Reflections on a terrible, awful, no good, very bad year... unless you count the wonderful parts.

          This year has gone by in a flash of misery and joy. I can't go all Charles Dickens and say it was the best of times and the worst of times, but what can you do but steal if what you want to say has already been written? That last part was also stolen from a song that I really like. I believe words are meant to be shared.

          December 9th of 2013 is when our worlds were turned around. I remember coming home from tutoring to my parents' and Mom had made the chicken thigh recipe Selena made for us that we all liked so much, but nobody wanted to eat it after the news of Aunt Kay's diagnosis. I came in the house in my usual tornado of complaints about insignificant things but was stopped short. You can always see that look on people you love. Something was wrong. I started crying instantly.

          Last Christmas we hung on to each other in shell-shocked something, I don't want to say despair, because as a family we always seem to rally. This Christmas we looked back on a year I think we're amazed at for many reasons: because it happened and we celebrated it, and in the end we triumphed in it. Love always wins. Isn't that in a Brandi Carlile song? No no. Love will find a way. One thing I know for sure is love will find a way.

          January, February, March, they seem like a blur. I started this blog but didn't really keep up with it too well. I wrote in too many different areas, journals, random Word documents, to keep track of anything this year. We commemorated Joni's one-year-adoption-aniversary. Karen's baby shower in Tucson. My mom spending half of each month in Arizona. Everything getting harder. Went to Ski Cooper in Leadville. Great snow. My dad's 80-year-old father skiing with me, Grandpop, complaining that I had slightly more stamina. My parents' 29th wedding anniversary. April, of course, what a month. Spring "break" (do I really need a break from my part-time work?) in Tucson for the first week, hoping and praying I would get to meet Baby Hazelton. He arrived a week after I left. I ran out of the bedroom at the apartment when I got the text from Aunt Kay. "Ryder's arrived!" Tim immediately started strumming on his guitar and singing, "Ryder's arrived, Ryder's gonna ride, Ryder's arrived, Ryder's gonna ride...get ready to ride!" We loved him for it. Adam filmed it.

          In May Erik saw Priscilla Ahn and got the tank top and album for me, and also realized that his chances of marrying her had "reached absolute 0." At the end of the month, all of us together again in Tucson for Aunt Kay's 57th birthday. The binder full of stories. 57 people wrote hilarious heart wrenching inappropriate hysterical loving too-much-fun-having incredible memories and there they all were for her to read. It was the best present ever. I have the best aunt ever.

          June, Adam's 24th birthday. We did the Boulder Sunrise Triathlon. He got a medal even though he thinks he is slow and fat. I love him so much. I wish he could run now, but his knee acts up, fluid or something behind it the bone doctor says. I'm just proud of myself for going ahead and pulling on the wet suit and getting in the cold reservoir so early in the morning. The rest of a triathlon is purely enjoyable. The next weekend, Aunt Kay and Karen and Ryder come to visit, those bundles of love! Aunt Dana's 50th birthday party, rainy in the park. Lindsey came and was subjected to Aunt Kay's try-to-make-you-squirm humor. "So Lindsey, when are you and Erik going to start a family?" She faired better than poor Chelsea who had to run away blushing and squealing in that way that just comes out of us when we are embarrassed. Father's Day beers with my dad at Left Hand. I posted the picture and got 28 "Likes," showed him, "That's pretty good, Dad, 28 likes." "Jesus Christ, Beth. That's so stupid." "Dad, the people like us!"

          Then everyone went to Maui, and I watched from Facebook. The beautiful silhouette of Karen holding Ryder up in the air like Simba, except looking at his smiley face, her prize, her beautiful son, the treasure we all can't get enough of. Adam and I rode our bikes to Berthoud to drink beers and hold Harley the one-eyed chihuahua, Lindsey met us there, of course, supported mill dog rescues. June was a good month. Aunt Kay got to swim in the ocean. My mom by her side. Adam and I got to run. Together. With him just a little farther ahead. Ryder got to see Maui before most 2-month-olds do. Sometimes tragic circumstances present opportunities for unforgettable memories.

