Try to Keep the Empty...from My Eyes

“she would try to keep the empty…from her eyes.”

I cannot get away from that line tonight. It’s from a Radical Face song called “the mute.” The kid from the song sounds kind of like the kid I was. Something wasn’t right. But, “fine” is what our family Christmas card communicated to the world.

I knew that song nailed me the first time I heard it, but I guess tonight I’m realizing that there was an empty to my mom’s eyes all along. She hid it her whole life. Until she was dying. That’s when she confided in me that she should have stood up to my dad.

And I don’t know what she meant exactly. My impression was that she meant standing up to him for my sister and my sake. My mom faded out of this life with the reality that neither of her kids functioned as adults. Something in our childhoods wasn’t okay. And my mom was sorry for that. With no strength she held my hand and communicated with the tears in her eyes something that was the opposite of empty.

It was a heartfelt “I fucked up matt”. It wasn’t okay to talk like that at young life or Christ Church, but this was it. She was done living. And her dying wish was that someone would fucking stand up to my dad. Or stand up for my kids. or something. Something had to fucking change in the family.

Every fucking paragraph that I’ve written so far has been tear stained. This is not my normal blog post. But, I’m thankful for having the support of my mom from beyond the grave. That probably doesn’t even make sense, but there’s this feeling of alone that I get sometimes. This feeling that my dad and my ex wife have so blurred reality that I’m never going to be seen as anything but fucking crazy in some circles.

I had a buddy I knew in college swing by for a minute the other night. And he was gracious enough to listen to me ramble about my story. But, he gave me a dose of reality in terms of the picture that has been painted of the man I am in my old Christian circles.

And tonight I guess I’m saying “fuck off” to that whole, fake world. Tonight I’m taking that mumford and sons line “learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck.” And I’m saying fuck off to the idea of hiding empty in my eyes. my kids are going to get the real. They are going to get me standing up to bull shit.

8 years ago I made an unpopular decision. and if i hadn't gotten divorced, the empty in my eyes these days would be unbearable. I remember the phone call when I told my wife I wanted a divorce. It was sometime in early January. I had no idea what I was getting into. I had no idea that people I called friend would judge me like they did, but mother fucker…I got to learn who I was independent of my significant other…of my job…of my church. turns out all those things took away from me learning to love me. only once outside those gates did i get to space where i could actually accept that i'm great.

And who the hell ever gets that gift? We’re all defined by stuff outside of us. oh man…but, when the stripper bailed on me. It was just me. And my therapist. Thank god for her. And thank god for my mom telling me the truth on her death bed.

She told me about flying to Colorado (I think) knowing my dad was going to ask her to marry him. She prayed on that flight something like “God if this isn’t right, make my plane crash.” Not exactly Casablanca. But, man…I came out of that marriage.

And my marriage was a train wreck too, but my kids are absolutely amazing. I was dying laughing in the Costco food court yesterday at the absolute comic genius that is my daughter. And the next day she said something that reminded me how young she is… “daddy…if we won the $300 million powerball, could we live on that for the rest of our lives?”

She’s a kid. Her brother is too. and they need someone to help them through shit. Someone who will do for them now what my mom waited until her dying breath to do for me. Stand up. Tell the truth. Call bullshit on family traditions.

The kids and I went to see “daddy’s home” tonight. and ya know what? I am fucking home. With those kids. and when I was married to their mom I was not home. And the craziest fucking thing happened in one of the closing scenes of “daddy’s home”. Marky mark and will F. walked into the daddy/daughter dance together to the T.I. song “liveyour life.”

T.I.’s work hasn’t been relevant in years, so the song choice was odd, but man I started insta-crying when I heard it. I blogged about it in 2008. The video for the song, shows T.I. giving up his old game in order to live his own life. His choices had their consequences…one scene shows him with his ass kicked…bloodied and bruised.

But, the end of the video is his victory dance. He walks away from the haters. Walks away from his past. Chooses to do his own thing. And his arms are raised in a V as he walks off into the sunset. What. The. Fuck. Was that song doing in that movie?

I don’t know, but man it meant something to me. I’ve been beaten up. Bloodied. Left for dead. Had shit talked on me that I don’t even know about, but I took off to live my own life. Empty in my kids eyes? May it never fucking happen. May they never go through the motions or be stuck with the mind fucks I’ve endured from their mom and their grandpa.

I was real with their grandma on her deathbed. I told her more than I’d ever told her about the stripper and grace and how important to me all that was. And she listened. And she said she was sorry. That was a good day. And I hope to get days like that down the road with my kids. I want them to live their life a la T.I. do what they want to do and not ever be stuck going through the motions or covering for a fake mother fucker.

Life is too fucking short. I write. That’s what I do. I was embarrassed by the realization that I wrote more blog posts in 2011 on this blog than I did the next 4 years combined. And in looking up my old blog to find the post about T.I.’s “live your life”…I found that I wrote 300 posts in 2010 and 2011 on the old, super secret blog. What the fuck have I been doing? I write. That’s how I make sense of shit. So, let’s get back to the writing. And when a song like the radical face one and a movie like daddys home somehow bring me to tears, there’s a reason for that, so I damn well better get the fuck out to the blog to try to make sense of it. No more of the empty eyed matthewblake. I’ve got to write through my shit and give my kids and the world something better than what I’ve been giving them.

edit: i hadn't watched the video for The Mute until after i wrote the blog, but that image at the end was powerful. the dad drinking his christianity aka cold beer and staying put in his world, while the mom got out of her comfort zone to chase me down.