Boy in the Bubble

I got an email today from an old grad school friend. How she found me, I have no idea. I Googled myself down to city and state, only to learn that someone who posted something on the Obama blog shares my name.

I know there are at least two of us in town, because someone’s daft grandmother sent me her grandson’s wedding present a couple of years ago. Don’t know where she found the address, but Jeff and Courtney don’t live here.

She called a year or so ago, still under the impression that I was her grandson, and I told her she had the wrong address and phone number. Also, I told her I still had the wedding present taking up space in the guest room closet.

She assured me that she would have the real people contact me (not sure how that’s possible since she doesn’t have the right address or phone number) and retrieve their box. After another year, I donated it to charity.

(We had a garage sale at work to raise money to provide hardcore homeless people that won’t seek assistance at shelter blankets, socks and gloves. I didn’t need fancy napkins or a table cloth that would stain horribly from something as basic as an iced tea glass.)

I don’t know how Ginger (my old friend) found me, but I’m glad she did. Other than hospital waiting rooms and bed-side visits, grad school was about the most intense thing I’ve ever done. And I miss the people I shared it with.

We all went our separate ways afterwards; we’re scattered all across the country. Most of them, I wouldn’t really want to see or talk to. I didn’t much like them then, and I probably wouldn’t like them any better now.

Grad school taught me that, with a few exceptions, I really don’t like academic types.

I did not pursue academia because it seemed to me an insular, closed world that had little to do with the realities of life. It’s also full of smug, intellectual wanna-be’s who wouldn’t know an original idea or a fresh thought if it bitch-slapped them.

Still, my years there were priceless. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. My friends and I were all in the same boat, and we made a boat-sized community among ourselves. We worked, and we talked. We created something out of nothing.

I miss that sense of community sometimes. Often, actually. The sort of informal cooperative where we passed papers around and asked for constructive criticism. Where one person’s strength saw another’s weakness. The honest and open collaboration of colleagues.

I’m not sure that exists anywhere outside the bubble of academia. But I couldn’t then, nor can I now, live in any bubble.

I’ve spent my life trying to learn how to live honestly and authentically. To be the person I really am: To be comfortable in my own skin.

That hasn’t always been easy. The “living-in-my-skin” part, that is.

I was estranged from my family for the better part of a decade, but not being honest about who I was and who I am was eating me from the inside out. I couldn’t do it any more. Not, and sleep at night.

The estrangement wasn’t my choice, but I knew I was finally being honest. Living authentically for the first time in my life.

The estrangement ended in a hospital waiting room in Memphis, TN in July 07. Daddy was in the CCU dieing. Mama turned to me said, “I’ve learned some things just don’t matter.” And I knew what she was talking about.

In a few simple words, she burst the bubble that had kept us apart for far too long. That I was her son had become suddenly much more important than whom I crawl into bed with at night.

I didn’t have any use for bubbles back then, and have even less for them now. They divide instead of unify. They label those outside them as “other” rather than as human beings. They objectify and do nothing to promote the common good.

And I don't have time for that.