Wow. I used to be seriously fucked up. SO shocked I'm not anorexic.
My mother is on vacation in Chicago with her husband. So far, I've called her everyday for no reason at all. When my brother and I lived at home, she once told me that she was never really asleep until both of us were home or had called. We didn't have a curfew and as long as she knew where we were sleeping by midnight, it was ok. I was grounded once for getting pen on the ridiculously expensive Oriental rug, but that lasted all of three hours. I was spanked when I did something bad, like when I broke her grandmother's antique bell (my brother's friends were having wrestling matches in my parent's bedroom and
I wonder if she'll ever know/if she knew what we were doing when we were old enough to drive? I spent years living at home, smoking pot and blowing the smoke out my window while she was mere feet away. I drove around the city stoned out of my mind. I came home one morning hungover, told her it was my first hangover (true), and she brought me Pepto-Bismol.
I grew up priviledged. My mother was a politician of sorts. I had a nice house. I got a car for my 16th birthday and am receiving my second one in a few weeks. I was promised from a very young age that I would never have to pay for my college education.
I believed for a long time that my family was normal. When did that change? When did I realize that, not only is no family normal, but that mine is particularly abnormal? That my dad, for all his movie star good looks, has a truly bizarre sense of humor (and is now brain-damaged from alcohol abuse)?
It never occured to me that it was odd that my mother slept on the fold-out couch and my dad in the master bedroom for so many years. She said it was because my dad "breathed" when he slept (where breathing=not quite snoring) and I believed it because I could sleep in no less than total silence (which is why I now cannot fall asleep without a fan). When I was told my parents were getting a divorce, I was 11 years old and a cheerleader in the 8th grade. I only cried during cheerleading practice because I knew it would get me attention.
It was a shock when my mother told me that I'm naturally intelligent, that I'm smarter than she ever will be, that she's had to work for her brilliance and that I take it for granted.
I'm thinking about this because I'm currently evaluating my own little family, with Aaron and Damien. I'm thinking about what our kids will be like -- will they live only in their dreams, like me, or rebel violently, like Aaron? Will they be popular? Will they be the kind of kid other parents keep their kids away from? Will they have a good sense of style, of music? Will they be introspective or extroverted?
It's nice, not being scared to think these thoughts, being allowed to talk about these things with Aaron. I told Samantha that the true sign of a grownup is owning a matching set of dishes; I think it's more like, accepting that you can't change your childhood but you can change the portions of it that you think about. Right now, at this exact moment in my life, I choose to remember my first best friend with whom I've recently become reacquainted. I remember the fort we made every summer underneath the porch. I remember walking into the airport gate heading to boarding school and not letting myself cry because I didn't want my mom to worry about me. I remember when my brother and I called each other Boo-Boo. When my mom and my brother and I all slept in the same room when we were very little and the first time I felt embarrassment, when we were acting out Dumbo. My first crush, Taylor, at the Montessori pre-school. How could this mean anything to you and everything to me?