Yo Mama

Looking back on the ten schools I survived, moving from cafeteria to cafeteria not knowing a soul, I am a grown woman who holds a pillow over my head during the scariest movie ever, “Mean Girls.” God, middle school girls and boys can be ruthless.

I got through those years barely eaten alive, just barely, and so I look back now in gratitude for I realize they gave me survivor skills no one else could possibly grasp, and my girls are going to need me.

It’s already begun.

Henderson pulls and yanks Lola‘s hair, teasing her, broke her mood bracelet, a special gift from her Papa. Makaila, my Kat, only ten, got slapped by a girl on the bus, which I hear her father echoed by my parents back in the day and all the others today and my eye begins to twitch.

“Now did you tell the bus driver?”

“Did you get a teacher?”

“Should I go up to the school?” Their eyes roll and so do mine.

Amateurs.

Divorcee makes me laugh, his outrage over anyone hurting his girls makes him a little psycho, Kat giggling and telling me he is teaching her to protect herself by boxing with her.

The man is a lover not a fighter.

I realized it was time to break out the Middle School Guru, the unorthodox teachings from within, wax on, wax off girls.

I can imagine being on the Dr.Phil show, PTA ladies throwing rocks and chairs at me.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of parents WHO DO NOT GET IT, people whom never attended Middle School or were raised on farms with clucking chickens for their advice would have you killed back in my day.

Just in case, if this is my only moment to address you, if you are having a middle school child bullied, please don’t volunteer at the school or eat lunch with your child. Yes, that’s right. It’s not helping, trust me.

Please listen to the plea of different clothing, even if you found it at a great garage sale and only spent two dollars for sneakers, you don’t have to indulge children but you don’t have to set them up for a nightmare.

Just cause Your Nana bought a Bedazzler doesn’t mean your child HAS to sport the jeweled sweater. Don’t throw them to the wolves. For most of you, stopping there makes perfect sense but for me, I have a craft to Middle School Survival, available now for 9.99 in my ebook.

Just kidding.

It’s called humor, not always the nice kind, but finely tuned armor of sarcasm that at any moment could stop a predator in his tracks, or pee, from laughter or even fear at the right time, could save a life. Or a seat on the bus.

“Here goes, girls,” I said, cracking my knuckles. Introduction to the “Yo Mama.” Kat crinkled her nose. Lola looked up in interest. Let the madness, or bad parenting begin.

“Hey Henderson!” I yelled it for dramatic emphasis. (this is when you wait for quiet and everyone to look, a pause)

“You don’t like my hair? Really?“

I raise my voice till they both look at me, wide eyed, a little astonished. This signals to come in for the kill.

“Yo Mama is so fat she has to iron her clothes in the driveway! My last diarrhea looked a lot like HER FACE. She is SO fat people jog AROUND her.

YO Mama is SO FAT you slap her butt and can ride the waves!!”

Lola starts to giggle. Wax on. I continue. The Medicine Woman of childhood cruelty.

“Don’t wait for someone to laugh. Don’t look to the right or left to see who is watching or if its working. You need your opponent in the corner and with little time to even respond.

They need to know they have no idea what hit them, but remember girls, you need an audience, and an exit strategy, and middle schoolers smell fear, so throw the Yo
Mama, and pretend nothing touched you, not even a broken bracelet, and exit with one of the following looks..

Kat interrupts. “Mom, can you write that down?”

Lola begins her own version in the mirror, way funnier than I could invent.

Clearly, she is a natural.

I know it’s not nice or politically correct and could get you in trouble, but it’s not violent, is stressed is only used in self defense,

But I’m a mama bear, and don’t mess with my cubs.

“Make him wish he were a redhead,” I say, and let’s hope his mama isn’t at Field Day.”

Wax off.

Johnny and the Red Balloon

The Snake Eye Club

I imagine some of you parents nodding and chuckling after reading this; the newest of you are holding your baby who looks adorable in the new outfit you matched with adorable bow, tights, shoes, and pigtails. Did I mention adorable?

A good day she spits all over herself.
A bad day she spits all over you.

I was forewarned, by many of you, the majority with older kids, imagine that, with your annoying “Just Wait” comments while I would brag tirelessly over the rolling, speaking, giggling, cute little jumbled up words and even sign language shared just between me & my baby.

“You see how she laughs when I blow air on her tummy!”

Most of you dove right in with similar tales of sweet motherhood while every now in then an elevator would ensure a self righteous “Ha! Just wait! You”ll want to give them back! It’s like aliens kidnap them and some come don’t come back until their twenties!”
Had they met my Kat?
I passed it off as never being nurtured themselves or in need of sleep.
I’d nod in sweet empathetic knowing. (I know moms from elevators, I’m sorry, okay?”)
In return, they’d give me the stink eye.
And here I am.
My baby cherry has been popped people and I’m looking into the black abyss of my unknown parenting future.

