, because, though I’m sure it’s never entered her mind as a conscious thought, she’s pretty hell bent on making me feel as bad about myself as she can.  We’re fine on short occasions with a lot of time in between, but sharing a hotel room with her for two days really starts to wear on me.  This makes it sound worse than it is, I’m sure.  But, it’s not nothing.

And it’s not just my sister.  It’s pretty normal family stuff, but I take it all very personally.  I don’t know why.

I feel bad for thinking it, though I know I’m not alone.  But, it’s nice to think that I get to go back to my little apartment a thousand miles away from all this.  I love my family, but I’m happy to be doing my own thing.

I’m at home in Washington.  This is not the house I grew up in, but it is where I spent some of my most dynamic years.

My first night here, I sat out on the deck, writing like I used to.  I walked down the street toward the golf course (that used to be a gravel pit) where I spent so many years running.  Coming home used to do a number on my mind, but now it’s just a peaceful place to be.

The trip started with talk about the health care debate over beers with my dad.  I love talking politics with my dad, because though he’s fiscally conservative and likes to make fun of me for being so liberal, we’re both open to talking and entertaining counter opinions.

My mom keeps asking me what I want to do while I’m here.  I mostly just want to hang out, listen to David Gray, and get some writing done.  It’s nice to be home.

]]> http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/08/21/from-here-you-can-almost-see-the-sea/feed/ 13 http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/08/08/they-freaking-write-me-letters/ http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/08/08/they-freaking-write-me-letters/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:57:26 +0000 Ashley http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/?p=2736

I wrote before about how I have awesome parents.  It’s not that I ever forget that fact, it’s just that sometimes I get special reminders.   I booked my ticket home to Washington this week.  I forwarded my mom and dad the itinerary, and I immediately got an email back from my dad saying this was great news and a voice mail from my mom that afternoon saying she was so happy I was coming.

I finally got a chance to talk to my mom last night and I can hardly remember what we even talked about, but she just made me feel so special and loved.  Sometimes it’s even the simplest things like asking me what meals I want to eat when I’m home.

I was once accused of only being a liberal because I’m guilty for the privilege I have.  It’s not true and it was said by someone who should have known me much better than that, but sometimes I am amazed that I was lucky enough to get such awesome parents.  I mean, my mom and step-dad freaking write me letters.  Like, pen and paper and stamps.  And not just once in a while, but on a regular basis.   The few pictured above are only from the last month or so.  Who does that?

It’s not like things in my family are perfect, but I’m grateful always to be part of it.

]]> http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/08/08/they-freaking-write-me-letters/feed/ 16 http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/06/16/sometimes-its-easy/ http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/06/16/sometimes-its-easy/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:00:02 +0000 Ashley http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/?p=2052

A couple months ago, my 30-something brother moved to Arizona.  It’s the first time he’s ever lived outside of the city we grew up in.  It’s not like he’s anymore attached to home than I am, but he put down roots early, bought property, and didn’t have a reason (like school) to move away.

My brother is still adjusting to living in a new state and in a rare moment a few weeks ago, we talked about something fairly serious instead of our normal banter about Zoolander, Point Break, and Armageddon.  He asked me whether it was hard to keep up with family and friends when you live so far away.

I said that sometimes I feel really removed from everyone.  Sometimes too long passes between calls.   Sometimes the conversations are stilted.  Sometimes I hear news weeks late.  Sometimes I’m not a very good friend/daughter/sister/niece/granddaughter.

But sometimes it’s easy.  Sometimes I don’t feel the distance at all.  I called home last week and talked to my step-dad about work, about the weather, and about making a lamp out of a vacuum cleaner.  Then I talked to my mom and we went on about work again, and then growing up and the concept of shopping for a church.

I’m not very good at this.  Everyone in my family, my siblings and I especially, are so independent that we don’t really depend on each other.  We don’t share every detail of our lives.  We don’t ask each other for advice.  But, we love each other and those easy conversations remind me of that fact when I’ve drifted too far away.

It’s a weird thing to be part of a family. It’s especially weird to me now that I live more than a thousand miles away from all of my family and don’t depend on them in my day-to-day life. Down here in California, I am Ashley all by herself and not Ashley the youngest of five.

The relationships I have with members of my family are unlike any other relationships in my life, but in at least one way, they are exactly the same: they take work. And it’s work I’m not very good at, because I’m selfish and I forget how much I need people.

I keep up with my brother, because he calls me at least once a week. I talk to my sister sometimes when shes texts me. You see how this is going. My step-sister and step-brother I talk to almost never. I know what’s going on with them, because I hear it through the grapevine, but as adults, we don’t have real relationships.

So, it surprised me last Sunday to get a call from my step-brother in Alaska. I didn’t even answer the call, because it wasn’t a number I recognized. He left a message saying he wanted to ask me something. I returned his call on Monday night.

We had a very nice chat, mostly about theology. It was like catching up with an old friend. And, I had that thought you always have when you catch up with old friends: Why don’t we keep in touch?

