What I’m Reading

This week I picked up local journalist Brittany Hailer’s 2019 memoir Animal You’ll Surely Become. I bought it not because I knew anything about the book itself, but because I know Brittany professionally and am familiar with her journalism (which is excellent).

What I learned in reading the book is that Hailer and I share more things in common than just being Pittsburgh-based writers: we are also both adult children of alcoholics. While her lyrical prose would have impressed me if we didn’t share a similar history, the fact that we do made her words cut deep.

The memoir is a reflection on the traumas that cause alcoholism in the lives of individuals, and the trauma that their alcoholism, in turn, inflicts on the entire family.

In a scene that mirrors my own experience with my father, Hailer says, “Dad was lost then, hidden behind flesh and heat. He’d get in your face, too close, too much. All id. All pain. His eyes like a chained dog’s.”

And yet, she is capable of extending compassion and understanding to her father—something that I struggle to do. She goes on, “I think we all knew dad was afraid. That’s probably why we all tried to forgive him. The angriest men are the ones who are suffering the most.”

What I’m Thinking About

Since finishing the book, I have been thinking about how interconnected we are, and how trauma is passed down from generation to generation. Hailer makes this point well when she says, “My father has since been diagnosed with PTSD and complex trauma. And alcoholism.

I’ve been diagnosed with codependency.”

Indeed, it is nearly impossible to grow up with traumatized parents without having that trauma manifest in you in some way. Even when we do not know the whole of our parents suffering, we feel it deeply within ourselves. I feel my parents’ pain in my bones.

What I am also thinking about, though, is the way that Hailer works to reframe her history of trauma and abuse. “Trauma is intoxicating,” she comments. “It can spin us dizzy on a Wednesday afternoon. It can launch us into a panic in the middle of a theater. It can bring us to our knees on the sidewalk. It can send us into the night, disorient us, slur our speech, break our confidence. But it can build us, too. It can fortify us.”

Part of the project of the sort of self-reflection that writing a memoir requires (I say as I am 6 chapters deep in writing my own memoir), is recognizing where our strengths and weaknesses come from. The interesting thing about this process is the realization that they often come from the same place.

The remarkable beauty of Animal You’ll Surely Become lies in the work Hailer does to break the generational cycle of abuse. After suffering similar traumas as her father, she sees him in her own impulse to drown her feelings in booze. Where she breaks from her father, though, is in her ability to take responsibility for her life and face her demons. She says,

We both have to learn to wake up and walk without a hangover, learn to remember, and learn to face the man in the dark.

Let me rephrase that: We cannot forget him. We cannot drink him away. Our trauma, inherited and inflicted, is ours.

What I’m Excited About

Most simply, I’m excited to be back to work!

I took an (almost) 3 week hiatus for the holiday to travel, spend time with family, and take care of a few things in my personal life. There is value in all of this, but I actually really missed working!

I had the introductory session that broke my hiatus yesterday, and it was everything I could have hoped for. I am looking forward to more of those—to connecting with established and new lovers. I’m hopeful for a year filled with kindness, adventure, and connection.