letterstoira

[letterstoira]

05/01/2020

Dear Ira,

Right now, you’re living through your first world historical event. The last comparable pandemic was about a hundred years ago, so there’s hope that you’ll never see such a thing again, but that doesn’t seem honest to me. I’ve seen way too many “hundred year storms” to trust those terms. The world is being destroyed and no one in power has much interest in changing this, so even if you don’t see another pandemic, you’ll see superstorms, floods, droughts, probably war finally coming to this country. I’m sure there will be plenty opportunities to lock yourself in your home with an oversupply of canned beans and dread. The keyword for your generation will be eschatology.

And i’m sorry. Fuck, i’m sorry. But i refuse to believe bringing you into the world was a mistake. I see too much joy in you. I see too much curiosity. The world, even a burning, crumbling world, will need good people, and i think you can be a wonderful person. Someone needs to build in the rubble. But maybe i’m just trying to rationalize something unforgivable. This probably isn’t the place to sort my feelings out.

So i want you to know that i’m scared, your mom is scared. I’m glad that you’re so young now and have barely an inkling that anything is different, except that we don’t go out so much and now see your grandparents on the computer instead of in person. I need to figure out how to talk to you about this because something similar is going to happen again.   I think i’m slowly getting better at parenting while terrified.

Love, Dad

[letterstoira]

03/08/2020

03/08/2020

Dear Ira,

I’m sick. Chronically, which means this will be a fact of my entire life, and it will affect yours as well, though I hope in only small ways. I know it already does now. You see me suddenly wince when we're playing, and you giggle then pause, unsure if this is part of the game. You cry when i won't go outside with you again, because i say i need to sit down. You're getting so much better at this already, because you're so compassionate. If you don't cry, you instead walk over slowly and pat me, with a whispered shhh. Sometimes a kiss.

Getting sick was a shock to me when it first happened, though kind of a slowly building one. I wasn't sure how bad the problem should be in order for me to actually treat it as a problem. What's a decent scale? What's an average level of pain? I'm not so bad a communist that i won't consider a sick day, but how do i justify two in a row? Hell, at least i have sick days to take now. I didn't then.

But even now there's still this bizarre kind of imposter syndrome. Don't sick people actually have it a lot worse? The people i'm working with are the real sick people, and they need walkers or oxygen or opiates. I just need to lie down sometimes. I suspect my coworkers know i'm nothing close to sick, even though no one's said anything. But it's not really easier at home. When the three of us are together, i feel your mother resenting me for asking to lie down on the couch while the two of you play. Which is not actually happening. I ask your mother about it, and they say there's no resentment at all, that they know i need rest. You're mother's not petty. So i resent myself on their behalf.

And i resent the lost vacations. I resent the costs: even with insurance, thousands a year. I resent the lessened time together. But i've decided that this isn't something i'm going to hide from you. You deserve to know why i act the way i do. And i think you need to know what it looks like, so you can be aware for yourself. My parents aren't ill like this, but genetics are fickle. I'll always be upfront with you about this.

And i'll always take every minute back from it that i can to spend with you.

Love, Dad

[letterstoira]

12/31/2019

Dear Ira, I'm getting older, and so is the world, but the switch over to 2020 isn't really going to mean anything. Nothing changes from the second after midnight, or the first day of the new year, or the first year of the decade. Unless something important actually happens! I guess what i'm saying is that life is filled with these points of demarcation that are supposed to indicate an end and a beginning, but more often than not, they don't. We almost never know the moments that matter before they happen. So if a new year, or a birthday, or an anniversary of an important event comes, and you don't feel a thing, that's okay.

Buuuut we do get older, and we change, and we don't always know until even years after sometimes. So going into 2020, i have only a bare idea of what i'll do, but a pretty good sense now of what i won't ever do again.

1. I'm never going to deck a kid in a moshpit again.

Probably still have a few years of going to shows left, and i'll probably still be in the pit now and again, but at 31, i just don't feel like i can ethically knock an 18 year-old kid onto a beer-soaked slab of uneven concrete.

2. I'm never going to drink a 40 again.

Kinda related. Though honestly, i don't know if this even counts, cuz i bet i'll still have another MD, and that's the same but fruity (so obviously superior).

