The Story

“My story is filled with broken pieces, terrible choices, and ugly truths. It’s also filled with a major comeback, peace in my soul, and a grace that saved my life.” - Kathy Browne

When I was a kid, my father would sneak off to the bathroom for what felt like hours at a time. He called it his throne. It was the only place, between his family and those who worked for him, where he could find solitude. And in that solitude, he always had a stack of fantasy novels that he read to escape into faraway lands.

One time, my sister and I were playing hide and seek. She decided to hide in the bathroom closet, convinced that I wouldn’t think to find her there. Unfortunately for her, my father had decided to visit his “throne,” leaving her to question how long she could hold out before letting him know she was in there.

All I will say is that she learned that day that some mistakes are only meant to be made once in a lifetime. Over the past few years, I have read an embarrassing number of fantasy novels. In truth, I am one of about one million single women and gay men across the world who can make that claim.

For someone who spends the majority of the day in my mind questioning how I can do more and be better, it has been a much-needed respite.

For the closeted tween inside of me who watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer and fantasized about having a two-hundred-year-old vampire soul mate, it has been comforting to return to a very familiar part of myself.

I look forward to my nights at home with a cup of tea, a soft blanket, and a book with a theme that matches all those I have previously read. The heroine grows up modestly, being overlooked by those around her, only to stumble into a dangerous situation that leads her to not only find her soulmate but also become the most powerful of all witches/fairies/dragon riders/whatever the woman writing the book calls them.

I love it every time. I love the twists and turns. I love the surprises that I am confident any twelve-year-old would catch, but my deep emotional involvement in the plot renders me completely off guard. I love looking at the pictures of the smug female authors with their power-posed headshots and signature lip color.

I then love to use the plot of the story to judge that same author’s marriage and wonder which parts of her life story she is projecting in the plot.

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All of it is crack for someone wired the way I am, and I smile each time that I finish another book, knowing that I will finally get to see how it looks on the shelf with all of my old friends.

I spent most of my life wishing my life away. Wishing I had been born different than who I am, to a different family and circumstance. At every moment of struggle, I did everything I could to escape my life and blame the world around me for my pain.

And yet, if I look at it from the frame of a book that I would pick up off the shelf, it is one hell of a story.

As much as I hope the main characters in the books I read get happy endings, I would be bored if it all had been handed to them. I love reading books filled with deeply complex characters who must confront every aspect of themselves to become who they are meant to be. I love it when an author can cause you to hate a character at first glance, only for you to be in their corner at the end of the series. And more than anything, I love it when love itself allows people to break through even their limits of what is possible, to show up for those they care for most.

To put it mildly, my life has been anything but boring.

I was born to a woman who spent decades being terrorized and mistreated by men. Who turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the fact that her brain was constantly at war with itself, and yet, even at her lowest, she never gave up. She single-handedly got herself help. Even when she couldn’t love herself, she found a way to love her children and granddaughter to the point where she would cry even at the slightest mention of how much they meant to her.

You want a complex character? How about someone who could quote Toni Morrison, was deeply passionate about politics and European soccer, who also, at one time, drove her car accidentally into a supermarket because she “parked incorrectly”?

Or my father, who grew up the son of a Portuguese Fisherman who had won a medal for sinking the most enemy ships in World War II. The same man who kicked my father off the boat as a child called him “the worst fisherman in history.” Instead of following in the family business, my father hitchhiked the country with his dog. He played guitar with strangers around campfires and later ran Inns with hundreds of guests on property each evening.

He preached “being cool”, and nothing made him laugh more than embarrassing his children. He was a shoulder for many to cry on, all while internally dreaming that he could show up in the world differently than he was. He was painfully stubborn yet gave himself permission to try to learn things far beyond his skill level, including the time he installed the plumbing for his shower without any experience. So what if the hot was cold and the cold was hot? It worked all the same.

If you want to know who he was, it wasn’t the house people fought over most, but instead a “Chicks That Rock” concert t-shirt and a tiny Buddha statue. Those were the items that those who loved him felt best represented him.

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One of the greatest gifts of my parents’ passing has been getting to look back on it all differently and tell new stories.

There were a lot of hard days and even darker nights, but it all made the moments where laughter was shared hit each of us deeper. Our traditions were funky and all our own. My sister went from being in musicals to being a florist. I went from having tremors when surrounded by too many people to performing on stage in front of hundreds.

No part of it could have been predicted. In truth, a lot of it still doesn’t make sense, and yet that’s what I have learned to love most about it all.

I am grateful for everything. Every character. Every struggle. Every moment I wondered if it was even worth holding out hope.

Somehow, as I look back at everything that has come so far, it all feels oddly perfect; even the moments that I questioned the most.

My father died in the hospital I was born in. I watched his last breath in the exact same place he witnessed my first.

My mother passed away before witnessing an election and current events that would have broken her heart in a way that may not have been repairable.

Now my sister and I get to walk forward in our own lives carrying the best of each of them, sharing their lessons, and living in their honor.

In short, there is a lot of my life that I didn’t love living, but I would read the crap out of this book.

I don’t know what is to come, and that’s the best part.

No matter how many pages and chapters I have left, I find myself each day feeling more and more grateful that I get to call all of this mine.

With Love,

Clayton