“I think I’m going to buy some of those diet chips”, Diane says.
I prop my bare feet on the edge of her desk and cross my ankles. “Make sure you read the bag carefully. Some of those diet and sugar free foods can cause anal leakage.”
She throws back her head and laughs, the sound echoing down the corridor. I smile and shake my head as she launches into a story about a woman that had to have her asshole reconstructed, due to her penchant for taking the dirt road. I’m going to miss these daily dicking-off fests more than I originally thought. And I’m going to miss her.
I remember the first time I sat in this chair, in her horribly messy office, wearing a brightly striped sweater, black skirt and black old lady pumps. I was a nineteen year old kid with a month old baby at home and I had no idea what I was doing. Diane sat me down, explained the job, spent a half hour gossiping and then showed me around the suite.
I immediately wanted to work here, not even considering the corporation as a whole...just this little area where the work space rang with laughter and the halls smelled of coffee and someone’s breakfast burrito. It was my first “real” job.
But though the woman who hired me is my supervisor, she’s never been just a boss. From the day I interviewed until this moment, this last day we get to sit here together as employee and employer, she’s also been my friend, mother and psychiatrist.
She cosigned for my first loan to help me establish credit, she made cakes on my birthdays and sat drinking wine with me all night on her living room floor. Just recently, when I had to go to the doctor for what was apparently vertigo, she came, without asking, in sweats and tennis shoes on her day off. Just in case I needed someone to hold my hand and drive me home.
She’s lectured me, made me listen to the same stories over and over again, occasionally irritated me so much that I wanted to scream...but I love her. She gave me a job, she gave me a chance and she’s continuously put up with all of my tardiness, grouchiness and immaturity.
And now, after weeks of wondering and waiting, the day has finally come. The transition from old job to new will be complete tomorrow, when I pack up the last box and they cart it two blocks away. I’ve been excited about taking a step up the career ladder, about more money and more opportunities to grow and learn. I’ve been excited about my new chair and my new title, about rubbing elbows with presidents and COO’s. Excited and a little terrified, but not sad. Not until now. Not until it really hit me that in order to grow up and move up, I’ll have to give up a few things too.
This is the last time I’ll sit around with no makeup on and a frizzy ponytail, barefoot and relaxed in the privacy of an office that’s more like home. The last time I’ll dance on tiptoe around her door and primp in front of her mirror to make her laugh. The last time I’ll drink coffee and shoot the shit for an hour in the mornings. The last time I’ll wear flip flops and leggings, play games when no one is looking and close my door for an hour with a current bestseller.
And perhaps the saddest thing of all, right up there with saying good bye to her and other coworkers I’ve come to think of as family - this is the last time I’ll sit at this desk and write.
Showing posts with label growth and shit like that. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growth and shit like that. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Cousins
As a small child I remember being baffled by her girly demeanor. Growing up next door to a house full of boys, I was a combination of awkward bookworm and tomboy so I imagine she was just as baffled by me too.
Her mother dressed her in fashionable dresses, leaving her waist length brown hair loose and lovely, while my mother stuffed me into overalls and cut my frizzy bangs at an awkward angle. When I went over to play there were tea parties instead of teepees made of sticks and dress up games instead of chase. She had shelf upon shelf of Barbies, all in their original boxes, and when I tried to play with them I was reprimanded. She was prissy and I was rough, as different as two little girls could possibly be, yet every time we had to be parted we cried and begged our parents for just a little more time.
At the age of twelve we got what we asked for, but in the worst possible way. Her parents were in a boating accident – her father killed on impact and her mother in a coma with severe brain trauma. She and her brother moved in with our Papa, right next door to me.
I remember fighting my way through the adults until they allowed me to sit next to her at her father’s funeral. I clutched her hand and looked straight ahead. And when the minister finished a monologue with “for all the Days of Our Lives”, we looked at each other, unable to stop the grins and tiny giggles that escaped simultaneously. It was our favorite soap opera, we watched it with our moms all the time, but we knew how much her father had hated it.
I was so excited when she started attending my school. We didn’t have any classes together, but we saw each other at lunch, recess and of course every day at home.
But it soon became apparent that our differences, however easy to work around when we hadn’t seen each other daily at home, weren’t so easy to ignore anymore. She became part of the popular crowd and I took a backseat, watching from the sidelines as she crooked her finger and got all the things most young girls are interested in – the good looking boyfriend, being a member of the cheerleading squad, and being invited to all the coolest events and parties.
I was jealous and resentful that she walked in and things seemed to fall into her lap, but I kept that to myself and I felt guilty for even feeling that way. Her father was gone and her mother was the child rather than the parent, living next door with a nurse maid. How could I possibly begrudge her the attention? She deserved to be happy and enjoy life as much as possible.
But my feelings of discontent grew as, little by little, she developed a habit of putting me down in front of other people. She would have her friends spend the night and I would be there, sitting on the edges, only included as an afterthought or a joke. I would go home crying, devastated about the way I was treated, but too afraid to stand up for myself for fear of losing the good parts of our relationship.
And there were a lot of good parts. When we were alone or just with family, we were the best of friends. We had sleepovers and inside jokes. She comforted me when my dad went on drunken rampages and I comforted her when she was depressed about her family. And the summers were the best – spending every day in our bathing suits with our other cousins, swimming and tubing, riding our bikes barefoot in the hot afternoons, picking handfuls of honeysuckle and exploring every inch of the woods around our houses. She played a major part in a lot of my fondest childhood memories.
Then, when we were 15 and 16, in the summer of 2001, our cousin Ben died in a Jet Ski accident. And we turned to each other first. I was home alone with my sister, doing chores as quickly as possible so we could go swimming, and she was just down the hill at her house, vegging and waiting on us to finish. We each got a call about the accident from someone different, but at the same time. After I hung up I took off running through the house and out the backdoor, across the porch and down the stairs, shouting her name...and she was doing the same. We met with a crash in the grass a few yards from my house and held on.
Later we prayed on our knees and I’ve never begged God for anything as hard, before or since, as I did that day in the hour after receiving the news of the crash, waiting to find out if he survived. And when he didn’t, I became something she was already well on her way to becoming – reckless.
The three of us had been born three months apart – her birthday was in March, mine in June, and Ben’s in October – and though he was the baby, I’d been the only one to really hold back on the partying, only occasionally indulging in smoking or drinking. But soon after his death I was sneaking out of the house with her, getting high most days and drunk every weekend.
She still treated me badly at school sometimes, and even at home if the neighbor girls were around, but the closest I ever got to confronting her then was a letter that she shrugged off. Because of Ben, my fear of confrontation had turned into my fear of losing her...and I was willing to be occasionally miserable in order to keep us close. I made every concession I could and when it sometimes became too much, I avoided her for a week or two to get my head on straight, always eventually giving in. After all, we’d been through so much together.
People began to notice how unbalanced our relationship had become, namely my mother, and started badgering me about standing up to her, about taking instead of always giving. Instead I continued to run when she called and I let all the resentment, all the hurt and anger continue to build up.
After we graduated and went our separate ways, it got a little easier. We still saw each other often, but not every day. In the past my attitude with her had been largely submissive, obviously, but because of the stuff I was going through, every little thing set me off. Combined with all those stored up years of fat jokes and nerd jokes, it turned me into almost as big a bitch as she was. She was thinner and had better hair, but I was witty and well read. I took every opportunity to make her look like an idiot, but with a smile on my face and more cunning than she’d ever managed to use when insulting me in public. And for a long time I was satisfied with that, with what I thought of as subtle retribution.