It was a slow gradual shift I’d say, looking back at the deer I just caught in my headlight and have yet not removed. I’m one of those slow band aid removers when I have a cut and hate waxing for that split second shock, and I’d also say I like thinking on the positive sides of things.
“So stink eye on all you stink eye monsters!”
Motherhood in its milky burp or projectile vomit, is beautiful, in spit and shit. I adore my babies.
That is, until I joined a club I can’t find my way out of.

There were a few changes here and there, a new assertive way of dressing, meaning if you like and bought it, she hates it. Then there was her pulling me into the bathroom, so many times she had before, in the tireless potty days. This was different.
She locked the door and whispered, “Watch for Dad.”
I responded, “Why are we whispering?”
She pulled her shirt over her head and said, “Loook! I have boobies that are enlarging, like the book says.” Then pulling her shirt down, excited like we were going on the slide in McDonalds in my confused mind, she announced it was time for a kid bra.

WTF. When did it change to Kid Bra? I feel violated for not knowing sooner.

She locked herself away in her room reading “American Girl’s Guide to Me” or otherwise named “Daddy Leaves His Body Disorder” to come out yelling just the parts you want to whisper over, like they aren’t there.
“Mommy, do you wear tampons or pads during (she picks up book and mispronounces “Menuustrratyin?”
“Tampons, I mean nothing. I mean it’s not your business Kat!”
She asks me if she will bleed like a scene in a movie during a real E.R. or if it will be slow like a faucet turned mostly off. Then as I choke she reminds me I was ten when I had a period and in ten days, she will be too!”

The one thing I didn’t count on was having a child who prepares to prepare.
How did this happen to me?

ME, MISS FREE SPIRIT, has a child exactly like an officer of the LAPD, just without uniform.
She drills anyone and every one who smoke.
She tells when I text and drive, don’t drink water, have sticky floors and don’t get her started on the hours my bf plays video games.
Beware of any ten second lost car in the parking lot.
She has a journal she swings open with pencil in hand, two inches from your face, asking questions to quizzes which she checks extremely seriously, adding up her totals requires full undivided attention.
She braces me for bad news. “You mom, scored 6. I’m sorry but you are not “Cool as a Cucumber.”
She sighs dramatically.

We both scored “The Worry Wart!” then she lays her head down as if this is devastation.
Her whole life, all she ever wanted is to be “Cool as a Cucumber!”

Who knew. I would’ve changed the theme of her birthday cake long ago.
When I tell her some positives to this outcome SHE could change, she rolls her eyes, as if I’ve ever lived through anything other than PMS, which I hear my voice raising that she doesn’t even pronounce right!”
She shrugs, barely whispering in this new alien voice of sarcasm.
Oh hell no, back up. Is my child making fun OF me? Me? I find myself ready with infantile sarcasm, a showdown right there in the Claire’s parking lot, until she points out I lost the car, AGAIN.

“I didnt LOSE my car Kat for Gods sakes” I yell as we walk in circles.
I find it, three rows over as I hear this mutter, “Maybe you should get an app for that.”

Three weeks after supplying her dream Christmas list, she announces,
“I don’t play with dolls,” she says, “I gave them to Lola” which explains why of yesterday Lola had the best day of her life. Every day is the best day of her life and as her teacher said, “And every table I move her for talking she meets a new best friend.”

Then, came the makeup. She pointed out I wear none quite candidly as I picked my amateur brain and went straight to any parents guide.
Duh. You Tube. Judge away people. I found a celebrity showing blush, powder, light mascara, and lip gloss in an age appropriate way.

That explains also where my lipstick went. Lola had red markings even on her forehead and that next school meeting, her teacher gave me to take home “How to apply Lipstick” by Lola. She’s still in the adorable phase can you tell?

Divorcee and I had been bickering back and forth over when to reveal Santa since birth. I told him “She will hold it over us forever!” I begged but he didn’t have the heart.
Until I had the heart for him. Her tooth had fallen out and she had told me of plans of putting the tooth in a different location than under her pillow.
I thought of her father being woken by the bride of Chucky so I improvised.

Which led to no Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy all in one day. Divorcee took it the worst. Pretty rough day for the most imaginative kid I know, oh, and Kat too.
Afterwards, she laid in her bed deep in thought, completely angry and saddened that life was now meaningless, all her life, nothing was real, that it had been daddy who ate the cookies!
She glared at him in betrayal.
She also accused him of throwing away all her teeth.
Exhausted, I laid down next to her, just as sad.

“Kat,” which she reminded me now she likes Makaila or McKaykay, NOT Kat.

“Kat,” I continued. I’m going to talk to you like an adult cause that’s what you want, isn’t it?

She was nodding profusely, moving in, deep unwavering eyes locked right into my own from anticipation.

“Being adult means things you thought were real turn out fake, things you wish and dream on sometimes die or divorce, princesses lose lots of guys, not just one. And they don’t wear Justice.”
She frowned. “Kisses and PMS and all these things you want so badly (she pushes her flat chest up as I say this) may make Santa not being real look like a pretty good day. One day you might wish this day back as much as you wish 18 would hurry.”
I stop, the gushing positive hopeful mom blocking and talking away anything that might hurt change or be awkward or sad away, finally stopped. I wonder if I just killed her.