          In July I went to see my brother for the 4th. There was a terrible forecast in Boston so they rescheduled fireworks for July 3rd. We crowded in with the sweaty people and watched the show, said, "Wow, we think the show is better in Pana by A.D.F Fireworks. What did that stand for? Alcohol Dave and Fireworks? Yes, with fireworks twice. Ha ha!" Then we wanted ice cream. We always want ice cream. Emack and Bolio's turned in to a refuge instead of a treat when we had to stay there for cover in the midst of a frightfully quick development: a torrential downpour. "What should we do? Want to make a run for it?" We did. Have a picture of or drenched, wet-dog smelling selves waiting for the train on one of our slider phones that everyone makes fun of. Of course, the trip wasn't all silly revelry. The too-many-Benedryls and paramedic visit. Recovery. Delicious plum-raspberry and strawberry-rhubarb tarts. J.F.K House. Tennis and walks around the reservoir, the water museum. Interesting but I think over our heads, or at least definitely mine. Roger Federer's heartbreaking 5-set loss to Novak in the finals of Wimbledon. Then me sitting on the plane for 4 hours before it took off because of tornado warnings. At least I got a free Corona. I am going to miss trips to Boston to visit my brother. I have this feeling he might be back. In the meantime, I am glad to have him moving back "home," wherever home may be for him.

          Oxnard beach reunion later that month. Oh, how we love to travel. Oh, how the beach calms us. It was a little too rocky-rough-cold to swim much in this ocean, unless you asked Adam when he wanted to try surfing the first day (it didn't go well.) The hole-digging, the photos, little Rose and Ryder crawling around on the quilt sewn by Aunt Lee. Henry at 3 eyeing "pretty girls." Reading A Prayer for Owen Meany and Mrs. Bridge, that was me, falling completely in love with them both. "Heads Up" and Korean barbecue. Spundnuts Donuts. Lying in bed with Karen late at night hearing the ocean waves crash and Ryder's sweet little cries, not irritating to me but adorable and helpless. I love that baby boy. Going to CrossFit with Karen and Uncle Rob and Adam, rubbing our butt cracks raw on the ab mats, no one believed I could hurt myself that badly. There is still a scar. Perhaps I should stick to running. Surf Brewing and Anacapa Brewing and beer beer beer. I am my father's daughter.

          August was the Folks Festival, Josh Ritter and Brandi Carlile and Adam and me, and of course Tim couldn't miss that, growing his beard and being one with the other hipster songwriters. This was after what my mom gives the euphemism of "my derailment." I wrote about what happened in August at that school in another document. I'll paste here:

      Shame: 8/20/14

One week ago today I had an English classroom. It was at an alternative high school across the street from a shabby Mexican restaurant and out east too far to see the mountains and down the road from some churches and some well-manicured lawns of tiny houses my mom would say had “pride of ownership.” It is a school with character. My students would have all been Mexican and would have all suffered hardships I have not known and likely will never know. But I never met them.

            Two weeks ago today I was attending Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training for my job as a behavior coach at a school for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders. I liked my job there. I didn’t have to stretch myself. I have never been flexible in any sense of the word. We were learning how to de-escalate students before a potentially violent situation became dangerous. We were a room full of people wanting to work with emotionally troubled children and teenagers, for whatever reasons each of us carried in our hearts. I don’t think they want me to come back. I’ve never been one to think I am valued. I’ve never really valued myself.

            Last Thursday I saw a professional counselor and told her I’ve had anxiety for my entire life. I told her I am tired of it.

“What would you like to get out of our sessions together?”

 I want to feel better. I want to be able to do things. I want to like myself a little more. I want to stop asking for help all the time. I don’t believe you can help me. But here’s 70 dollars. She was a very nice woman with a golden suntan and yellow hair and expensive shoes. I wonder what she has gone though that makes her think she can help people like me. I wonder if she is doing it because it probably makes people say, “Oh, how wonderful,” when they ask her what she does for a living and she says she is a professional counselor. Or I wonder if she really wants to help me. I wonder if she’s needed this kind of help before, too. I’ve never been able to fully trust people to have pure motives. I know mine are hardly ever pure. It’s nothing against humanity.      

Last Wednesday I wandered out of a meeting about updating my e-portfolio and reviewing observations of my teaching performance online and updating my professional goals on a weekly basis and documenting it for the district to see and make sure they are hiring effective teachers who reflect and grow and cite all of the standards from the curriculum guides in their lesson plans. Before I left I couldn’t breathe. My eyes twitched all around the room. The ex-Marine, although Trish warned me to never call him that because once-a-Marine-always-a-Marine, came and asked, “Hey, are you registered for the union? Because you really ought to think about doing that. It’s for you. For your safety. As a teacher.” I looked at him like what else but a deer in headlights.  Nick laughed and told him, “I think she has other things on her mind.”