Over the next few years I still gave far more of myself than I thought was fair, but I’ve always been sort of a masochist. Then (I believe) the addition of being a parent stole the last shred of patience I had for the old games. I finally began to let her know that I thought she was ungrateful and took advantage of me (albeit often with my help), but instead of a reaction I expected (anger, sadness or denial), she practically laughed in my face. That, and an upsetting diatribe about what a shitty mother I was, ended it. I turned my back, ignored her calls, and went on my way.
In the long stretch of months that we didn’t speak, I had plenty of time to think about our situation. I admitted my areas of wrong doing (to myself, and later to her), but I still felt good about my decision to cut off contact. At first I felt healthier, and generally happier, without the added drama.
But soon I missed her to the point of nearly caving and calling. I missed the stories that only we shared, the laughter and all night gab sessions. She’d always been the first person I told everything to and though I knew I needed the space I’d created, it hurt.
It was nearly two years ago that, after months and months of silence, we had our first adult discussion about why things were the way they were. She was living with her then boyfriend and, for reasons that had nothing to do with me, was alienated from the majority of our family. I’d been the last one to cut off contact and the last one she’d expected it from. As I sat there on the couch I could literally see the toll it had taken on her and it shocked me. For the first time since I wrote her that letter in my childish, bubbly script, I told her how I really felt...about everything. And she listened without a trace of a smirk or hint of a laugh.
We were up all night and well into the morning, crying and confessing, hugging and promising. Underneath all the negativity that surrounded our relationship, we’d always loved each other.
And over the past year we’ve really worked at changing the way we interact. I’ve become more assertive and outspoken with her...and she’s curbed her temper, become more thoughtful. But it’s a process and, though she’ll always be my family and I’ll always love her, there’s a scar there. I knew we could never go back to being those two little girls, arguing over which game to play and nothing else, but I hoped we’d still fight tooth and nail to stay together, just like they did. I hoped we’d still go to each other first when shit went down.
I hoped, but until this past Monday, I really wasn’t sure.
I woke at 5:15 to the radio alarm playing Lady Gaga and the phone bleeping and flashing red. I switched off the music, reached for the phone and turned over on my back, squinting at the bright screen. Three missed calls, all within the last 10 minutes, were from her.
And then I saw the text message, sent a mere three minutes before: “He shot his self in the face beside me. Help.” I jumped up and fumbled for my glasses, putting them on to make sure I’d read it correctly. Unfortunately, I had.
I hit redial and she answered immediately, sobbing and managing to tell me that she was going to the hospital; he was still alive. “I’m on my way”, I said. “I’ll meet you there.” The moment we hung up I ran around my room tugging on clothes. I grabbed my purse, slipped my feet into flip flops, alerted my mom and ran out the door.
It takes an hour to get there in good weather, but it was freezing and pouring down rain that morning. And while I navigated the dark, wet roads at a pace I wouldn’t normally, I thought about what I’d say to her. Even without knowing all the details I was horrified. I wasn’t thinking about him at all – I didn’t wonder why or how. I liked him alright, but I’d only met him a few times and he was still just the boyfriend to me. All I could think was, “After everything she’s been through...dear god, I can’t even begin to imagine...I’ve got to get there.”
Arriving at the hospital, I parked and ran through the rain, cursing my flip flops and lack of umbrella. My glasses fogged as I sloshed through the lobby, wet pants legs clung to my ankles and dripping hair was plastered to my neck. I rode the elevator alone to the third floor, getting out in front of another, nearly empty, lobby.
We saw each other at the same time. She was sitting in a chair next to two women and as I moved toward her she stood up and took a step, clearly unable to do more. But we crashed into each other with the same force that we had on that summer day ten years ago.
I held her thin, shaking frame tightly, until her knees started to buckle. Then we sat and I held her over the armrest, noticing that the two women she’d been sitting beside were staring. The one closest to us introduced herself awkwardly over my cousin’s crying. It was his mother. “I’m glad you’re here for her”, she said.
After a few minutes I was able to let go and she began to tell me the story. The more she spoke, the sicker I felt. She’d told me before that he had anger and depression issues, had threatened to kill his self before, but the way she’d relayed it made it sound like it was all in the past. Apparently things were strained and he “flipped out” too often. She’d always been able to calm him and talk him down before, but not this time.
And still, after I knew the details, I couldn’t think about him and his issues. I didn’t think about how I’d laughed with him at the wedding the weekend before, how young he was or about what a blow it was for his family. All that would come later. What I couldn’t stop thinking about was how close she came to being killed, how horrific it must have been to witness such a thing and how maybe, if I’d been talking to her more often, she would have told me everything from the beginning and I could have helped her get out of the situation.
After speaking with his mother, it was decided that I would take her back to their neighborhood to get her dogs safely put away. She has two Great Danes that she loves more than anything and they were scared and alone. She immediately agreed and we left.
I didn’t think we were going into his house where it happened because the dogs were at his mother’s right around the corner, but she said she needed her keys. I was hesitant, but I couldn’t let her go alone so I followed her into the entryway. While she went to the bathroom immediately inside the front door, I stood in the foyer. I stared at a cell phone lying halfway open on the carpet, surrounded by broken glass and shredded items, and shuddered.
When she came out we decided to get some of her clothes so we wouldn’t have to come back, but that required us going through the master bath and into the closet, where he’d done it. I’ve always been an extremely squeamish person, covering my eyes during anything bloody on TV and occasionally vomiting when around bodily fluids, so she told me I didn’t have to go in there...that she’d already seen the worst. But again, I couldn’t let her do that alone.
I cannot go into detail, but it was the most grisly thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She was unable to go all the way in after all and I had to make my way around the closet, picking things that were clean and holding my breath. I steeled myself and thought of nothing but getting her out immediately. It wasn’t until she was settled back at the hospital that I made my way to the bathroom and was sick.
All day we sat and waited, alternately speaking to friends and family as they found out and called to check on her. She broke down every once in awhile, finally passing out from a pill and exhaustion for about half an hour.
He made it through surgery, but was still critical. His parents were able to see him for a moment late that afternoon and they allowed her to go in too. She wouldn’t leave the hospital until she’d seen him anyway, and when she came out she nearly collapsed. I said “enough”, and took her home with me.
These past few days have been exhausting, emotionally and physically. She’s getting a little better each day and truthfully, I’m in awe over her ability to keep going. He’s as stable as he can be at the moment and won’t be awake this week so she’s staying away from the hospital for now. Yesterday she saw a trauma therapist and it went well. She’s still staying at my house and between our family, his family, and their friends, there’s someone with her all the time. I’ve been managing the phone calls, the insurance information and anything else that crops up. Making sure she eats and rests.
I’ve been silently struggling a bit, trying to comfort her and keep things together. It’s a repetitive, draining task and I’ve never had to deal with anything quite this difficult before. But I love her and I’m going to keep helping her and listening, distracting her and making her laugh. And though I’d never wish this tragedy on anyone, ever, positive things have happened as a result. She’s getting therapy, which we’ve been trying to get her to do for a long time. Bridges are being mended. He’s going to get the help he needs.
Her mother dressed her in fashionable dresses, leaving her waist length brown hair loose and lovely, while my mother stuffed me into overalls and cut my frizzy bangs at an awkward angle. When I went over to play there were tea parties instead of teepees made of sticks and dress up games instead of chase. She had shelf upon shelf of Barbies, all in their original boxes, and when I tried to play with them I was reprimanded. She was prissy and I was rough, as different as two little girls could possibly be, yet every time we had to be parted we cried and begged our parents for just a little more time.
At the age of twelve we got what we asked for, but in the worst possible way. Her parents were in a boating accident – her father killed on impact and her mother in a coma with severe brain trauma. She and her brother moved in with our Papa, right next door to me.