“Mom, its about now doing it all for Lola, right? Believing makes Lola happy, but not me.” She sighs and hugs me like she were my baby, squeezing and not letting go.
And again, I was wrong about that hug.
She finished it and did a cartwheel and said, stoic and proud,
“Mom, it’s official. I’m now a preteen.”
I laughed out loud and agreed, For that one brief moment, I didn’t even give her the stink eye.

I saw my baby as Makaila Grey, a teeny body with outrageous Spirit, made through me, not of me.
I will spend the rest of my life, camera in hand, trying to capture it.
But it can’t. That’s what the ladies were trying to say. It passes and no one is prepared to catch it, in perfect motion, just before it vanishes into a dream, a baby book, a billion photos.
The snake eye group is right. You can’t bring innocence back.

And that is the best news I ever heard, in the way the Swine Flu probably feels.
“Just Wait,” is all I can think, now Kat is a “preteen” and I’m in the grouchy snake eye group.
She wasn’t mine anymore.
She never was.
I sob into my boyfriend who is dumb and laughs at the humor in this.
I give the stink eye like a true pro and stomp to the next room, where only Kat would understand.

The Owl

For as long as I can remember, my mother loves Owls. She is a bookworm, introspective and wise, and my favorite picture of her in my head is in her giant bed, four tall wooden posts rise to the ceiling like trees, with her buried in books, curlers in hair.

Along with the Hummingbird, she would point them out to me from her hammock at night or in a gift shop, a member of the Owl posse, which all Owl discoveries I frankly smiled with a nod or “Wow!” look, not wanting to reveal my Owl boredom, which is just the proper thing to do when one’s mom hunts a daughter down, in Michaels, dangling a Owl ornament from two aisles over, on sale.

Not to mention, with double thumbs up and a text to check out the coupons for extra savings on uh, Owl ornaments, I fake excitement sometimes because I appreciate it being faked for me.

It’s why we all smile at baby Picts being shoved from wallets into our faces, the person waiting for your delightful praise over their he/she child whose head is so big and odd shaped, you look in panic for the first adorable truth you can gather.

“I love Elmo!” is not the best distraction, especially if the one paying the check is an offended mom who was expecting something spectacular about her bald headed beady eyed fetus,

I will admit mom is to Owls as I am with fairies. Not the cutesy butterfly kind but the bad ass ones with attitude and tube socks, drawn on cards and obviously not happy about it.

After getting knicked in the heels in Walmart by old people pushing carts and fat people sitting and driving them, the right fairy reminds me im not alone in this insanity. I see that angry fairy and feel connected, validated, a non comformist if you will. She tells me every year I’m an idiot to have not shopped online. She never bullshits and I respect that.

Mother once had a dream i argued with her in Kroger for purchasing an owl in which she proceeded to cut off it’s head for a centerpiece during the Holidays. I stand behind my dream argument she relayed for it made perfect sense to me, the awake me. I am not Joseph but it seemed she were the owl, always cutting her own head off in sacrifice for family, anything to make four bratty kids happy, her own self the living sacrifice.

If Maury were to film her at Christmas, I doubt he could ever convince her what we have tried.

She brought the joy not her Holiday gifts, traditions, and unreachable expectations.

She was Christmas, just her, and I doubt she’ll ever see it the way I did, awake, dead, or decapitated.

It’s too bad Owls and Fairies can’t see more eye to eye on these things.

I bought her a huge Owl during summer, not on sale.
an Antique shop and bought it for that next Christmas, contemplating the perfect hiding space, delighted I were going to make this the gift under the tree the gift she wouldn’t stop talking about for 10 Christmas years to come, I had it double wrapped and hid it in my trunk. It was the Owl no brother could top. I had won best gift.

Unfortunately, I called her on the way home and told her all about it.
I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for happy gift reactions.

It was more than a hit. She squealed, hugged and did a circle dance move, some sort of Owl ritual perhaps. I looked away. Not even The Who would appreciate those moves.
Get it. The Who – Hoo Hooo.

She paced the house with this enormous fake creature with a “What the hell am I going to do with this?” look on her face, not that she uses the word hell, but I secretly hopes she does sometimes say something crazy, despite herself. I always found it nonsense growing up she didn’t like “sucks,” as if Jesus died on the cross for those who say “sucks,” “blows” and “sharted,” which is a fart and shit combined, which she didn’t even realize.

I digress.

She decided on the outdoors, a tree stump once hit by lighting, where she placed the freakishly large Owl and announced to me and her doggies, “Perfect. It is the symbol of my protection.”

On this one particular nasty day where she cried a lot, falling into a painful day of grieving life and loss, she looked out the window the next day and sighed.

“No wonder. The Owl fell and so did I.”

She marched her determined little self into the wet woods to put that Owl back on post.
It was between them two, but I smiled at their resolve.

When I started school, I had to do table top special assignments to shoot interesting objects with our new knowledge of studio lighting, so I took her Owl with permission to photograph.

And so, we haven’t spoken since and her Owl was away when her things were taken out and moved, the Owl never mentioned or requested. I had forgotten too, or blocked it out, the two seem eerily the same these days.