My classroom had a desk by a window. I left a zip-up sweatshirt on my chair so that it looked homey. Like I could live there for most of my day and put the sweatshirt on or leave it on the chair and still go home, because I could leave whatever I wanted in my very own classroom. I told myself things like that to try and convince myself that it was real. Now, it seems silly and fake and like something that I read in a bad book. I hung up greeting cards from family members and Adam on my filing cabinet full of materials that weren’t even mine, full of dried out dry-erase markers and index cards and handouts of Mr. Pope’s, who taught there last year. One greeting card had a nice quote and cartoon drawing of a young woman who had everything together on it. It was from Granejo. My grandparents must feel so sad for me. Or maybe just disappointed. The quote said, “And she packed up her belongings and put on a cute pair of shoes and set out to change a few things.”

In September the weather started to get cooler, maybe I started to feel better about myself. If nothing else awful had happened this year, probably this whole breakdown of sorts I experienced in August would have been a center of attention. I am good at being the center of attention. I come by it naturally. It's not my proudest trait. The day before my 24th birthday, September 26th, 2014, I wrote another entry in that electronic journal of sorts. I wrote about walking Joni around the lake. I wrote about graduating college and feeling like I had nothing in common with the other English Education graduates. I wrote about the two principals who wanted me to teach English and how I didn't want to. I wrote about feeling self-absorbed. 

I admire my mom so much. She and Mimi epitomize the complete opposite of self-absorbed, always on their feet for the sake of someone else. I asked my mom today, "Mom, do you think I will ever grow up to be as good of a person as you are?" She said, "Well, I don't know if you will ever want to help people as much as I do if you don't get paid for it." She won't like me printing that. I came back with, "Well, my husband won't make as much money as yours did," with a sideways glance at Adam playing Candy Crush on the couch. Obnoxiousness is one of our many fortes, my mom and I. I am getting side-tracked. 

October. Walk to Defeat ALS. We raised so much money, Aunt Kay and Karen Mcmillin cutting the ribbon to start the walk. Karen and Ryder announcing our team. Karl and Ashley so giddy in love. Patrick wheeling Papa along the course, happy to get the exercise. Mimi and Erik overwhelmed with the amount of emotion crammed into one park. All of the people there to support my amazing Aunt Kay. Erik breaking down that night at the kitchen table. I don't have many memories of my brother breaking down. 

           I started my job with Sarah. It's been so inspiring, I tell people she is more help to me than I am to her. She amazes me. She makes me laugh. She makes me appreciate life in a way I never have before - And always, with a smile. We're sitting on the on-ramp in Louisville to get on Highway 36, trapped in all senses of the word. Cars overflowing off the on-ramp back into Louisville. Cars backed up for miles on the highway. I let out this big sigh, so cursing with Sarah, but at least an, "Oh, my God! We are so stuck!" She looks at me with this intoxicating grin. Laughs in a gasp of air and exclaims, "Look at ALL THOSE CARS! They're crazy!" She is the perfect companion to any candidate for potential road rage. I am literally getting paid to hang out with someone who never fails to make my day.

The rest is fresh in all of our memories, anyway. Thanksgiving in Kansas, Colorado, Arizona. Adam and I got to feed the kangaroos, what fun. Erik landing the job in Colorado. Leaving that city he's grown to love. We just had Christmas, you were all there. It was amazing. "One of the best in my memory," Ashley said to Karl. The only place to have one for me is in Tucson. It's home for the holidays. 

Picture Memories of 2014:

This year has been awful. It has sucked something out of me. But it's lit a fire, too. I want something out of this life. I have my star tattoo and it's not a stupid whim like that other one. I want things to be different, I want a real job, I want my mom to get some rest, and most of all I want there to be a cure for ALS. I don't know what's going to happen in 2015. I don't have a cheesy or conclusive way to tie this up. Here we all are. We'll bring in the new year in Tucson, like always. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

"We wrote to each other"

Maybe we are living like a commune
     wolf pack
Profoundly
Permanently
Family.
I was supposed to have the phone interview
It was all choppy
and starting and
     stopping.
wait wait wait, hope I didn't miss the love train
A nice time at the pool,
     It's great to hear from you.
Right in my own backyard,
the Santa Catalina Mountains.
surrounded by
     water
the honey badger I do
admire that tough little guy
fighting the same battle
     I felt safe and loved.
At 4:30am, a good time for
a good memory.
     Expecto Patronum.
love the sound of wind
no time to
     sit
around feeling down
It was fun, we felt like adults
I think you wore my shoes
     What a year.
laughing through the tears
the most amazing mother
Beautiful sunrises, sunsets
I'm not sure how to add anything,
falling in love,
holding on to each other and our dogs, of course.
I'm not sure how
the absolute
     worst
year
of my life
has also been the absolute best.
Can't stop the tears from flowing. . .
They are happy
     tears. . .
About to leave for airport
We will call from sunny Tucson.