3. I'm never going to be excited to vote again.

I was 19 when i voted for Obama. Originally liked Kucinich because i have always been a joke, but still thought Obama would be great. Disappointed but certain when i voted for his reelection. Then... well, voting in Texas doesn't matter anyway, plus of course you know that bourgeois elections are shams of democracy that distract the masses with relatively mild though culturally significant disagreements while leaving unmentioned and unchallenged the reinforcement of violent worldwide imperialism and the strengthening of the racist carceral state. Fuck, i hope i've been a decent parent, and you know that bourgeois elections are shams of democracy that distract the masses with relatively mild though culturally significant disagreements while leaving unmentioned and unchallenged the reinforcement of violent worldwide imperialism and the strengthening of the racist carceral state. Tactical voting against a fascist may still be a necessity, but it's nothing to be happy about.

4. I'm never going on a roadtrip again.

Desperate races across a hellish post-collapse landscape with vanishingly fewer resources do not count as roadtrips.

5. I'm never going to stay up all night playing a video game on its release day again.

My college roommate took what was essentially meth to play an expansion of World of Warcraft for 36 hours straight (may that game be purged from memory when you read this). This is not a thing i will regret missing out on.

6. I'm never going to kiss a stranger on a dancefloor again.

Which ew, right? Don't do that. You don't know their stance on abortion or Palestine. Plus, your mom is just a really good kisser, so go ahead and take a moment to hate me for making you read that.

7. I'm never going to be able to uncritically enjoy a piece of pop culture again.

We're gonna give you until 5 or so before we start deconstructing Disney through a Marxist feminist lens.

8. I'm never going to eat meat again.

Fucken bet it, kid. And i'm gonna take you to pet some pigs first time you want to yourself.

9. I'm never going to play in a band or act on a stage again.

I still have little moments when i feel the need to make art. Might be why i still write these letter, my half honest, half frightened nod toward poetry. I may keep writing, but i won't be an artist, a poet, or a rockstar, and what a relief.

10. I'm never going to be as excited and panicked and overwhelmed and overjoyed and numb and in the moment as my first moments with you.

Years ending don't mean anything.

Love,

Dad

[letterstoira]

12/13/2017

Dear Ira,

I have this hope that what i’m writing won’t make any sense by the time you read it, but i know that’s probably not going to happen. The world doesn’t change that fast, i think. So while we've got some time before you're born, let’s talk about gender.

Your mom and i decided long before you were born that we were going to try, as much as humanly possible, to avoid gendering you until you gendered yourself. A lot went into that. We named you Ira, a name we saw as gender-neutral, to allow you to go whatever way you wanted without having to construct a new identity so completely. We didn’t want you to later find your name and your gender pulling in terribly different directions. Then there were the cloths: it’s kind of ridiculous that things as functional as infant clothing can be so clearly gendered, but we avoided what was. So that meant no “Daddy’s Little Princess” or “Momma’s Boy,” and no tutus or footballs when you couldn’t possibly take an interest in either. We even went with a color palette that’s more greens and greys than blues or pinks, though blues and pinks are still in there. We were hoping to set you up so that a stranger couldn’t see you in your cart and immediately imagine that they know not only what’s in your diaper but who you are as a person.

That’s not easily understandable to most of the world, or even to most of your family. So many people find such glee in diving headfirst into stereotyping children before they’ve even left the womb, and those people don’t much appreciate having that taken away from them. They’ll ask, “have you found out what sex they are?” and then a minute later choke on being asked to consciously refer to you as “they.” I worry that once these family members see the mark on your birth certificate, it’s gonna be nothing but trucks and sports from them. Or they’ll change your diaper and suddenly decide you need a new pink wardrobe. We’ll figure this out, of course. We’ll know much better by the time you read this.

In all honesty though, i do often wonder if we’re going through all this effort unnecessarily. These kind of things aren’t very easily measured, but most estimates say less than 1 in 100 Americans identifies as trans. I can’t even find any reasonable guess at how many, like me, have genders that dance somewhere between the poles but don’t quite feel home at “trans." Whatever the numbers are, a reasonable person could expect that you’re going to grow up and find that your body lines up pretty well with who society expects you to be, with maybe a few minor variations. And that’d be fine! It’d be easy on you, easy on us, and easy on the family who can’t see anything between black and white.

So why the hell are we bothering with all this?

The most obvious (and i think unimpeachable) reason is that, with all the clearly gendered signals you’re going to pick up from the outside world, we don’t want to be one of the reasons a possibility is closed to you. You can be a roughhousing, adventurous little boy, just don’t think that’s somehow incompatible with a love for baking or cuddling small animals. Right now, most of liberal society seems like it’s at least intellectually caught up with us on this point. They’ll say anyone can do anything, but even those open-minded people still have visceral, vestigial feelings about who ought to sew, who enjoys shooting guns, who likes ponies, and who likes dinosaurs. The inarguable truth though is that everybody loves dinosaurs, and every adult ought to be able to at least do some rudimentary sewing. We’re raising you gender-neutral so you won’t have to figure out if something is for boys or for girls before you can figure out if you like it.

