Not the chosen

Monday, November 17, 2008

“There is a spider out there”, she said pointing toward the bathroom, “with only three legs.“ She is almost cracking up in a wicked laughter as she tells me, matter-of-factly.

“Okay”, I think. “What?“, I say.

“She pulled them off!“, she says with a smile on her face that says this is interesting, very interesting indeed. “At least I think so.“

“Uh..“ is all I can think of saying. “Oh! Oh, that would explain the spiders in the basement with some of their legs missing! I bet Carlita totally crawls her way down the stairs, you know, exorcist style, licking the stair railing on the way down, back arched the wrong way, fingertips and curled toes defying gravity. No matter that we have a lock on the door leading downstairs. The latch should be no problem for her and her demon ways!“ is what I’m thinking.

I feel like that time when my grandmother was absolutely positive that I had been sexually molested by my step dad. I am not even kidding. For all I know she still thinks so, and the worst part is I just don’t know what to say to that other than what has been said already. What more can I say? There is a sickness deeply rooted in my family. We all love each other, but we are crippled with dysfunction.

It gets kind of old.

Apple not far from the tree, see how it falls.. and falls

Friday, November 14, 2008

I got some good advice last week, although I don’t think it was intended as such, and unfortunately I didn’t follow it.

My mum is convinced I am dying on a daily basis. I am going to get a blood clot or heart attack or whatever, especially if I get pregnant, because I am obese. I find it really fucking interesting that she knows how healthy I am, or not, as it were, from her week long visits 3-4 times a year. (Although it explains a lot about these past few months and Jelly Man..)

Jelly Man gets exasperated from the blatant hypocrisy she exhibits when she comes. It’s fast food this and fast food that almost EVERY day she is here, and chocolate this, chocolate that. When Carlita was younger we explicitly told her NOT to let her drink soda and yet.. We saw her help Carlita holding a glass full of soda because Carlita was so young (maybe a year and a half) that she couldn’t hold it steady on her own. She fed her french fries when we told her not to, and now that is all Carlita will eat the few times we DO eat fast food, so we quit buying fries for ourselves to try and get her to eat something a little more varied. My mum? Has to have fries, with a mountain of mayonnaise to dip them in.

It’s not that we don’t want Carlita to have any of these things - I think it would be wonderful to indulge her every now and then, but I wanted to wait longer - much, much longer. Does mum care? No, of course not. She comes 3-4 times a year and decides for us, and when she then goes home we are left with the aftermath. We can’t undo the things she does. The things she does despite our pleas.

My mum was born in ‘61 and she was somewhat of a wild child. She revolted against set rules of society, she beat her own path, having me young and all - and now she is kind of stuck in that rut. She thinks the only generation to have new thoughts, about life and the world in general was her own. The only people who “gets it” are her people. That the choices that other people make should be choices that she UNDERSTANDS, because gods know it isn’t enough that we are genuinely happy with the way we live our lives.

So, she took advantage of Jelly Man the visit before last, when he drove her to the airport alone (my mistake, won’t happen again - unless I manage, again, to forget how easily she slips back into her role as ALL KNOWING MOTHER*bleep*.) He bought her a bun and coffee and in return she told him how it is all his fault that I am fat, that IT IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY to get me to lose weight because he is my “boyfriend”. It’s bitter because she is willing to point the finger on him but can’t see that it ALL STARTED WITH HER. No, never HER. And when I confront her she tells me that she turned on Jelly Man because I don’t give a damn about myself, so she had to…

Ahem.

That is pretty much the point where I laugh AND cry hysterically, because REALLY? The only way I could possibly care about myself would be if I were to starve myself? I can’t possibly be eating healthy since I am still fat, right? I can’t possibly eat well or exercise, or I would be THIN, like HER. In true irony we never eat as much junk as when she is around. In true irony Carlita never had a sip of soda or a taste of french fries before she came around, breaking a pact that Jelly Man and I made together to try and give Carlita as healthy a start as possible.

Sometimes I think she feels that that is her cross to bear - that her only child grew up fat. Jelly Man was a fat, adopted kid and his mum was relentless about it (“look at you, you have tits!“), so in his late teens (after she died) he lost a lot of weight (with the help of not-so-legal substances), and ever since he has starved himself periodically because his natural weight is not skeletal, but he doesn’t feel good about himself if he gets too heavy. When we met his hip-bones were sticking out, now he looks “normal”, but his eating habits are anything but. We want to set a good example for Carlita, but when both of us have this emotional/food baggage and chips on our shoulders it’s hard enough without someone coming in and deliberately throwing a stick in the machinery despite our pleas not to.

It’s not that I think she is malicious, but her mind is as narrow as my asscrack. People, it is TIRESOME. And infuriating, because I have only one mother and I don’t want to despise her. She comes here and complains that my grandmother and uncle try to meddle in her life by telling her what she should be doing, yet she can’t see that when she comes here and do the things she does she is merely passing it on. And when she comes here and complains about the rest of the family I have no trouble seeing her complaining to the rest of the family about us when she gets back home. (In our most recent argument her stance was that I shouldn’t be so upset with her because she doesn’t mention how this place looks or how we raise Carlita - AND THAT SHE WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN BUT IS GRACIOUS ENOUGH NOT TO, AS IF IT WAS ANY OF HER BUSINESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.)