I remember fighting my way through the adults until they allowed me to sit next to her at her father’s funeral. I clutched her hand and looked straight ahead. And when the minister finished a monologue with “for all the Days of Our Lives”, we looked at each other, unable to stop the grins and tiny giggles that escaped simultaneously. It was our favorite soap opera, we watched it with our moms all the time, but we knew how much her father had hated it.
I was so excited when she started attending my school. We didn’t have any classes together, but we saw each other at lunch, recess and of course every day at home.
But it soon became apparent that our differences, however easy to work around when we hadn’t seen each other daily at home, weren’t so easy to ignore anymore. She became part of the popular crowd and I took a backseat, watching from the sidelines as she crooked her finger and got all the things most young girls are interested in – the good looking boyfriend, being a member of the cheerleading squad, and being invited to all the coolest events and parties.
I was jealous and resentful that she walked in and things seemed to fall into her lap, but I kept that to myself and I felt guilty for even feeling that way. Her father was gone and her mother was the child rather than the parent, living next door with a nurse maid. How could I possibly begrudge her the attention? She deserved to be happy and enjoy life as much as possible.
But my feelings of discontent grew as, little by little, she developed a habit of putting me down in front of other people. She would have her friends spend the night and I would be there, sitting on the edges, only included as an afterthought or a joke. I would go home crying, devastated about the way I was treated, but too afraid to stand up for myself for fear of losing the good parts of our relationship.
And there were a lot of good parts. When we were alone or just with family, we were the best of friends. We had sleepovers and inside jokes. She comforted me when my dad went on drunken rampages and I comforted her when she was depressed about her family. And the summers were the best – spending every day in our bathing suits with our other cousins, swimming and tubing, riding our bikes barefoot in the hot afternoons, picking handfuls of honeysuckle and exploring every inch of the woods around our houses. She played a major part in a lot of my fondest childhood memories.
Then, when we were 15 and 16, in the summer of 2001, our cousin Ben died in a Jet Ski accident. And we turned to each other first. I was home alone with my sister, doing chores as quickly as possible so we could go swimming, and she was just down the hill at her house, vegging and waiting on us to finish. We each got a call about the accident from someone different, but at the same time. After I hung up I took off running through the house and out the backdoor, across the porch and down the stairs, shouting her name...and she was doing the same. We met with a crash in the grass a few yards from my house and held on.
Later we prayed on our knees and I’ve never begged God for anything as hard, before or since, as I did that day in the hour after receiving the news of the crash, waiting to find out if he survived. And when he didn’t, I became something she was already well on her way to becoming – reckless.
The three of us had been born three months apart – her birthday was in March, mine in June, and Ben’s in October – and though he was the baby, I’d been the only one to really hold back on the partying, only occasionally indulging in smoking or drinking. But soon after his death I was sneaking out of the house with her, getting high most days and drunk every weekend.
She still treated me badly at school sometimes, and even at home if the neighbor girls were around, but the closest I ever got to confronting her then was a letter that she shrugged off. Because of Ben, my fear of confrontation had turned into my fear of losing her...and I was willing to be occasionally miserable in order to keep us close. I made every concession I could and when it sometimes became too much, I avoided her for a week or two to get my head on straight, always eventually giving in. After all, we’d been through so much together.
People began to notice how unbalanced our relationship had become, namely my mother, and started badgering me about standing up to her, about taking instead of always giving. Instead I continued to run when she called and I let all the resentment, all the hurt and anger continue to build up.
After we graduated and went our separate ways, it got a little easier. We still saw each other often, but not every day. In the past my attitude with her had been largely submissive, obviously, but because of the stuff I was going through, every little thing set me off. Combined with all those stored up years of fat jokes and nerd jokes, it turned me into almost as big a bitch as she was. She was thinner and had better hair, but I was witty and well read. I took every opportunity to make her look like an idiot, but with a smile on my face and more cunning than she’d ever managed to use when insulting me in public. And for a long time I was satisfied with that, with what I thought of as subtle retribution.
Over the next few years I still gave far more of myself than I thought was fair, but I’ve always been sort of a masochist. Then (I believe) the addition of being a parent stole the last shred of patience I had for the old games. I finally began to let her know that I thought she was ungrateful and took advantage of me (albeit often with my help), but instead of a reaction I expected (anger, sadness or denial), she practically laughed in my face. That, and an upsetting diatribe about what a shitty mother I was, ended it. I turned my back, ignored her calls, and went on my way.
In the long stretch of months that we didn’t speak, I had plenty of time to think about our situation. I admitted my areas of wrong doing (to myself, and later to her), but I still felt good about my decision to cut off contact. At first I felt healthier, and generally happier, without the added drama.
But soon I missed her to the point of nearly caving and calling. I missed the stories that only we shared, the laughter and all night gab sessions. She’d always been the first person I told everything to and though I knew I needed the space I’d created, it hurt.
It was nearly two years ago that, after months and months of silence, we had our first adult discussion about why things were the way they were. She was living with her then boyfriend and, for reasons that had nothing to do with me, was alienated from the majority of our family. I’d been the last one to cut off contact and the last one she’d expected it from. As I sat there on the couch I could literally see the toll it had taken on her and it shocked me. For the first time since I wrote her that letter in my childish, bubbly script, I told her how I really felt...about everything. And she listened without a trace of a smirk or hint of a laugh.
We were up all night and well into the morning, crying and confessing, hugging and promising. Underneath all the negativity that surrounded our relationship, we’d always loved each other.
And over the past year we’ve really worked at changing the way we interact. I’ve become more assertive and outspoken with her...and she’s curbed her temper, become more thoughtful. But it’s a process and, though she’ll always be my family and I’ll always love her, there’s a scar there. I knew we could never go back to being those two little girls, arguing over which game to play and nothing else, but I hoped we’d still fight tooth and nail to stay together, just like they did. I hoped we’d still go to each other first when shit went down.
I hoped, but until this past Monday, I really wasn’t sure.
*****
I woke at 5:15 to the radio alarm playing Lady Gaga and the phone bleeping and flashing red. I switched off the music, reached for the phone and turned over on my back, squinting at the bright screen. Three missed calls, all within the last 10 minutes, were from her.
And then I saw the text message, sent a mere three minutes before: “He shot his self in the face beside me. Help.” I jumped up and fumbled for my glasses, putting them on to make sure I’d read it correctly. Unfortunately, I had.
I hit redial and she answered immediately, sobbing and managing to tell me that she was going to the hospital; he was still alive. “I’m on my way”, I said. “I’ll meet you there.” The moment we hung up I ran around my room tugging on clothes. I grabbed my purse, slipped my feet into flip flops, alerted my mom and ran out the door.
It takes an hour to get there in good weather, but it was freezing and pouring down rain that morning. And while I navigated the dark, wet roads at a pace I wouldn’t normally, I thought about what I’d say to her. Even without knowing all the details I was horrified. I wasn’t thinking about him at all – I didn’t wonder why or how. I liked him alright, but I’d only met him a few times and he was still just the boyfriend to me. All I could think was, “After everything she’s been through...dear god, I can’t even begin to imagine...I’ve got to get there.”
Arriving at the hospital, I parked and ran through the rain, cursing my flip flops and lack of umbrella. My glasses fogged as I sloshed through the lobby, wet pants legs clung to my ankles and dripping hair was plastered to my neck. I rode the elevator alone to the third floor, getting out in front of another, nearly empty, lobby.
We saw each other at the same time. She was sitting in a chair next to two women and as I moved toward her she stood up and took a step, clearly unable to do more. But we crashed into each other with the same force that we had on that summer day ten years ago.
