The Bloomin Onion that changed everything.

Eleven years ago, sharing cocktails at an Outback Steakhouse with my mom, I learned that maybe my dad isn't my dad.  Tears did not go well with the Bloomin' Onion we were sharing.

I flew home, called my dad, and he said all the right things.
Me:  Um, I just saw Mom.  She said some upsetting things.  Are you not really my dad?
Dad: It doesn't matter.  We can get tested if you want, but I'm your dad and always will be.

That's so him.  "It doesn't matter."  I asked if he had always known, and he said no.  Which made his reaction all the sweeter.

I'm close to my dad, for the most part.  We've run two marathons together, shared red wine roadies, traveled to Portugal.  There was that whole fifteen(ish) year period where he was married to someone who wasn’t that nice to him and made no effort to include me in their combined life. But, especially after their divorce, he’s been a pretty consistent figure in my life.

And still, occasionally - maybe two or three times a year - I google biodad.  I know his name, his address and phone number, the name and occupation of his daughter.  I know what he does for a living (and his work address) and where he went to school.  For years I was desperate to know what he looks like.  Maybe because I've struggled so much with my own appearance...or because people sometimes say I look like the dad-who-raised-me dad...or because it's natural curiosity to check out where 50% of your DNA comes from, or because sometimes people ask me if I’m Jewish (I’m not…but biodad is).

About a year ago, I found him on Facebook…his profile and a picture.  He’s in his early or mid 70s - largely immune to the Internet but apparently caved to the power of Facebook.  

I’ve waffled back and forth between wanting to meet him and not; between wanting to get his medical records and not; between wanting to meet my half-sister or not. I do know that he knows about me and (I'm guessing here) prefers to keep my existence as a skeleton in his own closet.   

UPDATE: April, 2019
The end game for me was always reaching out…making a move, letting him know that I know and that I know he knows, and seeing what his reaction would be. A couple of weeks ago, in a state of deep depression and in a “fuck it all” mental space, I friended him on Facebook. I even added a note…something along the lines of “I think you know who I am, and this seemed to be just as good as the White Pages in terms of reaching out.” Facebook Messenger indicates that he’s read the message, but no response, no acceptance of the friend request, no acknowledgment of my existence. And, while I generally feel better when the ball is in my court and I don’t have to face the possible rejection, doing something that I’ve thought about for years—attempting outreach—feels oddly satisfying. I’m not convinced that he’ll ever respond. I’m also not convinced that he knows how to use Facebook, so there’s that. Maybe in another year I’ll try again.

Your Company is Not Your Family

I was fired the first Friday of the first week of 2017.  It wasn't unexpected, insomuch as I know what it feels like to be ghosted and I've been through plenty of breakups and unrequited relationships.  What was unexpected?  The complete and utter mind fuck I'd willingly jumped into. 

For the purposes of this story, I'll call the company Charles.  I'd joined mid-2015 after a seven-year stint in Big Corporate America.  Charles was unexpected.  I'd been looking for a few months, playing the field, flying in and out of New York to meet and greet and wine and dine. Then I happened upon an article about Charles...and my first meeting was the closest I'd ever felt to love at first sight.  The energy.  The empathy.  The witty repartee.  The mutual admiration, and belief that I belonged, and safety in feeling wanted.  

The honeymoon period was lovely.  I heard everything I wanted to hear...all the talk about family and love and #blessed and forever.  I bought it.  I'd never been in a relationship like this; I received as much love as I gave, I had a spring in my step, and I told anyone who would listen how wonderful Charles was.

Then things changed...or  more likely, the way I saw them changed.  While Charles demanded my undying loyalty and devotion, urged me to be patient, and continued plying me with forevers, the reality wasn't living up to the words.  Others joined and captured Charles's attention.  I began to doubt myself, wonder what I could do better or differently to stay in Charles's favor...a fool's errand as more people joined the family each day.  

The doubts turned to fear.  I worried -- constantly and obsessively -- that Charles would break my heart.  That the love I'd felt at the beginning would stop, that I'd be turned away.  And it was so unbelievably easy to believe in that ending...if Charles was family, I knew what happened to families.  They break.  Love ends.  Divorces move forward and homes and record collections and toys are divided and put into boxes and new and different lives are formed.  If Charles's intent of the family rhetoric was to foster a sense of belonging and security, the impact on me was the exact opposite.  I spun more and more, until I questioned my own capabilities, intelligence, and worth.