I also got a chance to talk to my nieces. I’ve mentioned before that they somehow think I’m awesome, though all the evidence points to the negative on that one. I usually hear this from my parents, who I’ve assumed are exaggerating. But, now, according to their very own father, I’m like a pop star to them. And, it’s funny, because they don’t act that way when they talk to me, and then get embarrassed when anyone mentions it to me.

I don’t know why they continue to think I’m cool when I act like every other adult and ask them about school, about what they’re learning, and about their favorite subjects. I remember an episode of This American Life where a little girl complained that adults are always asking kids about school. Now I’ve discovered the reason they do it is that kids don’t feel that same obligation to keep a conversation going, and when you’re talking to them on the phone, they make you ask all the questions, and what other questions are there? I mean, these girls like me, and our conversations still boil down to me firing off questions and them responding with one word answers!

When I was little, I idolized my brother and sister.  I followed them around.  I wanted to be where they were always.

When my family went through a terrible divorce, much of my care became the responsibility of my siblings, my sister especially.

When I was growing up, my sister took care of me.  She kept me entertained.  She kept me safe.  She bought me things.  She fought with me.

When my sister hurt my feelings and I thought that I hated her, my mom insisted that when we were older, we would be the closest of friends.

When we were older, and I didn’t need my sister to take care of me anymore, we grew apart.

When I was in high school, my sister was mean and I was sensitive, so I shut her out.  She liked too much to hurt me, and making myself vulnerable wasn’t worth it anymore.

When I was in college and she lived in the next city over, we didn’t know each other very well.  We were cordial, but I gave nothing and she didn’t reach out.

When I moved to California and my sister stayed in Washington, we talked rarely.

When I was 25 and my sister was 30, we started talking again.  By text.  Not enough to reveal how little we have in common, how little we know each other, and how much apathy and indifference has destroyed our relationship, but just enough to make me think that maybe we could be friends one day.

]]> http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/03/09/me-my-sister/feed/ 22 http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/02/10/about-my-parents/ http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/02/10/about-my-parents/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:00:53 +0000 Ashley http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/?p=1327

I don’t talk much about my parents on this blog. But, there’s something you should know about them. They are incredible.

I didn’t always know how incredible my parents were. They went through a devastating divorce when I was only 5, so I saw my parents at their absolute worst when I was still very young. While I was dealing with a painful home life, all of my friends seemed to be living untroubled lives with parents that were married, mom’s that didn’t work half as much as mine, and no awareness of money or a possible lack of money.

When I look back now, I suspect that maybe things weren’t so perfect in my friends’ lives. I’ve also realized that as much as I resented having to deal with my parent’s divorce and its aftermath, I was still very sheltered as a child.

It wasn’t until I started working that I finally gained some perspective on my parents. In the seventeen years leading up to that point, most of my friends had been girls very much like myself. They were nice and sweet and came from peaceful homes. Working exposed me to a much more diverse group of people. They had parents who were irrational and inconsistent, who borrowed money from their children, who didn’t speak English, or who simply didn’t care. I remember hearing a story about the friend of one of the girls I worked with; this friend’s mom met a guy, and took off, leaving her high school aged daughter with nothing more than rent paid until the end of the month. I mean, these stories are all very PG. I can’t even imagine what some kids had to deal with.

I don’t say my parents are incredible just because I love them or just because they’ve been through difficult times. I say they’re incredible, because they are the most even-tempered, hard-working , dependable people I know. They didn’t attend every school function, they didn’t know what assignments I had due when, and they never swooped down to rescue me from my own mistakes. But, growing up, I never had to act like the adult. I always came home to a warm house with food in the cupboards. When my parents told me they were going to do something, the did it. They let me make my own decisions and clean up after my own mistakes.

That’s the thing that makes me think that out of everyone I know, I have the best parents. They taught me lessons all the way through. I started receiving an allowance when I was only six or seven. And, you know what? I hated it. When my friends went to Toys-R-Us, their parents would just buy them something. When I went to Toys-R-Us with my mom, I had to weigh my options. I only had the allowance I received every pay day ($3 to start), and if I bought something right away, then I’d have to wait another two weeks for anything more. When it was time for new school clothes, my mom would give me $100, and it was up to me to spend it wisely. When I got to college, my parents gave me a certain amount of money, and coming up with the rest was up to me. I was certainly jealous of classmates who never even saw their college bills. I still am, actually. But, I think what my parents did was smarter, and I hope I’m better for it, because moving home is not an option. Once I got a degree, that door was closed. I’m out on my own; I don’t have a room at my mom’s house for a safety net if I fail.

As an adult, I’m not just grateful for the wonderful life my parents have given me. I’m grateful to have them in my life, because they’re amazing people. I mean, I can talk politics with my dad who is much more conservative than I am, and I can talk theology with my mom who is much more traditional than I am, and these conversation don’t end in tears or raised voices. When I tell my parents things, I don’t have to worry about regretting it later. They’re willing to offer help when I ask for it, but they don’t intrude in my life.

I love them.

I have to say, though, that if my parents failed at anything, it’s that they didn’t prepare me for a world full of people who don’t do what they say they will, who lash out in irrational jealousy and anger, and who have little sense of personal responsibility.  They didn’t prepare me for a world in which people like them are unique.