My mom and her sister took turns having kids in the 1980s: I was born in ’83, my brother in ’84, and cousins followed in ’85 and ’86. Together we spent our childhoods running around our grandparents’ house, with the exception of a cousin we’ll call Brandon, who rolled. Born without use of his legs (he has limited use of his arms), he’s always gotten around in a wheelchair — he’s hell on wheels, you could say.
Brandon and I were in and out of the hospital as kids, and the attention our conditions sometimes demanded of our parents weighed heavily on our younger brothers, who developed similar behavioral problems. His brother’s depression was diagnosed very early in life, while the extent of my brother Felix’s mental illness didn’t fully reveal itself until we were in our late teens. This left Felix the lone ‘healthy’ one of the four of us when we were younger, and each of us envied him for our own reasons.
I admired his ability to make friends and not care about things that mattered to me, like following the rules. He was gregarious and gifted with an athleticism that dazzled me as someone who tripped over my own feet and walked into walls. When he had a couple of seizures in early grade school, I worried he’d choke on his tongue and camped at his bedside to summon help if necessary overnight. And then he triumphed in ways Brandon and I couldn’t: his epilepsy responded to short-term medication and receded almost as quickly as it arrived.
The world wasn’t Felix’s oyster for long — he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder before graduating from high school, which can only be described as a tragedy. My brother who seemed to have it all was left with almost nothing. I sometimes think of this when my sisters make envious comments about other people’s lives, including my own. “Must be nice to own a house” or “I wish I was married to a doctor” are common refrains. Have they any clue how desirable their lives seem to others, like Felix or Brandon or me?
Sometimes I want to set them straight, though it’s wiser to remain silent. In those moments I’m wryly reminded not only of Yo La Tengo’s “You Can Have It All,” one of my favorite covers (the bouncy vocals! the magnificent cello!), but of “Tears Are in Your Eyes,” the poignant appeal to a habitually depressed partner that immediately follows it on 2000’s classic And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. That song plays like a documentary of my marriage to Crankenstein. How would my lesbian sister react if I replied “Must be nice to have always been healthy and to have a healthy partner”?
Or “Must be nice to have two incomes,” a luxury I didn’t have during the years I scrambled, saved and sacrificed to purchase my first home, a modest 864 sq. ft. number (not counting its leaky basement) in a blue collar neighborhood. At the time I felt trapped in a low-paying dead-end job and couldn’t stomach continued rent increases.* I also financially supported my then-partner, who wouldn’t commit to a career or educational path and was oblivious to the slow, fragile recovery of an economy pulverized by the Great Recession.
What if I simply replied “Must be nice to have a solid relationship”? Appearances can be deceiving — that’s what this post is about — but my sister and her partner seem pretty happy together, while I’m fairly certain my marriage is doomed despite the fondness my wife and I share for each other. Then there’s our youngest sister, with her gaggle of rambunctious, absurdly adorable kids, two of them still toddlers. Her resentments more than any others make me smile ruefully to myself. “Must be nice to be a mother,” I always think in response.
That isn’t to say I haven’t been obscenely lucky. Anything that’s ever gone wrong in my life could’ve been infinitely worse, and the things that have gone right have been gratifying and at times wonderfully surprising. But I’d trade almost everything I have, with a few sentimental exceptions, for good health and parenthood without a second thought. Crankenstein would probably do the same for a life without her burdens, as would Felix for a life without delusions and Clozaril.
From a distance, anyone can look like they have it all. It’s once you’re close-up that it’s much easier to see what’s missing.
*That’s a terrible reason to purchase a house and if I could travel back in time, I’d punch myself in the face however many times it took not to make that same decision. Financially, my plan worked out as expected and gave me far more security in the long run than I would’ve had otherwise. But there were more important things I should’ve been focused on then.