Mile Marker #8: Family, Food, and Failure

In which: Maggie thinks about family history and barbecue (and also existential crises, because why not).

Funerals suck. Naturally, that’s why we didn’t have a regular funeral. This past weekend, we held a celebration of life for my grandmother (Gambi). There were the usual speeches and crying (lots and lots of crying), but we also spent a lot of time laughing.

We’re all theater people, brought together by Gambi at The Little Theater on the Corner in Ellicott City back in the 80s and 90s (no joke — my parents met there and had a classic “enemies to lovers,” “boss’s son who gets away with murder vs badass employee who won’t put up with his bullshit” Hallmark movie experience). So it stands to reason that most of the speeches and stories brought down the house, either with laughter or with crying (seriously, did I mention the crying? I’m so dehydrated).

After the big party on Saturday, the immediate family met up at the theater downtown to say goodbye, then drove up to Green Ridge State Park to scatter her ashes in the same campsite where we did the same for my granddad. It was a beautiful day, especially for August, and the heat and bugs behaved long enough for us to eat BBQ, build a giant fire, roast marshmallows, and shoot cans with the Rockin’ Rider BB Gun we found in the basement. (You know, because funerals.)

It was a fantastic weekend but I’m definitely still in emotional and social recovery. All my batteries are dead. I’m hoping my creative battery at least got a chance to recharge yesterday (I just slept all day - except for a short stint to get out of the way of the window guys I basically didn’t get out of bed until 4:30) because I have a lot of writing to catch up on today, as well as a workshop to get through before class tonight. But I’ve got plenty of time and I’m not worried :)

I also spent a significant portion of yesterday catching up with my cousin via text. He and I don’t get a lot of time to hang out and with COVID and him moving to freaking Alaska I actually hadn’t seen him in 2+ years until this weekend. And then things were so busy that we never really got a chance to split off and catch up.

But we made the best of it yesterday and talked about both of our existential angst issues (see previous blogs and one I deleted because it was too whiny, lol). He was on a plane so he had no excuse not to talk to me. (I’m kidding, he wanted to.) The big stuff as always was our professional goals. He talked a lot about how he feels like he’s “made it” and now doesn’t know what to do with that, while I shared all my internal (and sometimes external) screaming about feeling like I’m ten thousand years from “making it” and making very little progress.

All in all it was a good conversation and I feel like we both understood where the other was coming from. We’re very different people but we’re also very similar in the way we think, or at least in the way we look at success and failure. So, neither of us wasted time with the “but you’ve already done so much!!!” platitudes that have been driving us both crazy (WE KNOW) and focused on the actual future.

There were still times he pissed me off, but he’s my cousin so that’s to be expected. But I came out of the conversation feeling a little better about things. My plan hasn’t really changed and it’s not like we discovered anything groundbreaking in that conversation but I at least reaffirmed that my current plan is a decent one and I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until it comes to fruition.

I’ve been so focused on how insurmountable my personal mountain is that I’ve had trouble taking any steps forward. Like I said, lots of existential angst and millennial ennui. I’m still figuring things out and that’s totally okay. I think COVID in general threw a wrench in a lot of people’s plans, not to mention it completely changed the face of what “work” looks like in our world. So like, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that it’s okay that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not really supposed to. No one’s really supposed to.

We just kinda toddle on and do our best and shoot some cans and laugh a lot and love each other and stay kind and find our ways to make a difference in someone else’s life.

Love ya, Gambi. Thank you for creating the safe, supportive, creative, hilarious, tumultuous, and incredible family we have today. We’ll keep it going for you.

Til next time,
Mags