Family Wanted. Please Feel Free to Apply

Ten years later, I'm still looking for family and for myself.

Part of the wildness of having blogged for a decade is that I get to see my old posts. And sometimes? That’s a little painful. Ten-years-ago Carrie was a lot more free about writing.

And I kind of miss that. I miss my rants a bit. The freedom I must have felt to just put it all out there. But I also think that people used to connect more to Ten-years-ago Carrie (now proper noun status), too.

Here’s an example:

So, given the massive amount of people in my family leaving the mortal plan (also known as croaking), I am now feeling kind of family-less.

It is no fun being without a family. Okay. It is much more affordable to not have to buy Christmas presents and birthday presents and Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day presents and stuff, but who wants life to be affordable really? I think it’s much better to have to buy your dad a random tie or something.

Not like I would buy my dad a random tie. He would just use it to tie back a lilac tree that had low-lying branches or something like that anyway. My dad was a little Hobbit. He appreciated food presents and tweed hats from Ireland and postcards from Hell ( a place in the Caribbean – not the Lucifer hang-out). My mom just pretty much appreciated anything. My grandmothers were cool with flowers and vases and porcelain things.

I have already imported a grandfather, Devyn Burton, who is totally cool as a grandfather despite the fact that he is like 20 or something.

But there are a lot of other openings.

I always wanted to be from one of those super huge families that had 12 kids in it. But my family had four and everyone else was a lot older than me (14 years, 15 years and 17 years) so I felt like an only kid.

I still kind of feel that way.

And I always thought that I’d be one of those people who had like five kids to make up for it and I would live on a mountain in a log cabin in a field and somehow not have allergies. I would trade those allergies in for goats or something and a grizzly bear would visit and we would be friends and the grizzly would not want to eat any of my offspring.

Yeah. That didn’t happen either.

But I thought I'd at least have family barbecue events for forever and people sending me birthday cards and calling me at inappropriate hours (prior to noon) to just say hi and complain about things.

So, if you would like to put in an application for sibling status, parent status, or kid status, or grandparent status, feel free. I promise to send you dorky birthday cards and the religious holiday of your preference cards if I have your mailing address. You have to do the same though or I’ll pout and tell all the other family members that you’re blowing me off and not invite you to Thanksgiving or something.

Photo by Hendo Wang on Unsplash

FAMILY APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

1. Family Member Position You Are Applying for:

2. Reason for Applying:

3. Do you promise to never tell Carrie to stop snorting pixie dust? (This is not a reference to cocaine. I would DIE if I did cocaine. This is a reference to my book, NEED).

4. Do you promise to never accuse her of taking the bigger piece of birthday cake? Or bowl of ice cream?

5. Do you promise to not think she’s a freak if she cries at pretty much every movie ever? If she can’t make it through WAR HORSE? Or any John Green novel? Or, hell, any Charlaine Harris novel either?

6. YAY!

7. Do you promise to love her even if she says “YAY!” far too much for an old person?

8. Do you like dogs?

---

So, I see this as goofy, and totally understand now why all the political consultants of my political party said, “CARRIE! TAKE YOUR BLOG DOWN NOW! NOW! YOU WILL LOSE THE ELECTION IF PEOPLE SEE THIS!” (I did not take it down. I lost the election. I don’t think that’s why though.)

But what I also see is emotion. Just real kind of goofy emotion. And underneath all of that you can see just how lonely I was.

I am still lonely. I still totally long for unconditional love and acceptance, for people who know that I will go out to “AN EVENT” and have paint on my fingers and not wear makeup and not notice.

But I’m not as raw about showing it anymore and I think that might not be a good thing.

Rawness. Emotion. It allows people to connect with you.

Rawness. Emotion. It means that you’re stripping off the ModPodged layers of protection over your shifting feelings and exuberance and goofiness and needs.

Those things are okay to be open about. This week, I went to a Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event in my town (Yes, I had paint on my fingers and no make-up on, but I did comb my hair before it got all Maine coast gale-blown).

During that event I gave up on pleasantries and being adult. I just was myself the way my little hobbit dad was, too: asking questions that might have been a little too deep, telling people I felt anxious, asking them what art they miss making and I learned about one woman’s year where her husband had cancer and didn’t want to tell anyone (she could only tell one friend until now), about how one person’s family was mad at them for not going to college, how one person’s mom didn’t care too much when she came along (youngest baby by a lot), how one man drew comics with his daughter and how she’s more skilled than he was already and how that makes him proud, but also makes him long for his art, how one person loves the chaos of work but likes the organization of home, how one man was afraid of something he had to do this week.

But my point here isn’t that I’m awesome because we all know I’m super flawed. My point here is that I stopped pretending like I didn’t care about people and let them know I cared. My point here is that I stopped pretending to be professional and into small talk and just was myself. And that meant I didn’t have to talk about cruise ships (a big topic in Bar Harbor, Maine) or the weather.

Sometimes, I think we’re measuring the wrong things when we interact with other people. Sometimes, I think we’re measuring the wrong things when we interact with ourselves. It isn’t about being beautiful or super wealthy or successful or how many hands you shake or cards you give out. It’s about connecting. It’s about kindness and empathy. It’s about being real: real to ourselves and to others.

---