Candid

November 10th, 2023 was going to be a great day because on this particular Friday, I was planning for one of those epic twice-a-year whiskey ragers that leave middle aged parents like me begging a god they don’t believe in for mercy the next day. On this Friday, I even booked a babysitter, then a reservation at a roof-top bar, and told my friend where I was going to be so he could safely drive me home after my wild hooligan shenanigans.

Adrian, my backup babysitter, canceled often, showed up at the wrong house several times, once broke a cabinet, kept our child up until nine so she could cook herself ramen, and invited me on more than one occasion to a frat party in someone’s basement. The more reliable babysitter took care of my son with ease, showed up on time, was skilled at putting him to bed, and always gently got him to clean up after himself. But since my wife had fallen in love and was leaving me for her, I had to book Adrian instead.

I somehow must have had advanced knowledge of the exact date I was going to hear the words

I want a divorce while sitting in a booth at the back of an Indian restaurant. I didn’t need to cancel my pre-arranged plans on this epic Friday since Adrian’s scheduled appointment and this public display of non-affection somehow happened to be on the same day. Serendipitously. Not at all an obvious thing that was absolutely going to happen so much so that I was taking internal bets on timing.

Before Adrian arrived that night, I had taken all the family photos off the walls except for a picture of my ex and her mom to be petty. Adrian predictably arrived twenty minutes late and said wait!- and started looking around. She then looked at me and I said yeah, shit happens. I told her I was going out to get hammered because of it and she wished me luck. 

I left my precious toddler son with the responsible babysitter and headed to the bar. Twenty minutes and four cocktails in at the dimly lit, mostly empty establishment overlooking a beautiful nighttime view of downtown, Adrian starts texting me her condolences again and my drunk ass starts texting back this twenty two year old babysitter about the profound sense of grief and loss I feel but how the casual cruelty, name calling, and belittlement I had experienced over the years made it feel right and worth it and how we haven’t told our son anything yet and breaking the news to him was going to be impossibly hard.

Yeah, Freddy was a good boy, she texts back.

Realizing that she was referencing the absence of the dog I had to put down the month before and not the lack of family photos on the walls, I started to laugh into my drink. When the waiter gave me a side eye I told the entire bar what had happened that day and they let me spend over $350 in Jameson and gingers in under two hours.

When I stumbled safely home at the exact same moment as my ex (uncanny timing again!) I told her loudly about the mix-up with the dog and the divorce, laughing. I must not have realized that Adrian was still there because my ex looked absolutely mortified. I might have laughed harder.

I wasn’t laughing the next day, and not just because of the I-promise-I’ll-never-drink-again-if-I-survive-this-hangover. I found some of the pictures I had removed from public view. They were frames filled with perfect photos of our previous little family. These sterile, contrived portrayals were of an idealized life developed by the bought-and-paid-for-photographers viewing us through the lens of what they thought was familial perfection.

One of the few frames that didn’t hold photography displayed similar sentiments had some of those overly cute tiny birds in a highly predictable series that went: 

First we had each other.

Then we had you.

Now we have everything.

Previously lacking stamina to throw away these particular prints, I found them again the next day lying on the kitchen counter. This can’t be real, I thought.

Even when filled with smiling photos and silly prints, that house had always felt empty. Having exposed the walls as barren, I knew wherever I went next should come alive with light and love and reminders of the interwoven complexity of grief and joy whenever possible.

I had always known what my decorating style was not and then, inevitably, it was reinforced to me that the decorations I felt most comfortable with must be the opposite of what I knew mine was not. But this lack of duality communicated wrongness to me as someone who is non-binary. The world defines me as non in relation to the binary I am not.

Thus, the first frame that went up on my new wall contained a gift from a former gender expansive colleague that said simply: we are the ones who define who we are. There was even an already perfectly placed nail in the exposed brick. I elevated this frame with minimal effort onto the wall, a centerpiece to build around.

Nailed it. Photography by Sail Away Photography.

With this I realized how open my options were for displaying affection on my interior walls. I began privately musing of the decor I had previously been too ashamed to seriously consider. At the top of my list: fairylights!

This is perfect! I internally squealed, the sense of how did I not know this existed before spreading through me as I flirted with hitting the Target app check-out button. In the cart: a wall-hanging fairy light display with clips for printed photos. You could easily put them up, take them down, replace them, add more, take some away, change the order, leave them the same. A world of possibilities for supporting new configurations and maintaining old ones, the duality of life’s decisions and directions on display and adorned by those darn cute lil’ lights to boot. Plus they were like twelve bucks! Of course I bought two.

My enthusiasm was short lived when I realized the height and length of the fairy lights didn’t match up with almost any of the walls because of the character of the condo’s top floor vaulted ceilings. It took several weeks before that eureka moment: they were the perfect length for either side of the hallway to my son’s bedroom.

Once up, they were spaced perfectly on the wall and the only thing to do next was to start placing clipped-on photos. I texted my best friends to send me random phone photos of them or us. I asked for a lot so I could pick and choose my favorites.

What I received were pictures that took only 1,000 words each to speak a universe full of characters and connection into my life.

I loved the selfie taken as my two best friends and I laughed when my friend’s dog joyously interrupted the shot. This was the first time one of my friends had had others over to her apartment and wanted to document the moment.

Those same friends dressed up as each other, complete with matching shades as one of them mirrored the other’s gorgeous peony arm tattoos with sharpie markings for twin day at the gym where we had all met. 

Another picture was of a friend placing a metal over the head of another friend at the finish line of his first half-marathon. She volunteered at the finish line specifically so she could do this.

I had a picture of my son and my platonic soulmate lying on the ground smiling on a day that I needed help babysitting my son. They had spent over four hours together taking cute videos and making arts and crafts.

Photography by Sail Away Photography. Lighting by Target fairylights.

Every time my son and I would walk to his room we’d be enveloped in these real-life moments lovingly swirling around us.

All of them were my favorite.