Normal girls, ones with parents and a lawyer and a close brother or sister... when they think about their relationship they don't think about the things I do. They think about their wedding and it isn't "How will I keep my brother from not rapping? Is he in jail right now? Are my dad and his new wife allowed to come to a non Catholic service now that he's devout? Are they even still in town? All of my side is going to be drunk girlfriends and middle aged men I spend most of my time talking about why we don't drink with?" They think about their gown, train or no train. They think about If their father will pay for a brass band or if they should just go with a DJ, not if their boyfriend would acquire the debt from the unpaid biopsy bill if that happy engagement ever happened.
And they don't think about what happens if that never comes about the way that a girl like me, one without family does. I don't think about if I break up who will get the things we got together, or if I will have to de-friend his sister on Facebook. I have to think about things like "Who is going to know I want all of my organs donated and the remainders of me to go to science? Who can clarify that I have a brain that is valuable to alcoholism research and it isn't to go anywhere else? That my mother died that way, and I saw friends die that way and I want memorial contributions made to it and my brain can't go anywhere else?" I have to wonder who will pick my daughter up from school to tell her if it happens in the middle of the day. I have to wonder who is going to check on my ex boyfriend, my best friend, on my birthday and death day every year and understand how close our friendship is and also to understand through their own experience that they are losing someone they love or at least once loved the same way.
Where would my cat go? Who would take her? Who knows what kind of food she eats? Who would tolerate her drooling?
And these are all just facts of life. If I lose a partner, I lose the voice that can speak for me in the absence of family, in the absence of my own.
And all of this is really only to say that I should stop watching Greys Anatomy in entire season chunks, at least before bed. Because I didn't do my sociology homework, but I'm only concerned with who would know who to call when surgery fails if I am all alone. And all this to say is that I am not one of the normal girls. And that it's clearly not all about not having a family.
Sorry Sandra Oh... we're going to need to take a break. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that you make me crazy.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
And, This Day Again.
I never have my daughter for Mothers Day-- this is by choice. Today's call was "Hi Mommy, Happy Mothers Day! I think I'm going to go to the park, ok bye, I love you!" Click.
There may have been a little more conversation than that in there, but it was all one sided attempts by me to keep her on the phone-- when she's done, she's done. She is 6 years old, she doesn't care who her mother is and she isn't supposed to. She's not supposed to spend a day celebrating the love and attention of her mother, which at her age she is legitimately entitled to entirely. She's supposed to take me 100% for granted, she's supposed to consider me someone who needs to be here all the fucking time doing exactly what she needs me to do like it's my fucking job. Because it is.
I'll save the "Tell me how much you love me" coy ego-boost fishing for falling asleep with my boyfriend (yeah, I do that shit: Sorry, boyfriend). And on Mothers day, I'll sleep in, I'll have lots and lots of sex, I'll not do my hair, I'll watch horror movies in the middle of the afternoon, and my life will be completely fucking fabulous, laid back, and responsibility free.
The bottom line is, mothers day is a family holiday and I have no family. I have no partner. My mother is dead. Mothers day doesn't particularly apply to me. It's not a happy day, it's one I would rather didn't exist. The man who got me pregnant will never show up, all 4 feel 5 inches of him, to be the big person and say "Thank you for raising our child completely alone with no help from me while I cheated on taxes to declare her and finished my schooling with no job on the returns: And now, watch me skip out while YOU'RE going to school, because shit bitch-- I got my education so thanks for going to school full time with no help from me while I move on to the next phase of my life AGAIN. Trust me, I'll profit on your losses in my refusing to co parent over and over again, because you're the best mom ever!" (and then produce for me a bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle Coco, a Sephora gift card and a promise to babysit any time I want in the next 3 months-- ah, mine is a rich fantasy world indeed). There is no flowers or cards or anything to be sent to my own mother, and I don't know that she ever really dug on those things to begin with, every year since she died is a reminder of how really bad I was at those things when I had the chance, time to reflect on how it must have felt in those last three years of sickness that mothers day came and went with no card to be found in her mailbox from South Bend, Indiana. My 6 year old isn't really going to be sitting and reflecting on how much I have or have not done for her, or what it's going to feel like to either of us thinking back on mothers day 10 years from now-- as well she shouldn't, and I would be the worlds most fucked up parent if for a split second I thought it should be that way. All and all, mothers day is about your community, and I have none. I have a child I want nothing from but her happiness (and the adorable card she made me in her first grade art class), I have no mother, I have no family. And I just want to skip mothers day, every single fucking year.
