transaudacity: May 2008

this is a letter i received from my mom and dad today..... please note the areas in black are the phrase/statements/comments i found most upsetting.

my drafted response to them is following it.

please comment via kean.obrien@gmail.com and i will post them at the bottom of this post.

_______________________________________________________________________________

We can't possibly express the disappointment, sadness, hurt and betrayal we felt when you chose to show your new tattoos at your birthday party.

We conditioned our support in school and our financial support on the premise there would be no new tattoos. By accepting that support you agreed. Basically you stole a semester's tuition from us. You showed an utter disrespect for us, violating our trust, and you did it knowingly.

This made us lose our enthusiasm for sharing graduation since you finished school in a way that was dishonest to your commitment. So, if you choose not to walk across the stage, that is OK.

If you do choose to walk across the stage, we will be there to celebrate with you.

Re dress, we think wearing the best clothes you have now will be fine.

Now we need to talk about the future.

Re the cruise:
We would like you to go and share the experiences with us with a couple conditions.

If you do join us, it will be with the understanding that:

1. Your tattoos are to be covered at all times when we are with you - even though it may be hot. We don't want our trip to be a constant reminder of how little respect you have for the opportunities made available to you.

2. If you choose to display your tattoos while with us, have significant outbursts, or show disrespect to the rest of us as you did when discussing the party last week, we may choose to send you to Rome early for the sake of all of us - of course you may choose to leave at any time -- at our expense.

We need your agreement on that in advance.

Re your European trip

We need to meet with you and establish a reasonable budget and what kind of access you will have to money. We have ordered a form for you to get a credit card in your own name.

You haven't met with us to go to the phone store as agreed. We are thinking you buy phone cards there. The cost will be included in your budget. You can use the international cell phone in an emergency or to call us - but if used for anything else, we will cancel it. Your IPhone will be put on hold with the number preserved until you return. Using text, voicemail, internet, etc. would be far too expensive on roaming international.

Re the Paris trip

We will pay the $800 per month rent while you are there as agreed and any medical costs. Buying a local phone with prepaid minutes for communicating within France might be a good option to a calling card.

Re the future

We will pay the following as agreed.

$800 per month rent
Car insurance (at present rate. Increases due to accidents will be paid by you)
I Phone in U.S.

That is a subsidy equal to earning $14,000 a year.

In order to receive this continued support, you must write us a letter that you will not get any new tattoos until you are independent from us. We want a picture of all your current tattoos before we pay for you to leave the country. We want to see a picture every 6 months to show your continued agreement to receiving our support.

Health costs (excluding food and small items) will also be paid.

In addition, after you return we will pay $1000 per month for 3 months to cover all other expenses. After that you are on your own.

Mother's day
The plan is to eat at Roys at 6 p.m. Sunday and would like you to join us. Also, we will be going to church at 11 and would like you to join us.

You may think this is harsh, but it has nothing to do with accepting you or loving you. It has to do with the consequences of your actions.

Love
Mom and Dad

-------------------my 1st draft response--------

i understand why you are upset about me getting more tattoos when i agreed not to.

i also respect your right to not like them. you made it clear at the end of your email that you felt like everything you were saying ot me was not coming from a place of not accepting me or loving me. i disagree. i believe that you indeed are conditionally loving me by a choice i am making with my own body. i dont need your financial support. money doesnt really matter....but i am programmed to think it does. i have never learned anything but that. money has shown love for me for so long by you. and now im realizing that ,in fact, money is this poison that i have learned to thrive on...and is destroying my relationship with you. i am grateful you are offering to pay for the majority if not all of my rent, health insurance and needs, car insurance, and a great cell phone. that is so wonderful and of course i want to accept that. but with that acceptance of money i am also choosing to not stand by my integrity for who i am and who i want to be. you are asking me to make a decision to either take money and make my life financially easier or to allow you to control my body and choices. because asking me to not get tattoos is more than just asking me to not physically have a needle draw on me...you are asking me to compromise my freedom of choice. you are also telling me that who i am, because tattoos and art are part of my life. and part of me, is not ok with you...and is something that you find so repulsive that you would exchange a relationship with me to make your point.

i am not sure what i am going to do yet. wether or not i want to make that choice for myself....beacuse it has to be for me, even though you are asking for it.. i need to know in my heart that i am (a) willing to agree to your rules and (b) believe that i am not causing myself harm by allowing you some form of ownership over my body.

either way i know that our relationship is going to change drastically as of right now. i have focused a lot of my energy the last couple years into emotionally getting to a place where i can stand with you and find a balance. i am no longer interested in searching for that footing.

i want to clearify what it is you are actually offering me and threatening me with.
here is my understanding.

while in paris you are willing to pay $800 US dollars worth of rent and any health care needs.

when i return to the US you are will to pay $800 dollars in rent, heath care needs, including insurance, car insurance and my cell phone bill.