Until I found it in my boyfriend’s closet.

I screamed bloody murder, covering my mouth and pointing, just pointing to the linen closet.

“What is THAT? some kind of sick joke?”
My face was white and ghastly but it didn’t make him smarter.

“Uuh, I hid it in there cause I don’t fold towels.”

I demanded it be gone the next day, the thought of it again made me hurt, in places I don’t know how to stop, the hurt that stupid Owl brought from his closet could never be fixed, not even by Christmas, or fairies or all the curse words I could say out loud or math camps I could remove.

That Owl must be dealt with.

He agreed.

Or so I thought, running into the damn thing AGAIN but this time in the basement but with cobwebs in the dark, the village idiot must not watch too many gangster movies.

Who doesn’t know what “Get rid of it means?”

And how I paced, it seemed too creepy to chop it up, too mean to toss, too hurtful to display, so I put a note and left it in the street, facing my neighbor so he hopefully would be pegged as the nut.

Judge me but I did want it to have a nice home.

I have learned a lot about myself, about grief, over the torture of this Owl.
What to do with it, what it all meant, where it all belonged, how to make it not hurt me, the projections, delusions, compromises. The final goodbye.

I feel the eyes, beady scary eyes following me, ready to peck out my heart with that beak and its predator claws.

It wasn’t until Kat, my preteen with a perma scowl surprised me saying in sarcasm, “Whats up with nana? Is she dead or something, what’s the deal?”
She rolled her eyes and bit into pancakes bitterly.

I didn’t answer. I did the rational move instead of course, grabbed scissors out of the drawer and ran outside.

Yes, I understand this is dangerous, but I never claimed to be trained or certified in matters of devastation, especially when confronted with my biggest judge, a very scary creature to have not developed breasts yet.

It was time to meet my Nemasis, the last owl remaining.

I suppose it is cute, hanging with intention from a tree outside, made of pottery and painted in the shape of an Owl. I cut the rope, on my tippy toes, watching it dissemble before hitting the ground, the head broke in half, rolling under my car and stopping under my wheel, broken glass side up.

“Damnit,” I cursed, belly on ground, shoving inch by inch to it as I broke, straight to the ugly cry.

Grabbing a stick and hitting it made it roll to the other tire, my tears now making strange contortions in my body. My mother could see my girls whenever she liked, provided I was there, and so how was I to tell my preteen who didn’t like much about me as it were that there was something so bad, so flawed that my own mother couldn’t even bear it, not even to see her girls, who I know she loves.

She’d hate me and I didn’t blame her, or the damn Owl for that matter, so with a concrete face and smeared mascara, I was a sight rolling from under my car, the cursing and crying to a God I liked as much as Darth Vadar didn’t make for a proud moment.

How I wish this ended in a rehab story, but instead I got the head, chucked it and all I heard was “pink, pink, pink,” and the damn thing landed in direct position of passing vehicles, certain to cause a flat if hit, so I screamed profanities and told it to go back to the G-damn Goodwill and other seriously deranged statements a lunatic might say to a piece of Owl pottery.

I kicked it until satisfied, slipping a little, my hurt pounding like bread dough in a Southern biscuit special, I felt I got it out, whatever it was, until I turned.

My baby, my nine year old with her big serious brown grey eyes were open as wide as they could go.

I had lost all account as how long ago I had gone crazy or filthy mouthed, beating the shit out of an Owl qualifies for therapy, if it were not too late. Every horrific site of her in paIn, pulling out hair, every Dr. Phil show where parents remove all furniture for their own safety flashed in segments. I had nothing.

She was traumatized for life.

Here it came. I closed my eyes and from the child who rolled her eyes like she were presenter for the “eye roller” child of the year award, who did not want me to call her Kat, a new horror I am guilty of constantly, looked at me, paused, and so i sat in a dramatic suffocating moment of sick remorse.

She grabbed my hands, in our yard, the actual Public, tears filling and not because i said no computer, but real tears. She threw her teeny body in a hug I haven’t seen since she found friends and sleepovers.

I think I was in shock.

“I want to be the mom that you are,” she said forcing my chin down to look through me.

I was either shocked or disassociating, I’m unsure.

“because, she finished, all you ever want is for your kids to be free.”

She pointed in serious gesture to me. “You mom, you know what it means to let me be free.”
She pointed to the ground now, arching her back straight, to finish her thought.
“and that’s what I’ll be too…”

She patted me now, easing out of the embrace, and if I could tell you what the hell that has to do with me pulverizing a poor pottery Owl while crying like a lunatic, I may be qualified for this mothering job, which obviously I am not.

Maybe she thought I went nutso over her comment over the pancakes and has been trained to diffuse highly emotional moms.

Maybe she is really the Owl, wise and old her soul came here, light years ahead of my evolution, sometimes I feel I evolve slower than a chicken in a crock pot not turned on, and even if she stopped our special handshake and gave away all her dolls and criticizes my cooking, she really sees me.
To be seen is all I ever hoped for and Owls even at night, have the perfect radar vision.