Another reason is that both your parents got fucked by gender. Just like your mom’s round cheeks and the little lumps all over my body, this is something we kind of expect might get passed on. I knew something was wrong as a kid but couldn’t put words to it, so it got sublimated in weird ways. I told myself stories at night of being a shapeshifter. I played with hulking action figures like other boys, but my favorite was always the svelte little ninja turtle with the crop top. When my friend showed me an anime, i was fascinated with this purple-lipped, genital-less lizard person.

It took me well into my adolescence to even start playing with anything close to straying from the gender rut i was assigned, and each tiny step beyond it feels like such a relief and such a burden. In high school, my makeup was something to hide from my parents; when they paid me to stop wearing it, i just started carrying facial wipes to school. As a student teacher in college, i forgot to take it off once, and my mentor teacher quietly tried to have me removed from the program. I went into social work my eyes matted from day one, but then i was cautioned that lipstick would be a step too far. Liberal society isn't that liberal.

I’ve wondered: if i’d gone up to everyone with who i was from the start, would that have changed things? Maybe people can accept someone who already is, not someone who’s becoming.  Maybe i can’t even stand to see myself in that middle area, becoming. I will never look right to myself in a dress, however i feel. I see the shadows on my face and close a door i desperately want to head right through. My impression of myself is too fixed now. I can imagine who i might’ve been, but getting there seems impossible now.

So our gift to you is all the time you need to become who you’re going to be.    Love, Dad

[letterstoira]

8/19/2018

Dear Ira,

Some of these letters i think i'll want you to read as soon as you can. Others will be for later. I'm not sure if this is a letter i can ever give you.

I'm 30 now, and i've been suicidal most of my life. I had one earnest attempt when I was 15, and a couple half-hearted episodes of taking entirely too many pills and not much minding whether or not i woke up. I did wake up of course, and i'm glad that i did. Glad because i got to stick around to see you, and glad because i am absolutely horrified at the idea of nonexistence, so much that even a fleeting thought of my death sends a dagger of adrenaline through my chest and keeps me up at night for hours of blank-faced terror. I am horrified of death and still almost daily think of suicide as if it would be a relief. It's not much of a stretch for me to say that you might do the same.

I don't want you to think that i'm constantly teetering on the edge of self-destruction. I am very truly happy a lot. Watching you rock back and forth on your hands and knees, just moments away from crawling, fills me with joy. So does your laugh, and your round belly, and the smell of your head after a bath. Your mother's skin floods me with peace and happiness, too. These are not superficial but full-body, warming, sustaining joys. Hell, even some good fried rice is enough to make me happy in a much more satisfying way than it ought to. But neither you, nor your mother, nor fried rice keep me from thinking about killing myself.

I think maybe this letter is in case you ever need the opposite message. Given your parents, you're probably going to be depressed, and most depressed people linger on thoughts of suicide, even if they never hurt themselves. If this is you, then what i want you to know is that depression does not mean the end of joy, and wanting to kill yourself does not doom you to a miserable life. Joy does not erase depression, and depression does not erase joy.

Counseling and medications helped me when i was a teenager first dealing with this depression. They might be necessary for me again some day. I know that i am much worse than most people at handling letdowns. It sounds like the worst joke, but my thought process genuinely is, “there's too much to do at work today; i should kill myself.” I've learned to just brush those automatic thoughts aside and move right along in most cases, but the worse the situation, the harder it is to quiet that suicidal voice. Sometimes it persists much longer than it should. It's still here now, as i'm writing this, but so am i.  

When you first identify your depression, it can feel like an oppressive, immovable weight. It may be unimaginable that you can continue to coexist with this crushing burden, and when you realize it cannot so easily be eradicated, the voice calling for the razor or the pills can seem downright reasonable. But after a while, you get to be so strong from lifting that weight. You get to know who you are when you have to decide to live every day.

I don't want to romanticize this. I hope you never understand what i'm talking about. I just want you to survive.

[letterstoira]

02/12/2018

Dear Ira,

No matter what we do for you as parents, you’re going to have bad days. I’m going to be responsible for a few of them, i’m sure, out of stupidity or callousness. Everyone has them, and i’m sure everyone has a few caused by their parents. That seems pretty universal. Figuring out a way through them isn’t really something i can do for you, though i promise i’ll help however i can. I’m betting that by the time you can read this, you’ll have figured out a few ways of your own to wade through the bad days.