This is a poem for my family, written by my family. We've been exchanging emails. All of these words come from us, from the trials and the triumphs and the struggles and the love we shared this year. It has been the most powerful year of my life. I dedicate this "found poem" to my Aunt Kay, who is and always will be my hero. Merry Christmas, 2014. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Wide Open

Ryder is asleep. He was screaming for about an hour. That's better than the four he supposedly did for his daddy yesterday. But he is supposed to get his bottle now - it's 2:30 - and of course my mom told me the quote everyone knows. I love looking at Ryder though, and I don't even mind terribly much in my sort-of-distant-relative position to hear him scream and cry in that hopeless, helpless way. I love Ryder. I've never liked babies at all, though, never even known what to think about looking at one. Were they cute? I didn't really think so, not then. Slightly odd looking. All of them similar in the way that things like different baked potatoes all look similar.

I don't have a job. I'm in Tucson with everyone. The heat is oppressive. I would say I don't mind it so much since it's a dry heat, because that's what people from Arizona tend to say, but I do mind it. A humid heat, albeit, swallows you like a hot, wet mouth. The dry heat is more of a hot oven. When I step outside here I feel more like a muffin in an oven.

I do love Tucson, though. I really do. The Catalinas are so aggressively beautiful - always, right there, in your face, majestic, torrential. Mostly it's the people. Mimi understands why Adam shouldn't and won't take the job. So does and will everyone else. I want to be here because I think about these people all of the time in Colorado and it's easier to be here, in it, living the struggles and beauties of every day instead of to be there, away from it, lamenting the hardships going on in the desert. It will always feel like my second home here. I know we'll make it out eventually. It seems like everyone else in the family has. At one point, at least.

Walking home from the pool this morning two tiny lizards darted in front of me on the sidewalk. At home I guess there will be squirrels and prairie dogs. And evenings that cool off in September. We'd wait until October or so if we had moved here, that's what everyone said, and of course the winter would be wonderful instead of cruel. I've read several novels where the desert is referenced as something cruel, dry, ugly - something to loathe and describe in a mournful way. I hated those novels. One was by Jodi Picoult, who I have also grown to hate. Anyone who hates the desert hasn't smelt it after it rains. Anyone who hates the desert doesn't want to hike Blackett's Ridge in the middle of January. Anyone who hates the desert isn't looking at - or feeling it - or living in it - it in the right way.

Ryder just woke up and Mom is saying, "Ahh! You got my hair! You got my hair." And MoMo's home already?

The world is really big. There is a lot to think about even trying to do, let alone to go out and really do it. We're not ready for the big move. I'm afraid of too much anyway, right? At least I am not afraid of the desert.

Writing Material

It's hard for me to even explain how it happened, but I cut my cornea. My hair straightener was sitting on the counter in a tangled mess, as usual, and I usually don't have the motivation to wrap it up nicely and put it out of the way, but on last Sunday afternoon it was Mother's Day, and I know the tangled mess bothers my mom (I'm not blaming the corneal abrasion on her, just trying to reason with myself why I decided to pick up the instrument of injury in the first place), so in my burst of Mother's Day generosity, I decided I would twist the cord around the flat iron and put it away somewhere. This seems like a safe enough activity, although tangled cords are never completely danger-proof. I didn't have time to consider the potential of the metal plug to flip into my left eye and scratch my cornea until four seconds of decision-making and the physical movement of my hand to the hair flattening device passed and it happened. Joni was there. She was sitting there watching me the whole time. I swear the thing snapped out and bit me like a snake. I cried out, of course, because this always makes me feel better when I stub my toe, or something like that. I think Joni knew it was worse than a stubbed toe, because she just sat there, sweetly concerned as I held my hand to cover my eye and contemplate the searing pain.