Maybe she really just wants that Xbox 360 for Christmas.
Maybe she is part fairy, part owl, a mix of my mother and I combined, and she understands that my broken Owl holds a truth I just can’t see yet.

Or maybe she saw no broken owl, just her mothers broken heart, a thought I hate.

Maybe in unknowingly letting her see me flawed and wrong and insane, she saw my mess and loved me the more for it.

Owls can see perfectly at night, the only creature who flies with precision and beauty and purpose in the midst of complete and utter darkness.

And perhaps, so can my Kat.

Humble Beginnings

When I had lunch with my father for the first time in years, I showed up with no hope for anything less than a migraine, my tone sarcastic and inappropriate, many jokes right on the edge of my tongue.

It is just my way, a nervous tick, bizarre and dark my humor comes to protect me in times of humiliation, terror, and even when death awaits, I can’t help it.

I get the giggles.

The first thing that surprised me was how I had ever forgotten how hard I make my dad laugh. It was strange to have forgotten the way he laughs at my jokes, his hand slapping his knee, the way he grabbed his side as if it were literally hurting.

I missed that.

I asked him if he had a 23 page nuker letter for me, partly to test the waters, partly to make a dig, partly to judge, something I had seem to have become numb to doing. He laughed.

He had aged, white hairs were more visible, a heart attack now ensured an “Ipod” be sewn into him, and he seemed immediately different, soft, much more gentle and patient, like he perhaps had a story of his own.

I wasn’t even skeptical or disrespectful as I had been for so long.

I was plain curious.

It was so odd to be his daughter again, like I had rented him or something, all of the sudden this man I had so grieved as a father was putting gas in my tank till full, checking if I had a seatbelt, not letting me pay for my soda.

I felt nothing.

When I walked into the cabin, I had to die laughing at his bachelor life, the same damn exercise bike still in place but with a mound of clothes covering it to the floor.

I stopped dead in my tracks at his pointing out the book that “changed his life” but doesn’t remember, the 4 agreements I nodded, but It wasn’t that. I saw the books next to it, the ones he hadn’t read but I owned, outlined to death and nearly destroyed after dropping it in the bathtub once.

“Dad, are you reading this?”

He squinted two inches away, trying to remember, but I knew that no way did he find this book on his own.

“My therapist has me reading those, which I am going to start,” a pause, then the kicker, “You know you come from Narcisstic parents.”

“Wait. He even pronounced the word correctly, and was instructed in therapy to read the book that had just recently become my Bible?”

I was feeling nervous now, for it was clear he was not even trying to impress me or make a story, but I had been told he had scammed that Dr. and wasted his time and patience, taking his money instead of using it for therapy.

This began many nervous pause and with a question, my breath trying hard not to show my anticipation.

This was it, the moment to get my questions answered, the ones I stared at in the middle of the night.

“Hey Dad. What ever happened with that grant you got that paid for your insurance?”

He didn’t skip a beat.

“Well, I was without a job and had no insurance because in one month of having my first silent heart attack, my insurance went up from 330 to over 900 dollars. There was just no way. I begged the doc to not make me, you know how I feel about needles.”

I let out my breath finally, my mind spinning.

“I didn’t even ask but the Doc went in his drawer and pulled one document to sign, telling me I qualified.”

Then I realized the ridiculous fiction I passed off as the Bible.

Like a disciple in a cult, I had been repeating that he got pissed his insurance wouldn’t get paid for by a relative, dropped his insurance on purpose to piss that relative off and having no job or money, he had gotten a bloody grant? He had to have scammed it I nodded in agreement, the other heads in unison.

I had been there five minutes and already I could feel in the way he talked and moved, his focus on his Four Agreements book he displayed were one of a billion web shots flashing thru my mind.

I had been right. And oh, horribly wrong, but RIGHT, but how? I had just been certain I had been right. I didn’t know right could feel so wrong.
How could I be angry at my family when I had participated in the same alienation that had been done to him?

And oh God, the blogs, all the public blogs I had written!

I couldn’t go back now, I thought, guilt rising like a hot air balloon.
He had lived here alone, totally ostracized, for YEARS, and I expected him not to change at ALL, not even a teeny bit? How could this have happened? I know enough just being alive I can transform in a day, a moment, and I wrote him off like a bad check.

I decided to ask a lot of questions, strange ones to him I know, and I asked in my poker face just for my own observation, my heart pounding.

I didn’t even have to hear the answers to the questions I had just known would destroy us before we had the chance to start. I knew in five minutes I was in trouble for this wasn’t the man I remembered, not at all.

I was sick as he chatted nonchalantly, this man I had been so afraid of had big tears in his eyes because we were listening to Adele, who always made him cry. He told me about his anger and what that had been like to deal with, how he had just graduated to acceptance of never seeing his children again, how that broke him and he only wanted more than anything just to be able to hug his sons, know his grandchildren.

He spoke of my mom being his best friend, his entire identity had been as mom’s husband, my dad, and without us, he was nothing.

He had to have this lesson to teach him who he was.

I knew my father and I were alike, but in this moment I saw he understood me.