I held her thin, shaking frame tightly, until her knees started to buckle. Then we sat and I held her over the armrest, noticing that the two women she’d been sitting beside were staring. The one closest to us introduced herself awkwardly over my cousin’s crying. It was his mother. “I’m glad you’re here for her”, she said.
After a few minutes I was able to let go and she began to tell me the story. The more she spoke, the sicker I felt. She’d told me before that he had anger and depression issues, had threatened to kill his self before, but the way she’d relayed it made it sound like it was all in the past. Apparently things were strained and he “flipped out” too often. She’d always been able to calm him and talk him down before, but not this time.
And still, after I knew the details, I couldn’t think about him and his issues. I didn’t think about how I’d laughed with him at the wedding the weekend before, how young he was or about what a blow it was for his family. All that would come later. What I couldn’t stop thinking about was how close she came to being killed, how horrific it must have been to witness such a thing and how maybe, if I’d been talking to her more often, she would have told me everything from the beginning and I could have helped her get out of the situation.
After speaking with his mother, it was decided that I would take her back to their neighborhood to get her dogs safely put away. She has two Great Danes that she loves more than anything and they were scared and alone. She immediately agreed and we left.
I didn’t think we were going into his house where it happened because the dogs were at his mother’s right around the corner, but she said she needed her keys. I was hesitant, but I couldn’t let her go alone so I followed her into the entryway. While she went to the bathroom immediately inside the front door, I stood in the foyer. I stared at a cell phone lying halfway open on the carpet, surrounded by broken glass and shredded items, and shuddered.
When she came out we decided to get some of her clothes so we wouldn’t have to come back, but that required us going through the master bath and into the closet, where he’d done it. I’ve always been an extremely squeamish person, covering my eyes during anything bloody on TV and occasionally vomiting when around bodily fluids, so she told me I didn’t have to go in there...that she’d already seen the worst. But again, I couldn’t let her do that alone.
I cannot go into detail, but it was the most grisly thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She was unable to go all the way in after all and I had to make my way around the closet, picking things that were clean and holding my breath. I steeled myself and thought of nothing but getting her out immediately. It wasn’t until she was settled back at the hospital that I made my way to the bathroom and was sick.
All day we sat and waited, alternately speaking to friends and family as they found out and called to check on her. She broke down every once in awhile, finally passing out from a pill and exhaustion for about half an hour.
He made it through surgery, but was still critical. His parents were able to see him for a moment late that afternoon and they allowed her to go in too. She wouldn’t leave the hospital until she’d seen him anyway, and when she came out she nearly collapsed. I said “enough”, and took her home with me.
*****
These past few days have been exhausting, emotionally and physically. She’s getting a little better each day and truthfully, I’m in awe over her ability to keep going. He’s as stable as he can be at the moment and won’t be awake this week so she’s staying away from the hospital for now. Yesterday she saw a trauma therapist and it went well. She’s still staying at my house and between our family, his family, and their friends, there’s someone with her all the time. I’ve been managing the phone calls, the insurance information and anything else that crops up. Making sure she eats and rests.
I’ve been silently struggling a bit, trying to comfort her and keep things together. It’s a repetitive, draining task and I’ve never had to deal with anything quite this difficult before. But I love her and I’m going to keep helping her and listening, distracting her and making her laugh. And though I’d never wish this tragedy on anyone, ever, positive things have happened as a result. She’s getting therapy, which we’ve been trying to get her to do for a long time. Bridges are being mended. He’s going to get the help he needs.
And I know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that we’re going to be ok. Because when everything fell apart she dialed my number...and I fought my way there, without hesitation, to hold her hand.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I don't think, therefore I fuck up.
I rarely mull things over before taking action. Some call it spontaneity, some call it stupidity and some, like my father, get colorful and call it “getting a wild hair up your ass”.
The phrase “you don’t think” was shouted at me more times as a kid than I can count. It covered a wide range of misdemeanors, including but not limited to the time I – threw our poodle out the window, ran into the heating and air system with the four wheeler, wrote “I hate dad” (except I used his full name) 100 times instead of the allotted punishment of “I will think before opening my mouth”, coerced the neighbor’s children into eating chewy cat treats, and snuck out of my bedroom window with the family dachshund.
In my early 20’s I did appalling, dangerous things, mostly to do with sex and/or alcohol. Now I might not go home with a man covered in tattoos, including one shaped like a postage stamp that says “TRAMP”, named George that I said five words to at the bar (I believe they were, “your dick better be huge”) anymore. But I will, apparently, still do a lot of things without thinking about the end results first. The majority of them are just little things, but they serve the purpose of showing me that, even though I’m now mostly old and lame, I’m still essentially the same irresponsible person.
For instance – I decided last week that I was going to sell jewelry, host a book party and take orders to help out a friend that’s doing it on the side. (Selling jewelry I mean, not sex. Though if she were, I wouldn’t judge. This economy is a bitch.)
First of all, I’m terrible at sales. “You’d better buy something or I’ll karate chop you in the vagina” aren’t the words of a person that does well in retail situations. And if someone chooses not to purchase something even after that eloquent, empty threat of a sales pitch, the parting words aren’t much better – “I hate your face”.
Then I suddenly decided that instead of just getting book orders, I’d have an actual party. Ostensibly this was because I would get more orders that way, but once I started moving forward with the plans I thought, “Why the fuck did I say I’d do that?” It had completely slipped my mind when I said, “I’ll have a jewelry party”, that I’d actually have to, you know, go through with it. I’d have to send out invitations, make phone calls, make food, clean the house more so than usual, and sit in a room full of old ladies.
I don’t like old ladies and I don’t like cleaning. Actually, one of the most common questions I’m asked by family and friends is, “What do you like?” Or they simply state, “You don’t like anything.” I have a reputation for being rather cranky. I digress.
I couldn’t back out because I already had two book orders and my friend really needed the show. So Monday night I sent out my “invitations” – also known as a mass text message basically saying, “please come, there will be food”. Once they show up, I figure I can manipulate them into buying some damn earrings or something. However, the people that I know are attending are such a diverse group that I’ll likely be running interference the entire time. All I need is for my boss to walk up on a conversation like this: “You know she’s always talking to her about her vagina.”
“No!”
“Yes! And she said that sometimes she doesn’t make it to the bath...Oh...hello...”
Another good example is how I ended up agreeing to sing in a Christmas program at a church I don’t attend. I was standing in a group of people, minding my own business, when a doctor that works with my mother (who also happens to be my daughter’s pediatrician and a lovely woman) asked me about my years in the high school chorus.
“Your mother told me you used to sing with Ms. G, is that right?”
“Yes”, I replied with a smile.
“Well we’re having a Christmas Cantata and we’d love to have you be a part of it! You’re a soprano right? First or second?”
Gone was the real smile and in its place the panicked fake, a cross between wild eyed hysteria and a sudden stomach pain that means its deuce time. “Erm...yeah. First...or I used to be. It’s been a long time.”
“Oh, but you never forget those competitions! They were so much fun! There are a lot of us that took Chorus in school so we just love being in choir, gives us that old feeling.”
“Uh huh....” People don’t forget! .....
“So we meet every Wednesday night at 7 and some Sunday nights...”
“Sounds like fun”, I said too loudly.
“I can’t wait to see you there! Bring your mother.”
“Ooook! I’ll be there!” Wait...what? Tourettes! Tourettes!
And that’s how my mother ended up bringing home a CD sent by the Doc for me to practice with before the first rehearsal.
That was the first week in November. I haven’t made it to one practice yet, nor have I even attempted to listen to the CD. If I would have actually taken a moment to think about my answers before croaking out some bullshit, I wouldn’t be put in the position of looking like an asshole for not turning up. Or looking like an asshole when I eventually cave, listen to the CD, stand in front of a church full of people, and squeal in a choir robe, reeking of Saturday night’s beer blitz.