Describing things that have happened to me, usually unfortunate things, is the main source of my writing material. And they are unfortunate to the point that, at the time, it was kind of miserable, but after the fact a comedic element might be appreciated. Since I am still wearing sunglasses indoors and at night, just like the song, I don't think it is terribly funny just yet that I managed to slice my cornea with the metal plug of a hair styling device I wasn't even planning to use at the time. It makes it sort of challenging to read what I am typing. And a student keeps asking me to take him for a walk outside so he can process the stress he is feeling over his small stomach ache and the annoying fact that his classmate refuses to acknowledge the information he is giving her for her electromagnetic spectrum project. The thing is, she thinks microwaves have no potential to be dangerous because they just heat up her burrito for lunch and things like that, because she is only considering microwaves as functioning in ovens, but he knows that microwaves do other things for radars and space communication, etc, (I have no idea), but she refuses to listen to him because she is stressed out, too, about her project and other things. Like how she told me, "And to top it all off, I have herpes!" and she was just making a joke about some cold sores on the sides of her mouth, and it was actually pretty funny, but the therapist warned her some people might be alarmed to hear her shout that out and she might want to reconsider telling just anyone that in the rare case that a person might not appreciate or understand her joke. So then she was worried about who else she might have told that joke to earlier and whether or not they think she really has an STD. Anyway, I had to tell the other student that I can't really go outside in the sun very comfortably to take him on a walk because of my corneal abrasion.

My job has fairly good writing material potential as well. It is funny to a point, but it also makes me feel sad sometimes. Some people live in such a struggled form of existence, and I work with them every day, and I like it. I mean I like working with them. I just hope that I am in some way helpful. I really do wish I could go on that walk.  

Things I Have Learned

I don't think we'd identify as a family of writers, per se, but a lot of us seem to enjoy it; rather, a lot of us seem to have a need for it. It's therapeutic, cathartic, creative and fulfilling. Aunt Kay's journals. My dad's long, heartfelt messages in greeting cards and emails. We have things to say.

I started journaling in middle school and kept at it through my first couple years of college. I like looking back at what I wrote because there is never a more honest recollection of a person's thoughts or feelings about things than in his or her secret diary. For the most part, I've always seemed to write about what is annoying to me at a particular moment. But these are not stories. They are mostly just rants, and nobody wants to read that. In order to consider themes and whatnot for this fiction story I want to write, I must look at the people who I've known and the places I have been and the struggles I have had with those people and places and turn them into productive life lessons. I am going to attempt a cathartic release of things I have learned that could be used in a fiction story:

• In kindergarten, around Halloween, I had to go over a dotted-line drawing of a cat with a black crayon and then color it. Mrs. Sampson handed it back to me with a note in red marker at the top saying some derivative of: "This is a sloppy mess." I was inconsolable. This is a moment I can look back on to know I take criticism very personally. 
• In first grade, my best friend was a tiny blonde girl who would periodically decide she didn't like me and cast dirty looks my way on random days of the week. In the second grade, I made a new best friend. In the third grade, she approached me in the cafeteria to say that she would be joining the popular table from then on out. From these childhood traumas, I am left with a few plausible conclusions: a) little girls are horrible to each other; b) I must have done something awful to deserve the looks; or c) I was not very fun to have lunch with. Of course, I know the real answer is secret option d) I was chubby, and chubby girls are decidedly uncool and always will be. 
• In middle school, I didn't have a best friend and I didn't care. All I was worried about was not having a locker partner on the first day of school, or having a locker partner decide she didn't want to be my locker partner anymore at the last minute. This never happened. I had the same locker partner for all three years, and it was fine. But things could have turned out differently - I knew this - and the possibility of standing idiotically alone on the first day of school and being randomly placed with another forlorn loser was the most terrifying thing in the world to me. I can look back on this and understand that I will probably always have intense anxiety about things that are unbelievably not worth having intense anxiety about. *Note to my locker partner: Thank you. I'm glad we're still friends.
• The summer after 7th grade (I think it was), I decided it was time to experiment with anorexia. People seem to believe anorexic girls starve themselves because it is the one thing in their lives they think they have control over. I can't speak for all of us, but this was definitely not the only thing I wanted to control. I had a variety of goals in mind. First, I was tired of being the chubby girl. Second, I wanted to become very good at tennis, and this involved a lot of exercising. Third, I had an unofficial competition with my cousin, Karen, with this unofficial title: Who can eat less? We both did very well and I am not sure who won. In all seriousness, girls should really stop starving themselves. But I guess I've been there so I can sympathize with the neurotic urges. I just can't get around how terribly sad and unnecessary it is, though, because of what I ultimately learned from my minor experience: Being too skinny does not result in happiness, attractiveness, or a boyfriend.
• I joined the swim team in 9th grade. I never properly learned how to dive, even though I kept swimming for all four years. Each time after, "Swimmer, take your mark, beeeeep," there was a definite slap on the water, a bellyflop of sorts, that never got me off to a great start. My first meet was the worst, though. My mom is more embarrassed about it than me, because she had to watch from the stands. I blame the coach. She told me, "You know, Beth, I have most of my beginners start with their arms raised high above their heads. In a point, already in dive position. Why don't you try that?" Yeah, why not? Gripping the starting block like a real swimmer would have added another step I didn't want to think about coordinating. So I stood on the block and raised my arms up high in a point, like the five-year-olds my coach was apparently used to working with. Everyone else was bent over, cold-blue fingers clutching the edge of the block, ready to spring off into the water like, well, racers. I doubt I even really bent my knees. Take your mark, GO! My mom is still mortified for me to this day. Swimming taught me that it is okay to look like an idiot sometimes. 
• Tennis started to wear on me as I neared the end of my high school years. It was Aunt Dana who first got me to look into triathlons, because she wanted to do one herself. We signed up for the Fort Collins Club sprint triathlon, the race to occur in May of 2007. I was 16. The swim didn't worry me (I wouldn't have to dive!). I had a mountain bike. I had ran the Bolder Boulder one time with my cousin, Karl. Clearly, I was destined to be a triathlete. I didn't do amazingly, obviously, on my 50-pound bike, but this race changed my life. If not for it, I would never have bought a road bike, joined the cross country team, trained for and completed a full marathon, or joined the club triathlon team at CSU (and therefore never have met Adam, who is wonderfully patient and kind and helpful with things like fixing flat tires and writing training plans for me to loosely follow). Triathlons have taught me that endurance is extremely important and satisfying, and that you just might meet the love of your life if you join a group of like-minded people. 

This post will be continued, because I have continued to learn things about myself and others. I did not have a plan when I started writing this particular post. That is the wonderfully liberating thing about writing. If you allow it to be, it is effortless.

The First Line

I find it very difficult to start writing. Erik and I can commiserate. I think he's interested in fiction for the challenge of it, maybe the beauty of it; so many people can become engrossed and connected to a story that is about something that didn't happen and people who don't exist. I love fiction. My professor for Recent Poetry of the United States (a poet himself) said fiction writers make all the money. This was a joke that came up recurrently in that class, one that all we liberal arts undergraduates would chortle good naturally about as if it was some natural fate we all understood about ourselves: Our degree is not appropriate for a lucrative career. This professor wrote really impressive poems, I'm sure. I never read them. I try to read poems and understand them or at least like them, but most of them are so entirely weird that they just make me feel stupid and like I should have studied marketing or something normal like that. Anyway, he had his collections published in books, but it is people who write fiction who have slim chances at making money from it. I am interested in writing fiction, but I wonder if I'd be very good at it at all.

Erik thinks the first line is very important, and we laugh about it, but I think he's right.

We arrived late to the campsite.

Was that the line you had in Tucson last month, Erik? The next lines are more difficult to come by, because the story is beginning, something needs to start happening, characters need to start being "developed." Are you supposed to map it out like in elementary school when we used to write stories with beginnings, middles, and ends?

It was ok, because the others were already there with the keg. Everyone knows how that story goes.

It's a fun exercise, at least, to think of how a reader might first be introduced into your fictional world. I'll try some first lines right now:

Genevieve was the first one who noticed something was different.

Good parents are not supposed to lie to their children.

My mother told me the thing I will never forget on my thirteenth birthday. 

I ate the apple he was saving for his lunch; I ate it and I am not sorry. 

I am just being ridiculous. Those were the first things that popped into my head; and that's the ridiculous part, how they popped. That's not authentic. I get wrapped up in the thought that I want to be a writer without putting much consideration into what kind of writer I really am. I guess I've expressed interest in it from a young age, and my mom has always told me to write things down before I forget about them.

...