I went with a friend and his son for lunch today, and was given chocolate from a tiny candy shop in some little town near here. I am blogging while I devour the box of chocolates unceremoniously, in my pajamas. I may watch mommy dearest, I will totally not clean my apartment as I had originally planned on, and tomorrow I will have lunch with another friend of the maternal persuasion with difficult circumstances-- ones I could never begin to fully comprehend. And I'm leaving the "Mothers Day" tag off of it, and chalking everything up to "I had a very nice weekend" of whatever sort it was.
There may have been a little more conversation than that in there, but it was all one sided attempts by me to keep her on the phone-- when she's done, she's done. She is 6 years old, she doesn't care who her mother is and she isn't supposed to. She's not supposed to spend a day celebrating the love and attention of her mother, which at her age she is legitimately entitled to entirely. She's supposed to take me 100% for granted, she's supposed to consider me someone who needs to be here all the fucking time doing exactly what she needs me to do like it's my fucking job. Because it is.
I'll save the "Tell me how much you love me" coy ego-boost fishing for falling asleep with my boyfriend (yeah, I do that shit: Sorry, boyfriend). And on Mothers day, I'll sleep in, I'll have lots and lots of sex, I'll not do my hair, I'll watch horror movies in the middle of the afternoon, and my life will be completely fucking fabulous, laid back, and responsibility free.
The bottom line is, mothers day is a family holiday and I have no family. I have no partner. My mother is dead. Mothers day doesn't particularly apply to me. It's not a happy day, it's one I would rather didn't exist. The man who got me pregnant will never show up, all 4 feel 5 inches of him, to be the big person and say "Thank you for raising our child completely alone with no help from me while I cheated on taxes to declare her and finished my schooling with no job on the returns: And now, watch me skip out while YOU'RE going to school, because shit bitch-- I got my education so thanks for going to school full time with no help from me while I move on to the next phase of my life AGAIN. Trust me, I'll profit on your losses in my refusing to co parent over and over again, because you're the best mom ever!" (and then produce for me a bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle Coco, a Sephora gift card and a promise to babysit any time I want in the next 3 months-- ah, mine is a rich fantasy world indeed). There is no flowers or cards or anything to be sent to my own mother, and I don't know that she ever really dug on those things to begin with, every year since she died is a reminder of how really bad I was at those things when I had the chance, time to reflect on how it must have felt in those last three years of sickness that mothers day came and went with no card to be found in her mailbox from South Bend, Indiana. My 6 year old isn't really going to be sitting and reflecting on how much I have or have not done for her, or what it's going to feel like to either of us thinking back on mothers day 10 years from now-- as well she shouldn't, and I would be the worlds most fucked up parent if for a split second I thought it should be that way. All and all, mothers day is about your community, and I have none. I have a child I want nothing from but her happiness (and the adorable card she made me in her first grade art class), I have no mother, I have no family. And I just want to skip mothers day, every single fucking year.
I went with a friend and his son for lunch today, and was given chocolate from a tiny candy shop in some little town near here. I am blogging while I devour the box of chocolates unceremoniously, in my pajamas. I may watch mommy dearest, I will totally not clean my apartment as I had originally planned on, and tomorrow I will have lunch with another friend of the maternal persuasion with difficult circumstances-- ones I could never begin to fully comprehend. And I'm leaving the "Mothers Day" tag off of it, and chalking everything up to "I had a very nice weekend" of whatever sort it was.
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