However, everyone has their limit. I can’t go on being irresponsible forever, can I? And after last weekend’s incident, thinking before I act, or agree to things, may just become my new favorite pastime.
My mom and her boyfriend left to go to the mountains and I immediately said to myself, “I’m going to have a party!” Then I enlisted my friend and neighbor, Claire, to help me invite the usual crowd.
I’d forgotten a couple of key elements when I decided to throw a party at my house that Saturday night:
1. Both Carolina and Clemson were playing and both games were critical.
2. Claire is overzealous when it comes to football. This is an understatement.
3. People get drunk at parties.
4. The usual crowd is quite large. My house is not.
At 6:30 Rachel, my sister and I arrived back at the house with a handle of Jim Beam, two cases of beer, and an extra pack of cigarettes. Claire came walking in a few minutes later with her insanely hyper Weimaraner in tow, decked out in her Clemson finest, and immediately flipped the TV to football.
Things started out fine – a few more people showed up within the next hour and we were all just hanging out and drinking a few beers. We made plans to play a game of Things when more people arrived.
Then it all started to go downhill rather quickly – Claire broke out the liquor, Claire took shots of liquor, more people showed up, Claire took more shots of liquor, Rachel hid, my sister curled up on the couch with some boy I thought was a deaf/mute, Claire coerced other people into taking shots, still more people showed up, someone kept making really loud jokes about “snatch”, and I...I was close to having an anxiety attack.
Before Clemson even made it to half time, I couldn’t hear myself think it was so loud in there. Rachel had forced herself into a tiny ball in the corner of one couch, one girl was puking in the bathroom, Claire had the remote shoved down her pants so no one could flip to the Carolina game to check the score, and someone had smoked all my cigarettes.
I’d only had two beers and I made myself drink those. I was too anxious to have fun at my own party. I stood on the perimeter, observing like an outsider for quite awhile. It was surreal watching them all interact without me at the center.
It wasn’t until I saw how much of the liquor bottle Claire and those had drunk that I moved into action. One of two things was going to happen – I was going to force myself to get drunk in order to deal, or I was going to scream at them all to get the fuck out.
So I drank. I shoved my way through the tangle of them and I poured a row of shots, downing them one after the other. A guy standing next to me clapped me on the back and said, “I hear ya”.
I walked around mopping up spills, picking up trash and throwing away beer cans. I approached my cousin Dave and said, “Go. Go now and get the fire barrel.”
“Ugh, I don’t want to. I’m hanging out.”
“Go get it now or die. These people have got to clear out some.”
About an hour later the majority of them were playing cornhole under a spotlight in the driveway and standing around a fire barrel gossiping. I’d managed to exert a bit of control, but while I was doing it, I was also killing the bottle of Jim. It was preferable to killing Claire, who was the only person who couldn’t be managed. She banged on the windows when Clemson scored, she banged on the counter when the other team scored, she screamed “break his fucking neck” at the top of her lungs in five minute increments, and by the time the game was over she was stumbling around in a huff...still with the remote in the front of her pants.
Several people left and I was able to really start enjoying myself. We stood around and talked outside, I found my spare pack of cigarettes, and we played cornhole and Things. I wish I would’ve saved the slips of paper from the Things game because they were the best part of the night. Well, that and when Dave was going to give me a piggyback ride and instead of jumping up from the ground like a normal person, I ran up the stairs of the patio and launched myself at him from the top like a spider monkey – sending us both plummeting to the ground. Poor Dave.
At 3am, when the only two people left were Claire and a guy friend of hers, I was rather drunk and ready for my pajamas. Rachel played bad cop and sent them home while I crawled into bed.
I woke up at 9:30 the next morning with a marching band in my head. My very first thought was, of course, “Why the fuck did I say I’d have a party?”
The damage to the house was minimal – just a sink full of dishes, a dirty floor, a few scattered beer cans (I’d picked up the majority as they were sat down because apparently I’m OCD about that), and a bit of a mess on the patio. Rachel, my sister and I cleaned up pretty quickly.
The main damage that was done wasn’t to the house, it was to me. Though I managed to have a decent time by the end of the night, I’m pretty sure the beginning scarred me for life. I can confidently say that I will never have another party again – never. From now on, I’ll stick with having a few bottles of wine on the porch with three or four people.
And if the memory from the night before wasn’t enough to make my resolution stick, Claire made it iron clad. She came walking in when we were about finished straightening up, smiling and completely hangover free, though she’d been by far the drunkest person there. I was still a bit put out with her behavior, but nothing a day or so wouldn’t fix. After all, I’ve certainly been the obnoxious drunk before.
Then she asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
I told her about how anxious I’d been, about how the spilling and the screaming and the general mayhem had almost sent me over the edge. Without actually pointing any fingers, I tried to gently imply that she’d been the one at the helm of that shipwreck.
She nodded earnestly and leaned toward me. I stared mutely back, waiting on the apology that was my due.
Looking me straight in the eyes and laying her hand atop mine, she said, “I know, girl! I could never have a party at my house. All those people! I don’t know what you were thinking!”
The phrase “you don’t think” was shouted at me more times as a kid than I can count. It covered a wide range of misdemeanors, including but not limited to the time I – threw our poodle out the window, ran into the heating and air system with the four wheeler, wrote “I hate dad” (except I used his full name) 100 times instead of the allotted punishment of “I will think before opening my mouth”, coerced the neighbor’s children into eating chewy cat treats, and snuck out of my bedroom window with the family dachshund.
In my early 20’s I did appalling, dangerous things, mostly to do with sex and/or alcohol. Now I might not go home with a man covered in tattoos, including one shaped like a postage stamp that says “TRAMP”, named George that I said five words to at the bar (I believe they were, “your dick better be huge”) anymore. But I will, apparently, still do a lot of things without thinking about the end results first. The majority of them are just little things, but they serve the purpose of showing me that, even though I’m now mostly old and lame, I’m still essentially the same irresponsible person.
For instance – I decided last week that I was going to sell jewelry, host a book party and take orders to help out a friend that’s doing it on the side. (Selling jewelry I mean, not sex. Though if she were, I wouldn’t judge. This economy is a bitch.)
First of all, I’m terrible at sales. “You’d better buy something or I’ll karate chop you in the vagina” aren’t the words of a person that does well in retail situations. And if someone chooses not to purchase something even after that eloquent, empty threat of a sales pitch, the parting words aren’t much better – “I hate your face”.
Then I suddenly decided that instead of just getting book orders, I’d have an actual party. Ostensibly this was because I would get more orders that way, but once I started moving forward with the plans I thought, “Why the fuck did I say I’d do that?” It had completely slipped my mind when I said, “I’ll have a jewelry party”, that I’d actually have to, you know, go through with it. I’d have to send out invitations, make phone calls, make food, clean the house more so than usual, and sit in a room full of old ladies.
I don’t like old ladies and I don’t like cleaning. Actually, one of the most common questions I’m asked by family and friends is, “What do you like?” Or they simply state, “You don’t like anything.” I have a reputation for being rather cranky. I digress.
I couldn’t back out because I already had two book orders and my friend really needed the show. So Monday night I sent out my “invitations” – also known as a mass text message basically saying, “please come, there will be food”. Once they show up, I figure I can manipulate them into buying some damn earrings or something. However, the people that I know are attending are such a diverse group that I’ll likely be running interference the entire time. All I need is for my boss to walk up on a conversation like this: “You know she’s always talking to her about her vagina.”
“No!”
“Yes! And she said that sometimes she doesn’t make it to the bath...Oh...hello...”