 

White Shoes vs. Honey Badger in Training

Playing tennis was never exactly a prerequisite, but it seemed inevitable. I'm glad. Some of my most poignant memories are from the tennis court - rather joyous or miserable. Emotions were always inordinately high. It (probably) wasn't even due to some pressure of a family legacy to live up to; no, it was more in my chemical makeup to react strongly to and dwell constantly on competition in general. Tennis just happens to be our game of choice.

I'm not the best one to say where it all began, but I can thank my mom and Aunt Kay. They can surely give credit to Uncle Larry and Uncle Bill, and never forget Aunt Debbie: she will never miss the ball no matter how loud or distracting or eventually quite uncomfortable her "tennis grunt" persists. Karen and Kim were obviously the most successful of us "kids", and Kim's certainly always dated the most talented players. We will always remember playing bocce ball on the beach with Xavier Malisse. Even if most of the general public has absolutely no awareness of him, he is still the most famous person I’ve been in the vicinity of. I can’t believe Kim brought him on our family vacation. He’s beat Roger Federer. Is he from Belgium? His pony-tail is unbelievably slick. He’s the real deal. 

I was never amazingly talented or really even that remarkable of a tennis player. Just like everything about my personality as the youngest member of the family, I stole from everyone who came before me. Excepting the gruntining, I modeled Aunt Debbie’s annoying persistence. I attempted to be cool and collected like my mom, and even pulled that off occasionally. In 8th grade, I studied Karen’s superior talents at her matches for the University of Northern Colorado. I became a tennis player around the time I figured out I could win so long as I refused to make any unforced errors. This resulted in many of my opponents' worst nightmare across the net. I became very proud of my capability to drive girls to tears with the infuriating fact that I refused to miss. 

In high school, my desire to win became more of an obnoxious obsession with my own self-worth than a healthy relish for good competition. I’ve always wished I could be more like my Aunt Kay. Aunt Kay kicks ass. She always has. AKKA. She provided that acronym to help me with my various disturbing, inflated anxieties about participating in tennis matches: What if I lose, and I was supposed to win? I can’t play her again. I won last time, but it was close. I can’t play her again because I might lose. What if I am winning and then I start losing? What then? WHAT WILL EVERYONE THINK IF I LOSE?! I’M A LOSER! 

I got to play #1 singles my junior year of high school. This privilege entailed occasionally playing girls who were on an entirely higher level of ability than me, which was sometimes nice for my anxiety level. If there was no conceivable way that I could win, what did I have to worry about? (I always found something.) For one of these matches Aunt Kay was due to arrive Colorado to see Karen. It was in Broomfield against Maddie-Somebody who was definitely going to beat me. So Aunt Kay and Karen decided this would be a good one to attend. I’m sure Karen was mildly curious how good the girl was, and I certainly would need the moral support. They would meet my mom there from the airport. 

I spent the bus ride over contemplating the humiliation of losing 6-0, 6-0. This was always my major concern when I knew I was in over my head. Losing is one thing, but getting annihilated is embarrassing. Match conditions were perfect, at least. Sunny. Maybe a crisp spring breeze, but nothing to lose my head over. I got off the bus fully prepared to lose with the poise and self-assuredness I had lost so many matches before, and I felt good about it. But when we lined up across our opponents for the ritualistic shaking of hands, I did not see Maddie-Somebody who was definitely going to beat me. I saw my worst nightmare: a JV player. There was no mistaking this. She stood fixed with anticipation - too much anticipation. Smiling at me. Too-white shoes. Racket in ready position. I blinked at her. I wonder if she could see the fear settling in.

Maddie-Somebody was out of state at a tournament playing other girls who would also definitely beat me. She probably scheduled it as soon as she got her high school match lineup and noticed when she would play me. How boring, she must have thought. No use staying in town to kick Longmont's What's Her Name around. I didn't have time to beat myself up about this for too long, though. Too-White-Shoes was raring to go.

"At #1 singles, we have Beth Silkensen!" Uncomfortable applause. What did the Broomfield captain say the other girl's name was? Can't hear. Intense handshake. Except, she is still smiling at me. This is horrible. Why is she so excited? It's because she is a JV player, and she is going to beat me, and that is the worst thing that could possibly happen in my entire life, and she is happy about it. No more, "No pressure, you're supposed to lose, nobody cares." Now it's, "If you lose, you may as well climb into a hole for the rest of your life, or at least until everybody forgets that you lost to a JV player that one time in high school when you were supposed to be a decent tennis player or something."

