08.24.09
Older, But Wiser?
A friend of mine is turning 24 later this week. Twenty-four. She looks more like she’s 19! The really funny thing about it though is that she actually thinks she’s getting old.
Call it a design flaw of my mind, but I can’t help thinking about what I was like at her age (and yes, I realize that makes me sound like I’m about 80 years old…oh, you kids these days!). I can’t help but think of all the things I hadn’t yet learned about life and about myself. What I thought I wanted, what I thought I’d “have,” where I thought I’d be. What, if anything, I’d go back and change.
Admittedly, 24 turned out to be a bit of a pivotal point for me. If I hadn’t made some of the choices I did at my friend’s age, 29 probably wouldn’t look like it does for me now. I can’t quite reconcile myself as to whether that means I hold pure regret or vague curiosity.
In particular, I wonder how different I’d be with different outcomes. If I’d be happier, more innocent, less jaded, mayhaps with fewer under eye wrinkles. If I’d be blissfully unaware. I wonder if, in general, I’d have more optimism than I seem to muster these days. I’d venture to say I’ve certainly been shown countless reasons not to be. Reasons to be pessimistic at worst, doubtful at best.
But, I guess it can’t be helped to be shaped by the experiences of, the indelible mark left by, the choices I’ve made. I like to think though (and sometimes cling to the notion) that I haven’t, that I am not, limited by them.
Still, I’ve come away questioning myself and my apparent inability to trust my instincts. I’ve come away with a fear of making the same lapses in judgment. Of finding myself in similar situations and still, well, fucking up.
If I’ve learned nothing else in the last few years, it’s that there’s nothing I hate more than a lie. But that I’m also strong enough to survive it.
08.19.09
Toolbag Wednesday #22: AKA Reason Bajillion Why I’m Going to Hell
Today is shaping up to be one of those days when I just want to punch someone. Say perhaps the lady “in line” in front of me this morning when I went to get coffee.
“EXCUSE ME! I was in line!”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Glares and shuffling ensued. It was every woman (or bitch) for herself. And as her Eyes of Hatred continued to bore into me, my face went hot and I got inordinately pissed. I mean, it’s not like I deliberately cut in front of the lady (who incidentally maybe shouldn’t have been ordering the Sausage McMuffin breakfast combo with iced coffee, oj, an extra hashbrown, a parfait, and a Cinnamelt). Of course Ms. I’m-Ordering-a-Breakfast-for-Four would be “in line” in front of me. Of course.
This is when I decided (because I apparently have STELLAR decision-making skills before 8 am and most importantly pre-coffee) not to leave well enough alone.
“You know, I really didn’t mean to cut in front of you…you were all the way back by the doorway. I thought you were just digging in your bag.”
“Well, I was. But I was still in line.” (She said “in line” without the ironic air quotes though. The hulking cow actually meant it.)
Jesus fucking Christ, I thought. And before I knew what I was doing…
“GREAT! That’s great! And guess what? YOU STILL ARE!”
She didn’t say anything after that. I stood there seething, even though I really had accidentally cut, and we both preceded to wait on her fucking family feast so that I could get my measly coffee.
In my mind, I imagined what she would have done if I had told her what I really thought. If I had said something like, “Well you don’t have be a fat bitch about it” or “Lady, don’t fuck with me.” I don’t know, something a little provocative.
Toolbag. Fat, bitchy Toolbag.
08.18.09
Hometown Je ne Sais Quois
There’s something about returning, if only for a day, to my once upon a time hometown. I’m one of the few who got out and, with my parents relocated, I’ve long since stayed away. But driving up the street of the neighborhood in which I grew up, it did something to me when we brought the car to a stop at the curb of my childhood home no more.
Over the green expanse, there sat the front yard climbing tree still looking climbable, there the bay window Mom would clamber through after a quick pop of the screen when locked out of the house, there the rose bushes school dance pictures were taken in front of, the backyard pin oak I planted from a seed that’s grown taller than the roof, and the cul de sac where the neighbors would gather to chat and keep an eye on the horizon as springtime tornado sirens blared. There sat all the convoluted histrionics of my memory. All that a childhood home comes to signify. The tiny fiefdom of family life.
But for all that, the door stood tightly locked against me and I held no interest in ringing the bell. Instead, we continued on down the street my brothers and I once raced our bikes along, past the sledding hill, and the neighbor’s backyard in which I broke my collar bone one summer. So much of what I saw felt so familiar and yet off. The town and everything in it was the same and not all at once.
Here still were the soybean fields and the knee-high-by-the-Fourth-of-July cornfields. Here remained the two-screen movie theater that once had been a church, the brick paved streets, and the Victorian mansions intended for families no fewer than 12. And here the old railroad depot- my first gateway out of town to places anywhere but here.
All around me the bubble in which I grew up, sheltered from all that seemed foreign and exotic about a city life I have since come to know and love, was alive and well. In returning to it, I realized I never could have appreciated my hometown as I do now if I hadn’t left. And I never could have appreciated urbanity had I stayed.
There may be no home for me there anymore, no more holidays there with family or friends, no reason to return really except…
There’s something about the art of remembering where I come from, of idling at the curb, and then finding myself content to drive away with the same memories and sensibilities with which I came.