He understood that to work and work for acceptance and respect to sabotage that same love you wanted again and again, along with his communication problems, he had hit rock bottom.

And he needed to.

And so did I.

I didn’t like myself suddenly.

I could feel my stomach tightening, everything in my Spirit saw that I was wrong, and it had almost been three years and I had judged him harshly, removed all contact and yes, he agrees I should have. He had been toxic and in the middle of a horrible divorce, had gone nuts, knew it, owned it.

I hadn’t anticipated that.

I remember that passage from the Bible as a little girl something like, “To enter the kingdom of God you have to become as a little child,” and that was the second harsh lesson of this day.

I hugged him goodbye, him not asking for anything from me and I didn’t care what anyone thought, not anyone for my father had taught me a valuable lesson this day. I had nothing to teach or give, nothing and his inner work humbled me, my pride and investment in being “right” or not being “accepted” had blinded me in a war that had never been mine to fight.

I had been a part of the ugliest divorce in which the children were the missiles, and I had to forgive that. I had to forgive him. I had to forgive myself. And like he said, I had to forgive mom. But first, I loaded Kat and Lola in the car and my tummy turned in anxiety for I knew they had not seen him for years and what would I say? How would I tell them?

I got out the first sentence.

“Girls, we are going to see Papa…”

They interrupted me.

“His colors are good now, mommy?” Kat asked with big wide eyes.

“Papa misses me?” says Lola, and together when I nodded, tears flowing down my cheeks, I didn’t have to ask them forgiveness or explain my reasoning, they looked at each other, squealed, hugged and told me to turn up the radio, putting their hands up in the air like we were on a roller coaster.

And so a child shall lead them.

ADD AWESOME

I have secret fantasies, sure, and some I must brag and say are BRILLIANT and out of the box, like my idea that all sexual harassment will end the day we pass a law that for once a year, men aren’t allowed to wear underwear.

“Ewwww” you might be thinking but as a woman with D breasts at the age of ten, who cried every day for having her bra unhooked in class, the nickname “Melons” still haunting her all the way to College, would like one day dedicated to men not wearing undies.

One day of imagining boys wonder if their jockstrap will be snapped in class, to be not looked at in the eye at gas stations by creepy women ogling or giggling, to wonder if their ideas are respected for the idea not the bulging Fabio package they sling around might do a world of good.

I bet it would begin the consumer frenzy of “Men’s Secret,” a place men go to enhance, push up, squeeze, seduce and reduce while feeding billions of dollars into the idea that pain does equal gain, that their lady will not cheat if they are taking the proper care of their packages and since penis implants are on the rise, they too might even result to buying the latest pump, inserts, invisible tape and itchy lace, with high priced tags promised to build their self esteem.

It is a good thought in theory but maybe I’m a lazy activist, but I’m sorry, no way in hell do I want to look at scrotums all day, but I have a better idea anyways, one that does not entail balls being bounced by disgusting men who don’t know they are disgusting even with a national holiday to prove it.

National ADD Day Folks.

I’m excited just thinking about it, God I love pretending, for one day a year I would dream of waking up and knowing as I stir my coffee that just today I shall be validated, that all those logical judgmental linear people would be sweating it.

I would be a teacher that day, because yes, it is my fantasy and yes, no one is more qualified.

I would start the day ensuring that for my student’s best interest every sign would be gone, roads would just disappear and locker, phones, and purses would never be right where they left it last.

That would begin the grading curve you see, cause there would still be those people who despite every move I threw at them, would show up on time, with two organizers, a monogrammed and matching day calendar and planner secretly inserted into their veins by aliens who despite my holiday, like to fuck with me.

I would immediately set time for them with a counselor who would kindly explain they are fucked in the head for sitting still, causing distraction by their lack of distraction, and for their own “help” I would line up serious meds, expensive and frowned upon by the chaos committee cause damn people, how hard is it to lose your keys? What are they buried and glued up your ass?

How can you live with yourself for knowing you would never lose a cell phone and is it really sweetie, that hard I would ask, nicely patting them on the shoulder to make them understand I only mean to help, but remembering appointments instead of daydreaming could fuck up your whole life, if left untreated!

Then after a good talk and some healthy shame and dangerous chemicals that may or may not work and who knows if it could cause cancer or birth defects, I would tell them to write a play, dance a choreographed routine Janet would be proud of, do a stand up routine by the end of class on cue but whatever they do, it must be original, creative, inspiring, and if I’m not crying or laughing, they may not make it to college.

Then, I would not take excuses, explain that creativity and spontaneity are a must in the work force, that being “LOGICAL” was something drug companies made up to be rich, to stop making excuses and while they scramble to try to not sit still, I would ask if anyone in the class had done their homework.

When my best pupil describes with humor and confidence how she had in one day thrown 200 bucks in the trash because her other hand was busy, left her coffee mug on the hood of the car, forgotten her son’s math tutoring for she had been rolling in the floor with him and lost track of the time, we would stand and congratulate her, give her honors and a full scholarship.