Another good example is how I ended up agreeing to sing in a Christmas program at a church I don’t attend. I was standing in a group of people, minding my own business, when a doctor that works with my mother (who also happens to be my daughter’s pediatrician and a lovely woman) asked me about my years in the high school chorus.
“Your mother told me you used to sing with Ms. G, is that right?”
“Yes”, I replied with a smile.
“Well we’re having a Christmas Cantata and we’d love to have you be a part of it! You’re a soprano right? First or second?”
Gone was the real smile and in its place the panicked fake, a cross between wild eyed hysteria and a sudden stomach pain that means its deuce time. “Erm...yeah. First...or I used to be. It’s been a long time.”
“Oh, but you never forget those competitions! They were so much fun! There are a lot of us that took Chorus in school so we just love being in choir, gives us that old feeling.”
“Uh huh....” People don’t forget! .....
“So we meet every Wednesday night at 7 and some Sunday nights...”
“Sounds like fun”, I said too loudly.
“I can’t wait to see you there! Bring your mother.”
“Ooook! I’ll be there!” Wait...what? Tourettes! Tourettes!
And that’s how my mother ended up bringing home a CD sent by the Doc for me to practice with before the first rehearsal.
That was the first week in November. I haven’t made it to one practice yet, nor have I even attempted to listen to the CD. If I would have actually taken a moment to think about my answers before croaking out some bullshit, I wouldn’t be put in the position of looking like an asshole for not turning up. Or looking like an asshole when I eventually cave, listen to the CD, stand in front of a church full of people, and squeal in a choir robe, reeking of Saturday night’s beer blitz.
However, everyone has their limit. I can’t go on being irresponsible forever, can I? And after last weekend’s incident, thinking before I act, or agree to things, may just become my new favorite pastime.
My mom and her boyfriend left to go to the mountains and I immediately said to myself, “I’m going to have a party!” Then I enlisted my friend and neighbor, Claire, to help me invite the usual crowd.
I’d forgotten a couple of key elements when I decided to throw a party at my house that Saturday night:
1. Both Carolina and Clemson were playing and both games were critical.
2. Claire is overzealous when it comes to football. This is an understatement.
3. People get drunk at parties.
4. The usual crowd is quite large. My house is not.
At 6:30 Rachel, my sister and I arrived back at the house with a handle of Jim Beam, two cases of beer, and an extra pack of cigarettes. Claire came walking in a few minutes later with her insanely hyper Weimaraner in tow, decked out in her Clemson finest, and immediately flipped the TV to football.
Things started out fine – a few more people showed up within the next hour and we were all just hanging out and drinking a few beers. We made plans to play a game of Things when more people arrived.
Then it all started to go downhill rather quickly – Claire broke out the liquor, Claire took shots of liquor, more people showed up, Claire took more shots of liquor, Rachel hid, my sister curled up on the couch with some boy I thought was a deaf/mute, Claire coerced other people into taking shots, still more people showed up, someone kept making really loud jokes about “snatch”, and I...I was close to having an anxiety attack.
Before Clemson even made it to half time, I couldn’t hear myself think it was so loud in there. Rachel had forced herself into a tiny ball in the corner of one couch, one girl was puking in the bathroom, Claire had the remote shoved down her pants so no one could flip to the Carolina game to check the score, and someone had smoked all my cigarettes.
I’d only had two beers and I made myself drink those. I was too anxious to have fun at my own party. I stood on the perimeter, observing like an outsider for quite awhile. It was surreal watching them all interact without me at the center.
It wasn’t until I saw how much of the liquor bottle Claire and those had drunk that I moved into action. One of two things was going to happen – I was going to force myself to get drunk in order to deal, or I was going to scream at them all to get the fuck out.
So I drank. I shoved my way through the tangle of them and I poured a row of shots, downing them one after the other. A guy standing next to me clapped me on the back and said, “I hear ya”.
I walked around mopping up spills, picking up trash and throwing away beer cans. I approached my cousin Dave and said, “Go. Go now and get the fire barrel.”
“Ugh, I don’t want to. I’m hanging out.”
“Go get it now or die. These people have got to clear out some.”
About an hour later the majority of them were playing cornhole under a spotlight in the driveway and standing around a fire barrel gossiping. I’d managed to exert a bit of control, but while I was doing it, I was also killing the bottle of Jim. It was preferable to killing Claire, who was the only person who couldn’t be managed. She banged on the windows when Clemson scored, she banged on the counter when the other team scored, she screamed “break his fucking neck” at the top of her lungs in five minute increments, and by the time the game was over she was stumbling around in a huff...still with the remote in the front of her pants.
Several people left and I was able to really start enjoying myself. We stood around and talked outside, I found my spare pack of cigarettes, and we played cornhole and Things. I wish I would’ve saved the slips of paper from the Things game because they were the best part of the night. Well, that and when Dave was going to give me a piggyback ride and instead of jumping up from the ground like a normal person, I ran up the stairs of the patio and launched myself at him from the top like a spider monkey – sending us both plummeting to the ground. Poor Dave.
At 3am, when the only two people left were Claire and a guy friend of hers, I was rather drunk and ready for my pajamas. Rachel played bad cop and sent them home while I crawled into bed.
I woke up at 9:30 the next morning with a marching band in my head. My very first thought was, of course, “Why the fuck did I say I’d have a party?”
The damage to the house was minimal – just a sink full of dishes, a dirty floor, a few scattered beer cans (I’d picked up the majority as they were sat down because apparently I’m OCD about that), and a bit of a mess on the patio. Rachel, my sister and I cleaned up pretty quickly.
The main damage that was done wasn’t to the house, it was to me. Though I managed to have a decent time by the end of the night, I’m pretty sure the beginning scarred me for life. I can confidently say that I will never have another party again – never. From now on, I’ll stick with having a few bottles of wine on the porch with three or four people.
And if the memory from the night before wasn’t enough to make my resolution stick, Claire made it iron clad. She came walking in when we were about finished straightening up, smiling and completely hangover free, though she’d been by far the drunkest person there. I was still a bit put out with her behavior, but nothing a day or so wouldn’t fix. After all, I’ve certainly been the obnoxious drunk before.
Then she asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
I told her about how anxious I’d been, about how the spilling and the screaming and the general mayhem had almost sent me over the edge. Without actually pointing any fingers, I tried to gently imply that she’d been the one at the helm of that shipwreck.
She nodded earnestly and leaned toward me. I stared mutely back, waiting on the apology that was my due.
Looking me straight in the eyes and laying her hand atop mine, she said, “I know, girl! I could never have a party at my house. All those people! I don’t know what you were thinking!”
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Leighatard (Get it? She hates that.)
There was a howling, an anguished unearthly wailing, coming from across the hall that sent me scurrying toward her door. The closet was slightly ajar, leaving strips of light across the otherwise darkened room. I absentmindedly patted the head of the worried dog as I made my way to the bed. She was curled in a tight ball around her pillow, her thin back shaking with the effort to control the shrieks that escaped between clenched teeth.
I sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the hair back from her face. “What’s wrong, honey...what’s going on?”
“I...can’t...c-c-c-can’t do it!” Her wailing got louder and she writhed in place as if in physical pain.
After a few minutes of petting and coaxing, I managed to figure out the source of the problem – that damn boy. Their relationship had been rocky for several months and he’d broken up with her a week before this meltdown. She seemed fine for awhile; she even turned him down when he came crawling back a day later. He wasn’t what she needed in her life, she said, his path was filled with trouble. And I wholeheartedly agreed.
As I watched my little sister’s heart break over a two year relationship I thanked God, or whoever was listening, that no man had ever broken me down that way. Not that I would even let them, I silently added. I held her, rocked her, told her everything was going to be ok, and finally left her when she was quiet and calm.
