Here's What I Know...

That the hardest

relationships are also the best ones.

All of the most important people, the ones that make up the structure of my foundations as a person; my mother, my best friends, my wife... none of those relationships came easy. In my head I imagine us as two perfectly cubed blocks of wood, knocking against each other to make tiny divots and other places to fit. Over time they rub down the edges, like sea glass, until the two are seamless. They become one. Like building a log cabin without nails. It's a lot of work. You can't do it alone. You just constantly keep filling in the cracks and they're drafty and have a lot of dirt and mud in the foundation. Still... those suckers are still standing 150 years later.

As it applies to people, it's also the only type of relationship left I find worth having. With limited time and energy per lifetime, I'd rather put mine towards something that will be there when I'm 80 than little office dramas or coffee with old acquaintances I don't know anymore.

It's why I am endlessly attracted to the hard case. Why I believe not just in second chances for people but in unlimited chances. A lifetime of chances. Or at least I do when I get the sense that the person I'm running into over and over again, banging out the dents with, has something valuable to offer. Sometimes years will go by in between my interactions with people and yet I pick up exactly where we left off in the building process every time. I believe that this is worth my precious time.

Even now, with my mother less coherent every day, we are still building our relationship. We are still building a sense of each other. A stronger love. A harder bond. A more seamless fit.

I am so grateful for the extra time every day that I wake up and sneak close to her bedside just to confirm that for one more day at least... she's still breathing. For one more day at least, we can smoth out just one more rough spot. We can become just a tiny bit closer.

I was watching TV with mom the other night and some silly show about men living in New York came on. I watched about 5 min before I changed the channel. Just long enough to hear one man advise another that his relationship was "too much work" and that real love was supposed to be easy and fun. I wonder how many people actually believe that.... I wonder why? I wonder how many of them are actually happy? How many of them will die in nursing homes, alone and forgotten... How many of them will wake up and have mid-life crisis and feel like no one actually knows them? It seems like an awful lot of work to maintain such a lazy approach to relationship building. You'd spend your whole life scraping them partway through and starting over. That feels sad to me somehow.

Last night was J's birthday. Taryn and Ramsey joined us for triple chocolate cake and too much champagne. It was a far cry from the first birthday we spent together, rock n' roll style in New York with cupcakes, back-up dancers and Tequila. We opened presents with mom and scraped cake off her chin and toasted J and cried. It was beautiful. Despite the alcohol I will always remember it. The highlight of the day was the pile of cards and love that Jasper got from my relatives on my dad's side of the family. Every one of them appreciative of what she is doing here. Every one of them acknowledging the very real and special role she plays in my life. And in my mother's. Every one of them welcoming her with open arms.

Our stories are tangled up here. Mine and J's. It's a new deep groove in our foundation. The first, almost, seamless fit of what I hope will be a lifetime more to come.

The simple sweetness of their acknowledgement that this person is loved and loves in our family and has by that alone, earned a place in it...well, let's just say that I could feel my dad in that last night. And J got to see a little bit of what he was like. And why he was so special to me. I haven't figured out yet how to say thank you. How I managed to be so blessed with so many immovable foundation pieces. I know that my parents were the cornerstones. I've been so scared that without them, without those first balancing pieces, that all the rest would fall apart. Turns out they planned for that. Turns out...I have serious back up.

There's just no way to say thank you for that. But I'll probably spend my life trying like hell to recreate it for my own kids.

My aunt and uncle on my mom's side are part of this as well. We are very different but there is a lot of love there. Slowly, we keep banging away at the sharp edges. We keep wearing new grooves in each other's hearts. They laugh at how much someone like me, tattooed, thoroughly modern, gay, can be so old-fashioned in my values. It's true though... I am the original Family Values poster child. Of course, what that means to me is a little different than what most people hear on TV. I've been blessed with strong family support from my father. I built my own additions with friends for the last 15 years that are unwavering in connection and support. Now I am engaged to the only woman with a stronger will than myself, and we both want Us. It's not smiling, blond or nuclear and there will never be a Christmas card with matching sweaters and an Irish Setter... but it's my Family-and they are wonderful. And as far as I'm concerned... It's the only thing that really matters.

When I say old-fashioned values... I mean 18th century style. I love that once upon a time women had babies with all of their friends and female relatives present. I love that once upon a time people cared for their family members who were old and sick and dying. They provided them with love and dignity at the end of their days without ever questioning whether or not it was their responsibility. I love the idea of barn raising's...the modern equivalent of which I guess, is when you find out who your friends are when they show up to help you move for no more than a slice of pizza and a couple of cold ones. Once upon a time every neighbor within 50 miles would take the day off work, pack up the family and show up to labor with you for 16 hours to help you build your house or your barn. That's how bad they didn't want you to be homeless. That's how much trust there was that when they needed it... you would show up and return the favor.

I love that the best thing you could do for someone was feed them and care for them when they needed it. Those are the values I appreciate. They have nothing to do with sexual modesty or a woman's rights over her own body or any of the other Individual choices that get thrown under the bus of that Values label. It's about connection. And generosity. And a tacit understanding that people in general and family especially Deserve love and care and respect from the beginning of their lives right on up through the end of them. That this is our mandate as people. This is what matters.

Those are the "Family Values" I try to keep alive in my life. It really is about the value of family. It's a respect for how hard it is to build solid and lasting relationships and the knowledge that despite the work, their value is immeasurable. An appreciation for Marla's couch and Tonya's bathtub and Paula's pasta salad and Laurie's calm and Rawr's arms and my mother's humor and my uncle's generosity of spirit and Shcricken and Taryn's ears and shoulders and zillion other people and things that are, well, Valuable.

Thank you Universe for my amazing friends who are also my family, for the family I have left and the ones who started me out, for every person in my life who has built me, stuck with me, held me up when I couldn't do it on my own and stuck around for the fun part later on down the road.

I must have been a really good cat in a past life.