After reading her poetry to the class, brilliant and beautiful poetry that moved us all to tears, it would only make sense she had created it while looking for her purse that had been frozen by accident cause somehow it got left next to the ground beef she forgot had expired.

Duh.

Then after removing math and science or at least only deeming it as important as say theatre, music, or P.E., if you were a student who still struggled, and I mean the serious ill, the ones who were too busy thinking about fractions to tell a joke when called upon, well, then that idiot will set the bar for what the other linears never want to be branded as so they will hide, cry, seek forgiveness and mood stimulators to fit in to a classroom that maybe with enough fear, will conform, hide their responsibility and gifts and one day, we just pray and hope they too will make something of themselves.

So, on my pretend holiday, I will  my pretend shirt I would buy but just never heard of it, “ADD AWESOME” sip my coffee and write my blog, until I remember something I forgot, again, and oh, shit.

Am I getting the girls today from the bus stop or is that tomorrow?

I guess that ends my secret holiday, but don’t worry, I’m sure to lock my keys, lose a child, forget a bunch of names and die of massive boredom at least once today.

 

And perfect example is Ingrid, who rocks my point.

 

Don Draper Should Wear Granny Panties

Call me crazy, like that would be a first, but I had an epiphany watching Netflix.

Hell yeah epiphanies come straight from Netflix, usually after Mad Men or Samantha Who.

I used to hate big loud cinematic dramas with cars exploding and people running for cover, until recently. Suddenly, the man running from his captives, heart pumping adrenaline and face dirty with a hint of dried blood on his upper lip was no stranger.

I find myself nodding in understanding, laughing at the irony, and I admit, am even sometimes that fool yelling at the television to “Watch out!” and “NO, no, no, never trust an ex who needs information from the FBI, IDIOT“

Sigh.

I have been seclusive and paranoid, watching for people in the bushes if you will, always on guard for the next betrayal, and finding it hard to face that my experiences have shaped me into someone who is constantly on the edge, a person surviving, not living.

Barely surviving.

I have had huge gaping holes in my memory, at night I toss and turn, questions and thoughts burning loose, so strong my desire to be free of the darkness that has engulfed my very being.

One channel tells me to let it go, to wipe a new slate clean, to not be defined by what I was, to go live the life I dream of, to just let the hurt heal and let it be.

The next channel screams impossibility, not without answers, not with this sinking feeling in my gut that nothing is okay, and never will be if I don’t look back to move forward.

This part of me screams into the pillow at night.

I thought I would be most disturbed by my recent estrangement with my mother and yet, it was not her that I thought of, but him.

My father.

It has been an impossibility that I would ever be in this position, the scapegoat of a dysfunctional and Narcissistic Family, completely ostracized from a family after setting down a boundary. One boundary began the long fight into this cold war and sometimes I wonder if it was even worth it, unconditionally loved or not, I forgot what I even was fighting for or if it ever even mattered.

I do know without a doubt that the claims I know and God help the ones I don’t know are so preposterous, so beyond my personal understanding for not having a relationship with your own daughter and grandchildren that in this grief I kept wrestling and wondering over and over again.

What if this had been done to him too?

The answers all came back immediately that no, this is an impossibility, but still, I was sick, going over and over scenarios that made no possible sense and yet were the reason behind every bit of my motives for keeping him far, so very far away.

Did he lose his mind, quit therapy as I had understood, taken up a mistress, and had he loved us at all? The questions I have for this man are endless but the answers have never come, only more heartache and disillusionment than ever, a door I closed.

I wasn’t falling for that stupid trap door again.

But still, the part nagged me the most was over his stalking us, a terrifying period of time I did not want to ever revisit. But, did his visits and letters have everything to do with her and nothing to do with me?

She did live with me at the time.

And yet, of course not. She would never lie.

But she had, indeed lied about me, a part of herself, her soul, or so I thought. Wouldn’t he have received even worse treatment or am I just searching to be lost, too afraid to shut the door and start my life with the acceptance I am no one, from no family, and any attempt otherwise will only set me back years in progress?

Until I eerily saw him AGAIN, at the same damn QT, in the week he also ran into Divorcee and other coincidences that felt more like tin garbage cans being smacked against my ears, God telling me to wake the hell up.

This was dicey and secret and I could only imagine the repercussions it could have, and even though Thelma may not have ever spoken to me again, I had to follow my gut.

I had to go meet with my father.

I had unfinished business.

I have been waiting a long time now to write about this, always on pause until the epiphany arrives first, I have decided it is time to put that sleeping dragon to sleep, the one who can’t move on without going back, and it is time to face my fears.

It is time for me to not only write about him but this past six months as well, on how I came to live with my current boyfriend, the new found trials of motherhood and did I mention that yes, I live with a boyfriend? 

Strap on the Granny panties, Miss Obvious, no more hiding behind ridiculous Netflix movies and back into your own life.

If only Mad Men had an episode on this. In exception to the time I yelled Pimp or rolled my eyes every time you “fell in love,” Don Draper, I will remove all judgement of you in hopes my readers will be equally kind, and if not, I suppose I could always steal an identity, get filthy rich, marry my secretary and run from my past.