She had a few more episodes just like that over the following weeks. I became less patient, less kind, and more irritated with each one. During the last, I informed her that if she woke me with that noise again, I would punch her in the ovaries. I have a startlingly low threshold for handing out sympathy, though I often demand plenty of it from others.
We are polar opposites, my sister and I. Dark versus fair, common sense versus book smarts, earnest versus lackadaisical, right versus wrong,(though the lines on that last one are blurring more as she gets older) fire versus ice – she’s blazing a path, and I’m perpetually frozen.
I admit, she’s everything I wanted to be in high school – pretty, popular, thin, captain of the cheerleading squad (though that was a brief wish, and only in the darkest of hours), driven. She’s never once let me forget, be it intentional or not, that I was then, and am now, everything she aspires not to be. First – a nerdy, unpopular kid that started smoking and drinking to be cool. Now - a single parent, living at home, with no degree.
On my worst days I am bitter for all the opportunity she has laid out in front of her, all the positive attention she receives from our family, and all the scars I bear that she doesn’t. But on my good days, which I’m glad to say are more frequent, I’m proud of her, encouraging of her success, and thankful she wasn’t raised by the same parents. Besides, what aspiring writer isn’t tortured by their own bad choices, the choices of others, or in my case – both? My parents made this prolific bed, but I turned down the covers, fluffed the pillows, and crawled right in. (That smells like a book dedication...)
I also admit she’s everything I despise, and have always attempted to set myself apart from. Shallow, emotional, too accommodating...perfect. As much as I wanted what she had, I didn’t. I suppose the truth of the matter is that we both think we’re better than the other. I make fun of her reading; she makes fun of my clothes. I make fun of her enormous nostrils; she makes fun of my frizzy hair. I make fun of her spelling ability; she makes fun of my blogging.
She was a quiet, sensitive child and against all odds, a daddy’s girl. Why he decided to handle her with kid gloves, I’ll never really know. My mother had the same sensitive personality and he treated her terribly. Whatever the reason, she was spoiled and petted and nurtured into the smart, entitled young woman she is today.
I love my sister, but sometimes I feel as if we’re next door neighbors – waving to each other across the fence and wondering if one or the other is responsible for our missing Sunday papers, never exchanging more than is absolutely necessary. We’re only seven years apart, but sometimes it feels like a lifetime. Our relationship has improved in some ways, gotten worse in others. I keep waiting for that day when we’re old enough to be best friends – I want it (when I’m not imagining punching her), but I don’t think she does. Maybe it’s just her age, maybe one day she’ll want it too.
Each milestone she reaches is a bit of a shock for me, though that may be because they all started happening at once. The first time she got in trouble at school, had sex, did something incredibly stupid and dangerous and laughed about it, got drunk, had her heart broken, applied to colleges – all of that and more crammed into less than two years time. And I think I’ve struggled with it more than she has, more than our own mother.
She just turned 18 last week and she graduates in less than a year. I wonder if, when she leaves, I’ll be the one curled up in the bed wailing with a broken heart. I wonder if I’ll regret not walking across that hall to comfort her more often – for letting bitterness and jealousy shape a large portion of our relationship.
I wonder if she’ll call me – just to talk. Or if she’ll be like me at that age – walking out the door and never looking back until it was absolutely necessary. What bothers me and makes me happy all at once, is that I know, for her, it’ll likely never be necessary.
Suddenly I’m the sensitive one.
I sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the hair back from her face. “What’s wrong, honey...what’s going on?”
“I...can’t...c-c-c-can’t do it!” Her wailing got louder and she writhed in place as if in physical pain.
After a few minutes of petting and coaxing, I managed to figure out the source of the problem – that damn boy. Their relationship had been rocky for several months and he’d broken up with her a week before this meltdown. She seemed fine for awhile; she even turned him down when he came crawling back a day later. He wasn’t what she needed in her life, she said, his path was filled with trouble. And I wholeheartedly agreed.
As I watched my little sister’s heart break over a two year relationship I thanked God, or whoever was listening, that no man had ever broken me down that way. Not that I would even let them, I silently added. I held her, rocked her, told her everything was going to be ok, and finally left her when she was quiet and calm.
She had a few more episodes just like that over the following weeks. I became less patient, less kind, and more irritated with each one. During the last, I informed her that if she woke me with that noise again, I would punch her in the ovaries. I have a startlingly low threshold for handing out sympathy, though I often demand plenty of it from others.
We are polar opposites, my sister and I. Dark versus fair, common sense versus book smarts, earnest versus lackadaisical, right versus wrong,(though the lines on that last one are blurring more as she gets older) fire versus ice – she’s blazing a path, and I’m perpetually frozen.
I admit, she’s everything I wanted to be in high school – pretty, popular, thin, captain of the cheerleading squad (though that was a brief wish, and only in the darkest of hours), driven. She’s never once let me forget, be it intentional or not, that I was then, and am now, everything she aspires not to be. First – a nerdy, unpopular kid that started smoking and drinking to be cool. Now - a single parent, living at home, with no degree.
On my worst days I am bitter for all the opportunity she has laid out in front of her, all the positive attention she receives from our family, and all the scars I bear that she doesn’t. But on my good days, which I’m glad to say are more frequent, I’m proud of her, encouraging of her success, and thankful she wasn’t raised by the same parents. Besides, what aspiring writer isn’t tortured by their own bad choices, the choices of others, or in my case – both? My parents made this prolific bed, but I turned down the covers, fluffed the pillows, and crawled right in. (That smells like a book dedication...)
I also admit she’s everything I despise, and have always attempted to set myself apart from. Shallow, emotional, too accommodating...perfect. As much as I wanted what she had, I didn’t. I suppose the truth of the matter is that we both think we’re better than the other. I make fun of her reading; she makes fun of my clothes. I make fun of her enormous nostrils; she makes fun of my frizzy hair. I make fun of her spelling ability; she makes fun of my blogging.
She was a quiet, sensitive child and against all odds, a daddy’s girl. Why he decided to handle her with kid gloves, I’ll never really know. My mother had the same sensitive personality and he treated her terribly. Whatever the reason, she was spoiled and petted and nurtured into the smart, entitled young woman she is today.
I love my sister, but sometimes I feel as if we’re next door neighbors – waving to each other across the fence and wondering if one or the other is responsible for our missing Sunday papers, never exchanging more than is absolutely necessary. We’re only seven years apart, but sometimes it feels like a lifetime. Our relationship has improved in some ways, gotten worse in others. I keep waiting for that day when we’re old enough to be best friends – I want it (when I’m not imagining punching her), but I don’t think she does. Maybe it’s just her age, maybe one day she’ll want it too.
Each milestone she reaches is a bit of a shock for me, though that may be because they all started happening at once. The first time she got in trouble at school, had sex, did something incredibly stupid and dangerous and laughed about it, got drunk, had her heart broken, applied to colleges – all of that and more crammed into less than two years time. And I think I’ve struggled with it more than she has, more than our own mother.
She just turned 18 last week and she graduates in less than a year. I wonder if, when she leaves, I’ll be the one curled up in the bed wailing with a broken heart. I wonder if I’ll regret not walking across that hall to comfort her more often – for letting bitterness and jealousy shape a large portion of our relationship.
I wonder if she’ll call me – just to talk. Or if she’ll be like me at that age – walking out the door and never looking back until it was absolutely necessary. What bothers me and makes me happy all at once, is that I know, for her, it’ll likely never be necessary.
Suddenly I’m the sensitive one.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Seven things I like - Part two
2. Possessive meditation
Shopping is a pastime a lot of people enjoy – whether it’s for the rush of spending, for comfort, or maybe for acceptance...for wanting to be a part of life as our society suggests they should.
