Unfinished: I Just Want a Lover an Easy Lover not an Achy Breaky Heart

I would walk past this image at the end of the basement stairs for more years than I can actually remember. I didn't realize that a photograph of this collage of photos would be my remaining memory of it. It's a time capsule of family and home; of what is broken and gone. It illustrates my struggling entry into this world as a premature newborn with CP, it illustrates the fragments and pieces of what I know of my parents' story as a union, it has images of the places that I always wanted to be and the places that I once called home that I can't go back to anymore, it carries reminders of the religion I left behind that I once thought saved my parents, and of a time before I didn't like winter. 

Then, “The twistin' of the knife, the bend until they break. And then it all goes wrong” (Noah Cyrus, “I Just Want a Lover”). A Kellogg family Christmas has been a lot of things, a collection of voices, much like the Cyrus family quotes herein. When I see my mom and her nurse's uniform, full of hope, promise, and future I see what could have been. I see what never was. As I see a lot of posts from women in the workplace, that's a tale as old as time, a bright future curveballed by a new promise of family. I see the Christmases that she didn't get to be a part of due to divorce and later death. I remember my mother now because of why she wouldn't be remembered before.

Later, “Tie me to horses and I still wouldn't leave ya. But you're not an easy lover” (Miley Cyrus, “Easy Lover”). It's hard to imagine that my parents were at any point a happy couple. It's hard to see the hope and promise of young life that my sisters and I had. But, that's the story that the pictures tell. That was a whole other life. It was a lifetime ago. It was before heaven burned in hell. It was when home was still a place I could go. From the beautiful shores of California to the blizzards of Colorado, a family warped in time, a future rewritten. 

“But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart I just don't think he'd understand” (Billy Ray Cyrus, “Achy Breaky Heart”). I see not just one brother left standing but two. I see the hand of death and destruction upon a collection of people who all share the bond of family who all had that bond broken. I think about my family every day. I think about them a lot more this time of year. That's what loss does and I've had to learn to move with it because there's no getting over that. I might be able to hold the joy and the pain in coexistence. I might be able to heal more than I break. Those are my goals. This is the kind of thing that sits in my mind while I'm at home trying to tell a different story and seeing the similarities. This is the kind of thing that simmers in the background when I'm working and the reason I don't get too attached to my work or anything else anymore. 

Finally, “Now I've got you on my mind and I'm wonderin' tonight if we could've been more but we were left unfinished” (Noah Cyrus, “Unfinished”). Learning how to make new goals and new dreams when the old ones fall apart takes a lot of intentionality. It takes a desire to heal, it takes a recognition of when you're stuck, and when you can't let go. The story is unfinished and I know that even the now won't remain the same. And, that's how life goes. When I was younger, I didn't think that everything in life was temporary, until I lost everything you see in this picture. Except for me, I'm still here. 

While I won't be “moving on for Jesus” (it's in the picture), I move forward for me every day because I know that healing is both important and possible. I also know that it's necessary for me not to repeat the cycle. I don't need a savior, I just want a lover, an easy lover and not an achy breaky heart but the story is unfinished. As I reflect on holidays and histories of my past, I look forward to writing the next chapter.