in addition you will also give me 1000 dollars for three months.

questions:

if i choose to settle in another country because i have found a job...will you abide by this plan while im living there too?

if i get any more tattoos you will not pay the 800 us dollars worth of rent, my health need, car needs or cell phone?

if i do not agree to this before i leave the country....you will not pay for anything while i am there?

i need the answers to these questions before i can even begin to figure out what im going to do.

in regards to graduation. your indecisive disregard about it hurts my feelings. i dont want you to celebrate with me... i want people who care about me and love me for everything i am...to stand there and say "god kean. we are so proud of you for working your ass off to graduate from one of the best schools in the country". so no. i dont want you there...because you dont even really want to be there. you paid for my education....but i did all the work and the people in my life were the ones who emotionally supported me through it. you didnt. and i dont want you there.

kean.

-------------------comments---------------------

5.5.08

blah.
im sorry if my comments in the car did any additional harm. i love you. i was just trying to remind you how fucking incredible you are.
the beauty of this is you can do whatever you want.
its your choice. you dont have to meet their requirements.

anyway. im here. if you need badly timed humor or unhelpful advice.
love. love.

_________________

hey Kean-- I saw your blog with the letter from your parents. I just
want you to know that i think that was really bullshit and unfair. I
feel for you. Just continue to believe in yourself. you're a totally
cool person- smart and thoughtful and creative-- so remind yourself of
that frequently. ANd when and if you get back to town there will be a
lot of people here who care about you and will support you-- i'm sure.

_________________

this is totally twisted.....I am in shock at how barbed with anger your parent's letter is. What are they really mad at? it is totally out of porportion to anything that is really going on.
I like your response, it is clear and honest-that is the most you can offer in return to these harsh threats. you are doing the right thing-don't settle for anything less than the truth. at any cost.

please let me know if you need help with these decisions once you get a response from pat and linda to your specific questions about the financial support.

I am so proud of you for all of your great work at SAIC-you are amazing and should totally be celebrated for such a huge acomplishment!

I love you!!!

_________________

I would really like to talk to you about this, but here is my reaction.

You continue to hold onto this belief that mom and dad don't accept you for who you are. You really need to let go of that and move on and look at the situations for what they are. It seems like you're fishing for excuses to say they don't love or accept you. They are obviously not saying they don't accept you, they just don't want to see the tatoos and be reminded of your disrespect. This letter looks to me as a notification of the consequences of your actions. It sounds like you never think you should have to face consequences and get off scott free for everything.

You say money doesn't matter, but I constantly hear you asking for more money. If it didn't matter, you wouldn't need to create these fights. Because one needs money to live and you have a habit of abusing money, I suppose that is why mom and dad chose it for leverage. They haven't tried to stop you from abusing your body with piercings, and tatoos is where they drew the line - and you agreed that you would stop.

Tatoos are not who you are. You can't define yourself by what you pay someone to draw on your body. Who you are is what's on the inside. Furthermore, I do not think that they would exchange a relationship with you about your tatoos. You are the one threatening to pull away.

You say that you have focused a lot of energy into getting to a place of balance, but if that were true you would not have tried to deceive mom and dad, and you would have thought about your agreement and how important it is to them before getting the tatoos. You clearly knew what their reaction was going to be because otherwise you wouldn't have hidden your tatoos. So, now you're saying you want to cut ties with them because of your decision?

Finally, in regards to graduation, I think you misread what was written. You have repeatedly told them that you do not want to walk across stage. All they were saying is that they are going to stop trying to force you to walk. You might recall the huge party they threw for you a few days ago in celebration of this achievement. Of all people, they know what hard work you have done and are very proud for you to be graduating.

I hope you post this to your blog. Again, I know you think I'm biased, but I would really like to have a conversation with you about this.