You should know though that your bad days are probably going to be different from the ones most of your friends have. They might not be yet, and maybe they never will. But both your parents deal with major depression, so the numbers say you probably will too. Your bad days are probably going to be very bad, and they’re probably going to happen way too often. I am so sorry.

There are certainly ways of dealing with depression. When i was a teenager and just becoming aware of it, i had to be on an antidepressant and went to counseling every week for a while. I hated having to take the pills and would hide them beneath my tongue then spit them out, until it got so bad that i had to be watched and checked whenever i took one. I was worried about being turned into something that i wasn’t, but i never felt that happen, even once i was forced into taking them regularly. Eventually, i was okay with taking the pills. A few years later, i was taken off them. A lot happened in that time. I changed schools, changed friends, changed styles, had a few romantic partners, became something closer to who i am now… I can’t say whether or not the pills helped me, but i know they help a lot people. They help your mom every day. If you need them, take them. Nowadays, i know more what i need to do to minimize the bad days, even without the pills. I know when to shrug things off, to disconnect myself emotionally from something that really doesn’t have much impact on my life. Someone doesn’t like me seemingly without reason, shrug. A plan I’d made at work falls through, shrug. We can’t afford to do something your mom and i were looking forward to, shrug. Being active helps, too. I don’t mean in the, “you should EXERCISE did you know EXERCISE releases dopamine it’s impossible to be depressed on a TREADMILL have you tried YOGA you should get out in the SUN more” way of being active, i mean doing anything at all. Which, sure, could include exercise.

There can be a kind of satisfaction in stewing in your melancholy, and once you’ve started, inertia sets in and makes it seem impossible or at least very unappealing to do something else. So avoid that inertia. Be active however you can. Keep yourself busy with important work and causes you’re passionate about, or with meaningless entertainment and activities. Empty joy is better than empty sadness. There’s nothing noble about depression. Your mom and i, separately, each had to break ourselves from that fatal faux romanticism around depression that you see crop up in every deification of tortured artists, as if only misery is meaningful.

But we still have bad days. We have very, very bad days. I don’t know if that’s something that can be stopped. There are days, like today, when i feel incapable of doing anything. Or unwilling. Unmotivated, maybe. My head feels heavy and pounds like i’ve been crying for a half hour. I want to be home, in the dark, in bed, but i can’t be. It fucking sucks. I have to be here at work, so i rebel by writing you this on company time.

What i’d wish for you is a world where it will be acceptable to take the time that you need to curl up into your comfortable place, but that doesn’t look likely. Most people don’t understand depression, and capitalism demands you martyr your mental health for productivity. Getting through bad days may become an issue of survival for you. You can do it, but you will absolutely have days when that sentiment seems cruelly dismissive. So find out what works to get you through, and do it. If you need to scream, to listen to music i will find obnoxious and abrasive, to take antidepressants, to eat ice cream, to grind your teeth, to furiously jog, to throw yourself into a video game world, to skip between a dozen counselors until you find the right one, do that. I can’t tell you how to get through these days, but i can be there with you, if that’s what you need. If not, i’ll be in the next room, whenever you need me.

Love, Dad

[letterstoira]

08/22/2017

Dear Ira,

We've been dreaming you up, hoping to bring you into this world for so long, and now that you're finally coming, i find myself with flashes of doubt, wondering if it's fair to bring you in at a time like this. That hurts. There are Nazis marching in the street, a president who keeps taking common cause with them, and a public that can't quite decide if this a problem worth dealing with. We still haven't gotten around to fixing the cops shooting people and walking away, and whether or not money ought to be a prerequisite for dignity is not even a discussion on the table right now. The world feels like it's crumbling sometimes.

I have to remind myself that humans, or at least Americans, have a bizarre tendency toward apocalyptic thinking. This country and this world have certainly been in much worse positions. How long will we remember this particular end of the world? By the time you've reading this letter, we must have gone through a half dozen more cataclysms. I think it's never really going to be all right, and that thought give me its own kind of reassurance. I couldn't make the perfect world for you, but i promise to carve out a little hole to keep you safe and ready you to do your own part.

So i think this is the perfect time to bring you along. I want you to know that the world you're coming into isn't normal, but it's certainly not unchangeable. Your Mom and i are working on it every day. Nearly all of our friends are there with us, and so many millions more, too. Sometimes it feels like we're not getting anywhere. Maybe we're wrong. I don't know. I'm trying to end this letter on a note of hope, but it's not always easy to do that with honesty. We're going to keep trying though. I guess what i can honestly hope for is that you've known this before you read this.

Love, Dad