I don’t necessarily like shopping. In fact, sometimes I loathe it. I take little joy in spending my car insurance payment on a dress I’ll wear only once, and seeing a display of new merchandise in a store doesn’t give me any thrills. I rarely buy into consumer claptrap or watch commercials and think “I want that, I need that, I must have that”. I hate driving for miles to find a parking space just because I needed to pop in for a small necessity and everyone on the planet decided to participate in a little retail therapy.
But I like owning things. I like the possession aspect of consumerism – holding my, often reluctantly, purchased item in my hands and reveling in its unfamiliar freshness. And you may be thinking, “Everyone likes owning things, silly!” But I often think, maybe a bit psychotically, “This is mine. It only belongs to me.”
There’s obsessiveness in the way I own things. Only certain things, actually. Things I think most people wouldn’t choose to be obsessive about – not cars, jewelry, or anything expensive at all.
As a preteen it was photos and the like. - I took pictures and had them developed several times a week. Pictures of inane things like a stuffed animal I’d gotten for my birthday or our cat shoved in a doll stroller, over and over again. Cloth covered albums with their shiny plastic sleeves and caption cards and cardboard photo boxes with neat labels. Wooden frames, metal frames, magnetic frames, and flimsy foam frames. And always more pictures.
As a teenager it was writing supplies. - Soft bound journals full of empty white pages and a bright ribbon bookmark. Colorful post it notes and boxes full of intricate stationary. Spiral notebooks, college lined paper, unsharpened pencils, and thick pink erasers. Crisp packets of crayons, markers, and pens...with a special box to hold them all.
As an adult it’s expanded a bit – makeup, books, shoes...as well as the aforementioned items. Nothing terribly important, obviously, yet each and every time I acquire one of those things, I have a ritual. It hasn’t changed since I was a kid.
I smooth out the covers on my bed and I set the items down neatly, lining them up just so and then arranging myself in a cross legged position with my back against the headboard. Then I look at them. I smooth my hands over them, pick them up and feel the weight of them, turn them over and over. I smell them, and I...enjoy them, without technically doing anything. Sometimes it takes awhile. Eventually I put them away or use them, but never without having done the ritual first.
I like to think of it as possessive meditation.
I’m completely aware of why I do this. Or rather, I have a theory that I’m relatively sure is correct.
Ever since I was little my father delighted in telling me that I owned nothing, not even my underwear. “But I bought that with my own money”, I’d say. Or, “It was a present from so-in-so.”
“It doesn’t matter”, he’d reply, “you live in my house and everything in it belongs to me!”
That might sound like an oddly mild statement to some, but my father was not a mild mannered man. He always felt the need to punctuate these declarations with convincing, less than pleasant actions, and with little to no provocation.
I didn’t truly understand until I was older, until I learned to understand my father. It wasn’t about the things; it was about power.
My little ritual started, I believe, as a form of rebellion and became a necessary means of establishing my own brand of control. “This is mine. It belongs only to me.” I was convincing myself, telling myself not to succumb to his hype like my mother had. He owned everything about her and I not only despised that, I feared it. Taking control of certain objects, even if only with childish ritualistic actions and fervent thoughts, kept me from losing my mind.
Now it’s no longer necessary, though I continue to do it out of habit and strangely, enjoyment. I’m strong enough and old enough to rebuff anyone that would attempt to control me, including my father. In fact, I delight in telling him, loudly, just how much I possess that he doesn’t. And he hates it. He hates hearing the conviction in my voice and seeing it on my face. He hates the loss of control.
Sometimes I imagine him sitting crossed legged on a bed with all his belongings scattered around him. I walk over and with one sweep of my arm, send it all tumbling into a huge trash bin. Then I turn and walk away. Leaving him with nothing.
Shopping is a pastime a lot of people enjoy – whether it’s for the rush of spending, for comfort, or maybe for acceptance...for wanting to be a part of life as our society suggests they should.
I don’t necessarily like shopping. In fact, sometimes I loathe it. I take little joy in spending my car insurance payment on a dress I’ll wear only once, and seeing a display of new merchandise in a store doesn’t give me any thrills. I rarely buy into consumer claptrap or watch commercials and think “I want that, I need that, I must have that”. I hate driving for miles to find a parking space just because I needed to pop in for a small necessity and everyone on the planet decided to participate in a little retail therapy.
But I like owning things. I like the possession aspect of consumerism – holding my, often reluctantly, purchased item in my hands and reveling in its unfamiliar freshness. And you may be thinking, “Everyone likes owning things, silly!” But I often think, maybe a bit psychotically, “This is mine. It only belongs to me.”
There’s obsessiveness in the way I own things. Only certain things, actually. Things I think most people wouldn’t choose to be obsessive about – not cars, jewelry, or anything expensive at all.
As a preteen it was photos and the like. - I took pictures and had them developed several times a week. Pictures of inane things like a stuffed animal I’d gotten for my birthday or our cat shoved in a doll stroller, over and over again. Cloth covered albums with their shiny plastic sleeves and caption cards and cardboard photo boxes with neat labels. Wooden frames, metal frames, magnetic frames, and flimsy foam frames. And always more pictures.
As a teenager it was writing supplies. - Soft bound journals full of empty white pages and a bright ribbon bookmark. Colorful post it notes and boxes full of intricate stationary. Spiral notebooks, college lined paper, unsharpened pencils, and thick pink erasers. Crisp packets of crayons, markers, and pens...with a special box to hold them all.
As an adult it’s expanded a bit – makeup, books, shoes...as well as the aforementioned items. Nothing terribly important, obviously, yet each and every time I acquire one of those things, I have a ritual. It hasn’t changed since I was a kid.
I smooth out the covers on my bed and I set the items down neatly, lining them up just so and then arranging myself in a cross legged position with my back against the headboard. Then I look at them. I smooth my hands over them, pick them up and feel the weight of them, turn them over and over. I smell them, and I...enjoy them, without technically doing anything. Sometimes it takes awhile. Eventually I put them away or use them, but never without having done the ritual first.
I like to think of it as possessive meditation.
I’m completely aware of why I do this. Or rather, I have a theory that I’m relatively sure is correct.
Ever since I was little my father delighted in telling me that I owned nothing, not even my underwear. “But I bought that with my own money”, I’d say. Or, “It was a present from so-in-so.”
“It doesn’t matter”, he’d reply, “you live in my house and everything in it belongs to me!”
That might sound like an oddly mild statement to some, but my father was not a mild mannered man. He always felt the need to punctuate these declarations with convincing, less than pleasant actions, and with little to no provocation.
I didn’t truly understand until I was older, until I learned to understand my father. It wasn’t about the things; it was about power.
My little ritual started, I believe, as a form of rebellion and became a necessary means of establishing my own brand of control. “This is mine. It belongs only to me.” I was convincing myself, telling myself not to succumb to his hype like my mother had. He owned everything about her and I not only despised that, I feared it. Taking control of certain objects, even if only with childish ritualistic actions and fervent thoughts, kept me from losing my mind.
Now it’s no longer necessary, though I continue to do it out of habit and strangely, enjoyment. I’m strong enough and old enough to rebuff anyone that would attempt to control me, including my father. In fact, I delight in telling him, loudly, just how much I possess that he doesn’t. And he hates it. He hates hearing the conviction in my voice and seeing it on my face. He hates the loss of control.
Sometimes I imagine him sitting crossed legged on a bed with all his belongings scattered around him. I walk over and with one sweep of my arm, send it all tumbling into a huge trash bin. Then I turn and walk away. Leaving him with nothing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