Love,
Heather

_________________

5.6.08

im not sure im entirely clear on my thoughts yet...but i agree with your friends who posted comments that you absolutely have the right to assert yourself as who you are and that an attempt to essentially buy your abandonment of that would be the ultimate evil. that said, i also agree with heather on a lot of things. if this was a line drawn in the sand previously that you agreed to at the time (regarding tattoos), in full awareness of all that it meant...then i don't know how much room you have to cry foul here. they set a boundary. you accepted. you broke the rules. consequences. the end. does it make sense to you that you should have the right to demand everything you want from them, and get a lot of it, without any conditions whatsoever? the fact that they are now holding you to your word, i think, is less an expression of their lack of acceptance of you than it is of their desire to help you learn about self-descipline and consequences. You said to me at dinner a couple weeks ago that you never were going to have to learn to manage money. ever. you said it in an off-hand, inoffensively bragging way. because of your trust fund. i didnt pursue it at the time because that point wasnt so relevant to the conversation, but i thought about it later. everybody has to learn to manage money. every single person. and people have to make sacrifices in order to get enough money to live a chosen lifestyle - sometimes its a hated job, sometimes its a shitty apartment, for me its cutting back on social stuff and not buying beautiful shoes, among other things. for you it was not to get more tattoos. if it HAD been a job that you hated and youd blown it off then you wouldve been fired. either way...even the most independant and unique and artistic and brilliant of people live within some boundaries. the trick is to find boundaries that you are comfortable in and that you can adhere to without damaging your aility to be yourself. but at the very least, if you commit yourself to a condition (for anything - money, friends, lovers, employers, collaborators...) then you absolutely must live up to that condition if you want to live with integrity. there is no grey area. and have you really thought about what its like to be broke? because let me tell you from loong experience that it doesn't just effect your material consumption. to go from having endless money to scraping by is really rough psychologically. i wish it werent. but even with that, if you honestly feel that it would be cheapening yourself as a person to take their money anymore, then that is 100% what you have to do to live honestly and be happy. i have absolute faith and trust that you will make the decision that cares for your psychic/emotional needs, so i dont feel like i have to tell you anything more about that. its true that there are zero rules which govern your personal choice, i could not agree more, and i am continually impressed and humbled by your steadfast commitment to that ideal, but there ARE rules that govern interpersonal relations, even with your parents, and society in general, because those arent all about you. i think you may still have a but of a chip on your shoulder about your parents. and they were truly horrible to you for a long long time so i cant say that its not justified. but youre a grown up now. if they REALLY didnt accept you (or at least, werent committed to moving towards complete acceptance) then they probably would have written you a check on your 18th bday, walked away and never looked back. i acknowledge that i am obscenely lucky to have a mom like mine, but tons of people don't really like their parents that much as they get older. so i guess in that sense, you're not that special, which may be a first. but although obviously money isnt everything in life, it does add to it. just think how enriching your world travel has been, how much youve learned about yourself and others and then how much of that you have been able to turn into art. think how great it is to have had your tuition paid for. talking restrictions...because you are not weighed down by debt you have none, employment-wise. i have $100,000+ in loans and every decision i make for the next 30 years is going to be limited by that fact. but it was a trade-off i made in full awareness of the consequences. the moratorium on tattoos is not a stricture on you as a person. i understand totally how personal tattoos can be, but they still cannot define personhood. unless youre that guy who turned himself into a lizard. i think theres a cheetah guy too. but it seems to me, as a total outsider to the situation, that if that is the primary restriction they've asked of you then the number of restrictions theyve helped to lift from your life, present and future, more than compensates you for that (in a freedom of choice way, not a monitary one). final point, i think you misinterpreted the graduation section. ive heard you say before that you dont want to walk. i didnt know they were trying to talk you into it...but i think it might help if you go back and read the read for what it says in words (and, some of them are indeed heartless and harsh and unnecessary), without letting the prejudice of emotions interpret their meaning.

i love you i love you i love you so much it hurts. you are strong and unique and brilliant and you will thrive whichever decision you make. you asked for my opinion so i gave it honestly. you would have been mad at me if i did otherwise. as i said, i know its not necessary to urge you to sit with this and make the best decision for you and you alone, whatever that is. and once that decision is made, the whole situation will be a clean slate and ill be there for you for whatever you need.

ill call you later.

____________________

------my second response--------------
5.7.08

ok.
so after thinking about your email even more....and taking into consideration my friends and heather's comments on my response. i realize that i would like to change some things about what i wrote. i am taking back anything i said or apologizing for anything....i simply want to acknowledge that my mind has changed on a few things.

i guess the biggest realization for me from this situation has been that i understand now, fully, for the first time, how you feel so hurt and disrespected by me and my actions and i feel the same about you. why would anybody choose be emotionally involved in a relationship where both parties are so hurt. i understand why you are hurt and disappointed. although i think that the focus of tattoos is a mask for an overall "disrespect" you feel from me. i just cant believe that you feel so strongly about tattoos that you are willing to threaten any financial support of me.

i will abide by your rules. i will photograph my tattoos and send you the images. although i find it inappropriate and weird. i am willing to put myself in that compromising situation so i can have financial support today. and i can agree that in the future if/when i choose to get more i will decline your support before i make that choice.

graduation was never exciting for me because i dont feel connected to you emotionally in the way that my friends are about graduating. they are all excited to share that celebration with their parents....i am not.

in terms of the cruise.....

i would like to go. with the understanding that i am not expected at anytime to be with you guys. when i am not with you i can wear a tshirt that shows my tattoos. when i am with you on the boat or off the boat i will have my arms covered. i will not be traveling with you during the days we are off the boat. i will be on my own and plan my own trip. if for any reason i want to leave i can. and you will pay for me to stay in rome until claudia comes. i am agreeing to your rules....im just clarifying the specifics.

let me know.

kean