And then it happened.  Charles dumped me.  Without a real reason, without trying to work it out, without much discussion. Deals were reached and papers signed and social media adjusted to limit Charles's presence in my daily life.

Here's the thing about all of this.  Charles isn't a person.  It's a goddamn company.  And COMPANIES ARE NOT PEOPLE.  They can't love you back.  They have bottom lines and quarterly objectives and stakeholders -- things I appreciate as a holder of an Ivy League MBA.  I loved Charles more than I've loved any boy...at the time, certainly more than I loved myself.  I made Charles my boyfriend and husband and confidant and center of my world, and when our relationship ended I felt stripped of my identity.  That's on me.

I don't regret my time with Charles. I gained a ton of new skills and the name on my resume didn't hurt in finding my next job.  But more importantly I had my heart broken and picked myself up and realized that I spent so much time worrying about what would happen.  Then it happened.  And I'm fine -- perhaps even better -- for it.  I'm loving my new job and new company, and for as great as the company and my colleagues are I have no illusion or expectation for this organization to be my friends and family and identity.  I have all of those things, separately and regardless of my career, and they're pretty fucking awesome.  

the one with wynnona judd

In 1999, I went back to Nashville for my senior year of college.  I'd broken up with my first real-deal boyfriend before summer vacation and was coming back to school single for the first time in a long time.  

At the very best, that was a tumultuous time with my family.  My dad had remarried someone whom I emphatically disliked.  They'd moved in together with her three boys after I went to college, and the five of them became a family in my absence.   My mom had married a former high school boyfriend (husband #4) and run off to San Antonio.  And my dad's ex-wife (married to him from the time I was three to seventeen) was preparing to marry again. Pictures that I had grown up with, the tiniest of traditions or customs that we actually held, and any familiarity of what "going home" meant vanished as each of my parents stepped into this latest version of his or her life.  While I wish I could say that I took this all in stride, a horrible cycle of feeling rejected then acting distant then feeling more rejected had developed.  If my parents had all chosen a partner and created a new life, I was determined to do the same. 

I met and started dating Ricky.  He managed a local bar I'd started visiting...the one where I drank too many bottles of wine with my friends or wrote the occasional paper over a cocktail at the bar. It was by all accounts the wrong situation; we had different goals, different dreams, and different ways of looking at the world.  He said things -- about his financial situation and unpaid bills, his time as a Green Beret, his past in general -- that just didn't add up.  But he gave me attention and loved me and told me that it would going to be okay, all at a time when I wasn’t getting that from my family and couldn't hear it from my friends and didn’t have the capacity to give it to myself.  

The summer after graduation I moved to Connecticut and started working in New York, while Ricky stayed in Nashville.  We talked and texted everyday and I made several trips to Nashville. That November he visited me in Connecticut for the first time, and we made plans to go to a Wynonna Judd concert at the Mohegan Sun casino. In fact, the the trip was orchestrated around her show. His best friend was her lawyer, and I had spent several nights my senior year of college playing poker with the Judds instead of partying at the same-old frat party. We had amazing seats at the concert, and near the halfway point she called him up to the stage…where he proposed.

For those who wonder why I said yes...there were four thousand people watching and what felt like as many spotlights shining directly on me.  I was pulled up on stage and she sang a song to us and for the evening (and with as many glasses of wine I'd had at that point), it was all sort of fun.  I woke up the next morning with the ultimate  "how the actual fuck did this happen" hangover, a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach and a resolve that this was my chance to be loved.  And then he flew away the next day and I could immediately shove any wedding-related magazine or congratulations card to the very, very back of my closet.  This was long before I learned to deal with things head-on; I was deep in the "let's pretend this is fine" haze.  

For several months I wore the ring without ever thinking about what getting married would actually entail.  This was easy...I was working my ass off in New York and he lived far, far away.   But eventually he began pressuring me to quit my consulting job and move back to Nashville; he was eager for us to buy a house together and start our life.  The house was the last straw...Ricky had terrible credit, and had wanted to do the whole thing in my name.  I’d grown up believing marriage to be temporary...but the prospect of a thirty-year mortgage was an actual commitment. Six months after the engagement I flew to Nashville, broke up with Ricky in person, and flew home in the same day.  