So, I guess it’s a lot of issues rolled up in one big fat lump of distrust. It’s not that I don’t think she would be there for me in a heartbeat if I needed her, but I fear it will always come with a price. And sometimes I think I’d be better off relying on someone else - like Jelly Man (always), or Jelly Man’s dad. Often enough I think that the only family that is good for me is the one I’ve created for myself with Jelly Man - and that is sad. Infinitely so. Because I know not everyone is as lucky to still have their mum alive and somewhat well. And I worry that I can only be at peace with her once she is no longer with us.

That right there just breaks my heart.

So next time I’m going to listen to the advice, that wasn’t really advice, and hug my mum the minute she arrives, because gods know when I can bring myself to do it otherwise.

Doing the deed, planting that seed

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The economy is in the shitter, we just had our bought-used-less-than-half-a-year-ago car fixed to the tune of all that we had in our pocket + lint, and now it has come to light that the boiler in the basement, the one that makes sure we don’t turn into icicles in the winter, is leaking badly and may have been leaking badly for years - that, at least, would explain a whole lot about the porch which crumbled this summer and certain walls with cracks that looks like they have blood poisoned veins running through them.

And we are currently waiting for one of my eggs to ripen so we can fertilize it.

As difficult a situation it was to have to choose between keeping the pregnancy with Carlita or terminating it (and dude, it was fucking hard) it was also a little easier than the situation I find myself in currently (although if you were to go back in time and tell me that when I was still holding that positive test in my hand I would probably have laughed hard and then punched you in the face.) She was there, already growing in my belly and when we did decide to keep her it was easier to see what we needed to do to accommodate our new “situation”.

Now, planning - it’s not as easy as it looks. I feel slightly crazy for wanting another baby/child/sibling for Carlita in times like these, and yet I have that ever burning desire. I’m also starting to see just how much of ME has been eaten up by the day to day upkeep of the household* and caring for Carlita, and how little parts of ME are being found again every time Carlita gains pieces of her own independence. I’ve been so wrapped up in being the mother to a baby for the past two years that I forgot that I am a person too, and just as I’m starting to remember things that I enjoy doing for my own sake we decide to have another child.

*Which, yes, I only started doing regularly recently - but trust me, it has always, ALWAYS been a subject of great agony to me, whether I actually did it or not. Probably more when I didn’t keep it up than now when I pick up everyone’s mess.

I am crazy, aren’t I?

But this time it IS a decision from start to finish. I really DO want another baby, and Jelly Man says that his general feelings on babies and family is “let them grow like weeds” which sounds vulgar but is Jelly Man’s way of saying; “Dude! I’ll have as many babies with you as it takes!“ So as far as hard decisions go, this is one of the easier ones.

So yes, maybe “planning” means “looking at the facts and deciding to have a baby anyway”, which in my opinion makes planning totally overrated.

When it becomes obvious

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I guess you could say we had a shotgun wedding, even if it was an extremely well planned shotgun wedding - as far as shotgun weddings go, anyway. We sent in our “we aren’t mutants and we aren’t married to other people, so can we please marry each other, thankyouverymuch?!“ obligatory papers on April 20th, or at least we signed them then (LOL, 4/20!) and then didn’t hear anything back all summer. I wasn’t too worried, thinking maybe the government people were on vacation, like, a really LONG vacation. In any case, I haven’t ever actually expected to be a married woman - not in the daydreaming of white dresses, trails and multilayered cakes kind of way - not that I didn’t ever want to be married, but not hearing anything back kinda solidified it in my mind that being married was for other people, not me.

Jelly Man came home last Friday and told me he had talked to his boss about not going to work on Monday, because the car needed fixing and he wouldn’t be able to get to work until it was finished - and also not going to work on Tuesday, but not telling me why he wouldn’t go to work then, being really coy about it. I just kind of let it slide, having stuff on my mind such as Mum flying up and occupying our private space for a week and a half. When Saturday rolled around my curiosity peaked and with a little probing I got him cornered.

“Do you want to marry me on Tuesday?“ he asked.

Silly man.

Signing papers was, to me, just a formality - for all intents and purposes we have been married for a while already, the line between being boy/girlfriend and husband/wife being more of a process than a day to day transformation, and the rings that we put on each others fingers yesterday are rings that we’ve been wearing for god knows how long already. Of course I would marry him. Of course.

I didn’t expect it to actually feel so final as it did when we stood at that secular altar in the municipal office, which is located in the same building as the police station (good riddance!) and I can’t quite explain how standing in front of a stranger could make our union feel more real than when we had Carlita, but somehow it did. Maybe it’s because we are each connected to Carlita in our own way, as her mother and her father, separately, and even if we were to walk our separate ways we would always be her parents. This time, however, it was just about the two of us, despite Carlita - if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Maybe one day I will look back and feel sad that we didn’t have a grand wedding, but in many ways this ceremony was an accurate representation of us - not quite planned, but not quite accidental either, not extraordinary but special enough to bother - special to us.

And now I get the connection. And it was indeed staring me straight in the face the whole time.