TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

We are imperfect, and the people we love are imperfect, and the people who love us are imperfect. My children know their mother makes mistakes and doesn’t have all the answers. They know I get cranky when I’m hungry, or when something is taking too long, or when Bluetooth is on the fritz and my music won’t play in the car. That’s my real “rage bait,” as they call it. They know I’m only human — that I’m not always my best self — and they’re kind enough to give me grace and love me anyway. That’s what love is, I think: recognizing that the people in your life are fallible and loving them anyway.

Sometimes people we love let us down, or hurt us, or leave us. Where does the love go then? The older I get, the more I realize that I can still love people who have let me down, as long as I’m clear about who they are and what their capacity is, and as long as I set healthy boundaries. They might be trying their best, but their best just isn’t good enough. They might not seem to be trying much at all, but maybe that’s all they’re capable of. The thing about blood family is that we don’t choose it — but we do get to choose how we navigate those relationships, and who we allow to have access to us. We get to set boundaries.

Today’s poem reminds me that even when distance is necessary — or imposed — love and memory are tethers that are elastic. They stretch to accommodate separation. And if we’re lucky, they stretch as needed but don’t snap.

Graduation
by Edgar Kunz

When you showed up drunk as hell, humming
tunelessly to yourself, and slumped against
the auditorium’s faux-wood paneling  — when
you fumbled in the pockets of your coat,
fished out a cigarette, brought it to your lips,
then, realizing for the first time where you were,
tossed it away and said Fuck it  loud enough
that everyone turned in their seats and a friend
elbowed me and asked if I knew you — I shook
my head and spent the next hour wondering why
I was so glad you came. You, who slept
each night in your battered van, who skipped
meetings and lied to your sponsor, who still
called your ex-wife every day, restraining order
be damned. You shouldn’t have been there
either: a hundred yards was the agreement
after you gathered all the meds in the house
into a shoebox and threatened to take them.
You had come regardless. You were there.
And I was there. And when I walked the stage
you hollered my name with a kind
of wild conviction, then said it a second time,
less convinced, and I thought of that night
when the cops came and you, unashamed
of the fuss you caused, of your desperate,
public struggle for happiness, kissed me
on the head — once, twice — and went quietly.

“Graduation” from TAP OUT by Edgar Kunz. Copyright© 2019 by Edgar Kunz. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.