As it turns out, her name was Beth too. "That's funny, isn't it?" she said on our way to the court [Purgatory]. "I've never met someone named Beth before!" I don't care. Whatever. Shut up. I am so nervous right now. You are my nemesis. Stop being so chatty. "Oh, really? I guess I haven't met many." I always sound so un-nervous when I am about to hyperventilate. Need to exude utter confidence. The reality is, I think I have always had that utter confidence underneath it all. There was really no conceivable way I was going to lose hardly a point to Too-Nice-Beth-With-Too-White-Shoes, let alone a game or a set or the match. I must have Aunt Kay/AKKA in there after all.

Speak of the devil. We were in the middle of the first game. She was serving. I am pretty sure she plopped eight serves into the net in a painfully long ten minute opening game that was briefly interrupted by a raucous fan. The car turned into the parking lot in plain view of Court #1. Window rolled down, eyes peeled. "GO BETH! WHOOOOOOO! Whoo-whoo-WAHOOO!" It was piercing. I loved it. Other Beth got embarrassed. "Oh, sorry, I have, like, some really obnoxious friends." That was probably my opportunity to say, "No, sorry, I have, like, a really obnoxious Aunt Kay." I don't even remember what I said. 

It was the perfect thing to have happened, though. Karen and Aunt Kay were anticipating some major ass-whooping at my expense. Kay shouted from the car maybe to calm my nerves about that, but probably just because she is Aunt Kay. She makes a spectacle of herself. It's her core personality that drew her to laugh at repeated viewings of "Honey Badger" in recent years. Who gives a shit? Not Honey Badger. Not Aunt Kay. And after her presence at my match was alarmingly announced, neither did I. At least, not for the remaining 45 minutes of my 6-0, 6-0 victory. I wonder how long it took them to realize I was not in fact playing last year's state champion.

Tennis is more than something that we all did. There are too many stories about neurotic league teammates and horrifically rude opponents. There are too many lifelong friends we've all made, all because of a silly game with a bright yellow ball and expensive equipment and intense emotional investment. Tennis will always be a part of who we all are. It's a family history.          

Introduction

I may sound like someone pretending to be old and wise when really I am young and inexperienced with the ways of the world when I say: I have been looking for the right characters for many years. I have always wanted to write a "story," an "American novel" with dynamic characters who fight adolescent pangs and fall in love and have fierce philosophical debates and do all the things that characters do in books that people like to read.

But I can't find them. I can't find the right characters. So then, a few years ago I thought, if I really want to be a "writer" (in a van down by the river), I am going to need vampires. Otherwise, I am never going to make money, because people [teenage girls] only want to read about vampires. When that phase passed and I still had no characters, zombies. But I hate vampires. And zombies are gross.

Last night, I had a revelation. My dad was driving us to meet Anne and Steve and Kyle at the Mexican restaurant. He had on a mix made especially for Mom and Aunt Kay with upbeat tunes. He had to burn it before we could leave, as well as yell at Erik on the phone some more about how he can't live in an expensive Boston apartment without heat for three days and just sit there and let it happen, "YOU HAVE TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!" but Dad seemed to have forgotten about that conversation once Bob Seger came on. "BEAUTIFUL LOOOSERR! Whennn you gonna fa-a-all? When you realize...you just can't have it all?" Dad and I both were yelling it. And that's when I realized, I do have it all. Why did I even know the words to the song? My dad has provided an advanced History of Rock and Roll course, mandated by my upbringing in his house. He is a raucous, colorful, passionate man. My brother, who minutes before was being loudly advised on the phone, is a stoic, brilliant person who can put on five sweaters and do work I can't even comprehend in a 40 degree apartment with no complaint. My mom patiently sits, with occasional enjoyment, next to Dad as he sings his heart out on the way to the Mexican restaurant. She is our constant: smart, caring, strong, patient, funny. And I am a product of all of them.

That's when I realized, I have the best characters of any book that has ever been written. I don't need to create fictional ones. If I did, they'd surely be more boring. I'd surely care much less about them. I've said this before: I don't know any family that is as awesome as mine. I have always wanted to publish something but I've never known what. I am not sure what form this will ultimately take, but my characters are foolproof. They're flawed, intelligent, caustic, rude, compassionate, and loving. They're teachers, mothers, fathers, computer programmers, engineers, and athletes. They're everything I've ever needed. They're my story.