Hmm. Perhaps Don Draper should try Granny Panties himself.

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Today

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America is Full of Shit and Sheep

Happy 4th of July Peeps! (I roll my eyes a little and it is coated thick with sarcasm but that is the great thing about writing, no body language or facial expression can expose my true emotions.)

Why you may ask, Miss Obvious, do you not love hot dogs burning, beer cans opening, crowds of sweating hot hairy people cheering for the U.S.A.?

Well, if you didn’t ask, I still am going to tell you.

It’s not just July 4th, it is almost all the holidays, so I do not discriminate.

Except for Christmas and Halloween, I get a little irritation, like a bad itch you can’t scratch, for most of these national Holidays.

Thanksgiving annoys me because it is built on a total lie, and yes, it had to be my child who dressed like a pilgrim told her teacher that Indians had not been our friends, that this was a rewritten day in history, a gaslight attempt to brainwash generations of children into believing we shared corn and a turkey to distract them from the fact we stole, murdered, and raped land that was never ours to own in the first place. Thanksgiving should be the day we donate a dollar at Kroger for the “Trail of Tears” day, but would all the Native American Indians even want a day off while bitter entitled grossly overweight Americans bitch the one day that year we acknowledge the truth of our ancestors?

God forbid “Heavenly Ham” go out of business.

No, we would rather get even more fat, bitch and moan in traffic to get off work to watch our even more overweight kids pretend to be Indians as we clap and clap, ready to eat in reminder of how wonderful we were to the Indians, who were our friends.

So, wave a flag, today is July 4th.

Maybe it is the Champion, the personality type Thelma read me, the idealist who hates conformity, who from Gandhi to Riots, is the perfect trail blazer type, must question authority and convention at all cost.

Or maybe I just got out of an elevator, a lover of people I truly am, but people, I got stuck for two whole minutes with “Americans,” meaning full blown “AMERICAN” people.

I was getting my mac fixed, in a hurry, am a huge hater of malls, a debt infested flea market for empty starving souls called “Shoppers,” all my shopping is online or Target, to live is to be free of American people roaming the mall, in my opinion.

The mom, 100 pounds overweight in her mom jeans under her saggy boobs was a blinking flag, seriously. If the power had gone out in the building, the woman could have powered the city of Atlanta in her flair alone, bright blinking flag earrings and vest, wristwatch with red and blue diamonds in the shape of a fucking FLAG, people. Her husband, checked out and gazing at the buttons like he were in a logic puzzle, had on his matching “Independence Day” get up.

A hat with “USA” embroidered and Dad jeans with zero expression, his voice as flat as an 8 year old girl’s chest, in a drawl, said, “You going up?”

No. I’m riding a pony to deliver a letter from Paul Revere to the government who by the way, would never lie to your beautiful 100 pound baby with chocolate all over his face, with American flags even attached to the stroller with get this, duct tape.

What is more American than that?

The baby dropped it’s ice cream, began screaming for the government approved baby killer unnatural and toxic treat, bought from people who are responsible for cancer and breast growth in six year olds, but hey, It’s America.

This is while the ten year old fat kid in tight shorts and man boobs began jumping up and down, shaking the elevator, making the baby scream louder.

The mom, or the fattest Statue of Liberty I ever saw, began ripping through her purse like a terrorist had just been announced over the mall intercom system, which in Georgia, I bet they have a 10,000 dollar tax exempt sprinkler service instead.

The kid got louder, the boy jumped harder and the mom got better and better “treats” out of her purse, bribery the kids knew too well, slapping gum out of her hand, only stopping for her iphone with literally, American flags bedazzled on to the phone case, a “you know how it is” look given, the kid throwing it on the ground right as the door opened.

Damn. I was behind them.

Two full minutes later as they shuffled their fat asses and shopping bags out the elevator, the epiphany comes.

“Dear God, you really took an elevator to go one floor?“

One trip real quick to the mall and all brain cells evaporate, really?

I had not noticed, or even questioned the absurdity of it, until fifteen minutes later, I squeezed my way into the Mac store, given an electronic waiting number, video games, angry tired children crying, blinking lights, 100 blue tooth talking motherfuckers later, I am just glad to be alive.

I don’t know if I want to be watching fireworks with these people, but my kids are always the interest at hand, and fireworks they love, so I guess I am grateful to be out of the mall alive, to be stuck back in traffic, with more road rage, failing gas prices, and more shopping malls building per millisecond.

Last year I was on a lawn with 100s of people singing the National Anthem leading right into Killing in the Name, the best Phish 4th of July party ever.

“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” was the sound system of freedom and truth ringing in my ear, people gathered to dance and yell, hug and shout, all in unity, rhythm, and love.

You can celebrate the freedom of what this country represents, or speak of the atrocities of what it has done, but either way, wave your flag or blast Rage Against the Machine, Happy 4th of July, America.

God Bless all of the blind, rich, intolerable, overindulged, self righteous, sheep of America, myself included, for the land of the brave, and the home of the free.

Instead of Amen, we should all let out a loud, Bahhhhahhhhahhha.

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