08.12.09
Writer’s Block of the Heart
A bad day. A slump. A rut. Why is the day so bad? Why the mood so foul? I know why. And I do not want to write about it.
So I call up Boss Lady, or Grandma if you will. She doesn’t recognize my voice at first- despite my best intentions, I call too infrequently. But when I tell her it’s me, it’s as though I can hear her face light up. I can hear her smile. She’s always happy to hear from me. She says, “Well I’ll be!” She says it as though nothing else in the world could have more surprised or made her afternoon. Her granddaughter called her for no reason.
Well, almost no reason. Under the guise of requesting Boss Lady’s rhubarb jam recipe, I sought a bit of sunshine and happiness. A bit of human connection where all others seem to be slackening. I wanted to reach out to the one person who still cries in her sleep for the husband lost, but who wakes up each morning and starts over with what life has given her. I wanted to be reminded that you go on.
Tasked with digging up the recipe and adding a few others for good measure, Boss Lady went on to chat about the latest family gossip. So and So’s knee surgery, Great Aunt You Know’s son’s graduation, the Cousin Twice Removed’s dog that got cancer and had to be put down. Ever the keeper of every family happening and whispering. A matriarch through and through, if we allow.
Before she hung up the phone and returned to her afternoon as planned- a string cheese and juice snack, looking after her post-surgery sister, and painting the wrought iron seat by the backyard crab-apple tree- she asked after the boyfriend. How is he? How does he like his new place? Is he still traveling? How is work?
A few noncommittal “yes’s” and “no’s” and all was politely, if not accurately, skirted. I didn’t tell her about the troubles he’s facing or how it’s taking its toll. I didn’t tell her how I hurt for him, how lonely I feel at the same time. Instead, I merely blanketed my own uncertainty and sadness with throw-away words, poorly expressed “fineness” and “goodness.”
Boss Lady wasn’t done with me though without reasserting her approval, advising I “hang onto him.” She meant well, but each syllable brought a return of my pre-call weariness. The conversation had turned inward on me and I not only saw but felt my own smile wane. There was nothing more to say after that except, “Grandma, I’m trying.”
08.06.09
Forget Shark Week, THIS is Far Scarier
According to every other commercial on the Discovery Channel, it’s Shark Week ‘09. I’m sorry, but my fear of the ocean aside, the sharks have nothing on my latest adventure and it happened on land. In fact, it happened on a balmy summer evening in my married friends’ 2 bedroom condo. Now also home to….baby.
After the Baby Shower and The Birth and the Congrats on Baby, etc.; I knew I was due to visit them. It was the friendly thing to do! I knew I’d have to stop in with a coffee cake or some junk and meet the little bugger. And I knew I didn’t want to.
While I’m happy for my friends- this baby is a real joy for them, I’m not the kind of person who is going to coo at the Little One. I know my ovaries are supposed to kick into overdrive or something and I’m supposed to be all “Oh, I want one!” But no. Instead, I’m the kind of person who gets more excited about the dog on the sidewalk rather than the baby in the stroller. I figure the dog won’t turn 11, realize I don’t actually know everything, and then decide I’m ruining their life and that they HATE me.
So I guess you could say I dreaded going to see them- mostly because I knew they’d corner me into holding him. My anxiety over this was paramount- something akin to public speaking or visiting the dentist. The thing is, when it comes to babies, I just don’t know what I’m doing and am fearful that all I will ever accomplish is to make them cry. And really, who wants to be the Girl Who Makes Babies Cry? While my fear may seem ridiculous, it’s steeped in Historical Fact.
Once upon a time, I was a 10 year old babysitter (yeah, back in The Olden Days people actually believed a 10 year old was not only old enough to be left home alone but also a suitable watcher of children and babies), which incidentally is the last time I held a baby. The baby I was watching at the time, of course, was blissfully asleep when the mom left- promising that he’d sleep the whole time. Fat chance that happened.
Baby woke up and WOULD. NOT. STOP. CRYING. I tried to feed him to no avail. I changed his diaper without needing to. I picked him up and walked him around the house with a jostle here and a jostle there. In the end, I put him back in his crib and stood back…and joined him in his tears. I kept waiting for the mom to come home and ask how it went. Oh, you know, we were just crying.
Previous history notwithstanding, my friends sat me down on their formerly pristine Crate & Barrel sectional and deposited their offspring into my arms. There I sat dubiously holding their six week old and nothing about it appealed to me. Actually, I kind of felt put out. I didn’t want to hold him in the first place, but how do you say “no thanks” without being rude?
Within 20 seconds he scrunched up his face and began a timid, then audaciously repulsed wail. It was as though he could literally smell my fear…like bees or something. In the meantime, my friends laughed and made no indication that they were at all inclined to alleviate me. Ha! Ha! Ha! Look at the silly single girl! She’s going to cry! It appeared that I was marooned, afraid to stand and force him back into either of their more skilled arms, and beginning to sweat. All the while, an alarm in my mind was sounding. FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE!!!
I’ve never been so happy to board a CTA bus and return to my relatively quiet and baby-free home as I was that night. Now I’m just praying that I don’t see my likeness on the family web site. I’ll be the one, the ONLY one, with the constipated look on her face while Baby screams in my unwelcoming arms.