This is the first and only time I’ve been proposed to. I’ve often thought back on that time and while I can’t believe I let it go that far, I totally understand how it did, and what he gave me that I wasn’t getting from anyone else. Aside from the age difference and the bad credit and the wildly opposing political views and his love of guns and extreme messiness and fabrications about his past there was one other thing…his last name was Pigg.  It's not why I ended it, but--and no disrespect--it wasn't a name I ever wanted to have and that had been a point of tension.  And so now...nearly 20 years later and still single...at least I can remind myself that I'm not Mrs. Pigg. 

My life in the circus.

The house lights were down, spotlights set to the three trapezes - one for each ring under the giant blue and white big top. The 2,000-seat arena was nearly vacant -- filled with coaches and family members and other performers.  I climbed the rope to my spot on the bar, rigged as high as it could go for this last Saturday rehearsal before the shows began again on Monday.  The routine started and I performed the first few sequences with ease.  And then came my long-time foe: the one-arm stand.  

Seven months earlier, only days into my first year of middle school and new to Sarasota, FL, I had joined the Sailor Circus: a year-long circus program sponsored by the county school board.  The circus was comprised entirely of kids aged 8-18 and required a 6-day-a-week commitment to the program. For the first four months, we showed up every day after school to try out for the acts that interested us.  That December, I was selected to be in three acts: tumbling, clowns, and most exciting, the static trapeze.  We spent January through March practicing our acts and running through the show.  Practice time ended in late March—at which point two weeks of shows were held in the arena.  

The circus was my first serious commitment to...anything.  And it was no joke. This wasn't about showing up to perform, it was being involved in every single aspect of the operation.  We cleaned bathrooms and chairs and floors.  We recovered equipment and made sparkly things sparklier and painted anything that needed it.  On the Saturdays that we didn't do cleaning detail we performed in parades or at nursing homes.  During show season we sold tickets and popcorn and programs.  Anyone in middle school or older was taught to rig equipment - positioning and tying off ropes and adjusting pulleys and generally assuming some responsibility for the safety of our friends who were 50 or 60 or 100 feet up in the air. 

The static trapeze act was officially the "Middle School Production" and was comprised of a trapeze in each of the three rings.  Each trapeze held six people and the lowest point was about 15-20 feet off the ground.  We reached the trapeze by swiftly and gracefully climbing a rope (a feat in and of itself!), and once settled we performed a series of synchronized movements.  The one-arm stand was the hardest and even after months and months of practice I couldn't nail it.  The move required balancing your entire body weight on (you guessed it) one arm while gracefully dangling the rest of your body from the trapeze.  I'd fallen from the bar during previous rehearsals.  And during my first show I couldn't make my way back to the bar and had to descend early...standing there poised (and moritified) as my peers finished the act.  My coach pulled me aside after that; she taught me how to fake it for the sake of the show and my safety and offered to reevaluate the situation at the dress rehearsal before the second week of shows. 

In that moment, I was relieved that my coach gave me an out for this beast of a move.  And I was embarrassed and felt inadequate and saw this as further proof of my inherently limited athleticism.  And most of all - I was determined to get this mother fucker right.  My dad found out where the circus procured  trapezes and bought one for the garage.  That first week of shows I faked it during the performances and went home to practice late into the night.  After seven months of practice and a week of willful determination something clicked.  The one-arm stand was mine.  I pulled my coach aside at the dress rehearsal and told her I was ready...knowing that if I could successfully do it that evening I'd officially be allowed to stop faking it.    

The lights down, the first sequences of the routine out of the way, and my moment came. I felt everyone watching collectively hold their breath.  They all knew that I hadn't been able to do it, and that I'd been faking it.  And turn-two-three, one-arm-stand-two-three, turn to the front-two-three and it was done.  The applause was immediate and my smile was the biggest it's ever been.  We finished the routine, and I descended the rope ready to take on the next week of sold-out shows.  At the time, I didn't know that accomplishment would be such a touchstone...the one-arm stand still holds the top spot in the "if I did that, I can do anything" list and would later propel me to run marathons and complete all-night study sessions and make some seriously adult decisions.