kdiddy.org

I posted to MamaPop last week about a UK show called Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding according to some sites) and wailed about how it wasn’t available to watch in the US. I forgot, of course, that this is the internet and anything can be had if you know the right people. I won’t reveal my sources, but a few discs with some episodes arrived in my mailbox last week and I spent Saturday afternoon devouring them.

It’s pretty wild. The gypsies and travelers regard themselves as very strict and traditional. Gender roles are severely defined and haven’t changed much in the face of several waves of feminism and a sexual revolution. Girls marry young and move immediately into their roles as homemakers. They do this in their mid-to-late teens, which is around the time that many girls begin exploring their sexuality. So they’re able to say with some degree of authority that there is no pre-marital sex.

Because of the young marital age, gypsies and travelers seem to be far more tolerant about outward displays of sexuality extremely early in life. I watched, slack-jawed, as a group of 8-year-old girls celebrated their cousin’s First Holy Communion by grinding in high heels and tiny skirts and tops. Their parents and grandparents sat and watched and beamed with joy, the same expressions that they might have if they were watching the kids play Duck, Duck, Goose. They’re not concerned about the early sexualization of the girls because a) they’re only a few years out from being married anyway and b) they’re merely imitating the behavior of presumably chaste adolescents. The boys display a sense of territoriality by participating in “grabbing,” a courtship ritual that sounds a lot like accepted assault to me.

I wish the show would explore these gender roles and sexuality conventions more thoroughly, but they spend a lot of time on the bridal attire, if for no other reason than how absurd it is. I’m really curious about the general attire of the young people, which is, again, sexually provocative but to the ends of securing a husband, and other outfits that almost look like stereotypical/racially offensive gypsy costumes that you might see around Halloween in the US.

Anyway, all that pondering aside, I suddenly found myself feeling a bit of a pang during the Communion scenes. It occurred to me that the baby is around the age, perhaps even a bit older, that he would be making his First Communion if we were raising him Catholic. I remember being extremely excited about mine and in the context of this show I began to wonder how much of that was because of the dress and the veil that I got to wear. We looked like mini-brides and were giddy about that. But the important thing about my Communion outfit was that it was my mom’s. I was the latest in a long of people who had made the same sacrament. It was presumed that I would continue the tradition…until I knew that I wouldn’t.

Parenting and life are so scary sometimes, that maybe traditions, even those surrounded by yucky things like inequity, are comforting because they give us some road map that was laid down by people who lived and took care of their families with what seems to be a degree of certainty. Of course, the old ways were once new and there’s nothing stopping us from forging new traditions that are more appropriate for how we feel about and experience life. But I can’t help but look at even the most ridiculous, competitive dress for a young gypsy girl and think there’s something at least a little nice about it, the sheer celebration of survival of it.

I had made a half-hearted promise to myself to impose a NaBloPoMo-type requirement for February, since I just don’t post here enough and it’s silly because this is my space. This is where I should hang out. I have a few more hours of February 1 and it’s a short month so I think I can swing it.

Today was one of those tough days, too many big things going on, too much grown-up stuff, too many realizations that the people who were the grown-ups for us aren’t always going to be around. It makes me feel vulnerable, like soon there won’t be any grown-ups left in the world, or maybe they were never there. Just big people who managed to make me feel okay.

This afternoon, I found my thoughts wandering to Sunday’s episode of Big Love. Bill’s mother is exhibiting signs of dementia and Barb says to him, “I’m strong. Let me shoulder some of this burden.” I didn’t feel at all strong or capable or grown-up until I was able to grab the husband’s hand and ask if he was okay. Later, he let me hug him a little longer than he usually does and I felt strong. I felt like I could shoulder some of his burden. I never think I can be strong until I just flex my heart muscle and carry some of this big world around.

I spent most of yesterday on the couch, tooling around on the internet and watching TV, which is what you’re supposed to do when you’re sick. I think the giddiness that I experience at the prospect of being able to partake in such activities without a smidgen of guilt is what jump-starts the recovery process.

I watched things that wouldn’t cause me any grief if I were to fall asleep during them. Daytime TV is made for that sort of thing, but that’s also what makes it kind of enthralling, leaving me napless. First was The Family Stone, the plot of which captured about 3% of my attention. The rest of them time I spent thinking, “God, I LOVE that house.”

Then I watched a particularly absurd episode of MTV’s True Life, which was about young psychics. One young woman was having trouble in her relationship with a guy whose name I believe was Squash because he didn’t believe in her abilities. There was also the not insignificant issue of her Christianity and her psychic gifts were not in line with the Bible. Squash went to Chattanooga to buy guns and then they broke up over the phone. She started dating a guy she met at a psychic expo and made out on camera, but then broke up two weeks later. (Insert joke here about why she didn’t see that coming.)

There’s a soap opera channel and they were showing an episode from the first season of Beverly Hills 90210. I realize now that the only reason that I ever liked that show was because I was 12 and a moron. I wanted to smack Brenda so badly and Jason Priestley does nothing but furrow his eyebrows the whole time.

At some point in all of this, I saw a commercial for Rent-a-Center starring Troy Aikman and Hulk Hogan. The, um, plot was that Troy talks up the great deals at Rent-a-Center for a few seconds and then Hulk Hogan wanders into the frame wearing an elf costume. He then utters the words, “I have an elf wedgie.” And that’s it. That’s their commercial. That’s how a company chose to sell themselves. I have an elf wedgie. If viewing this commercial caused you to consider patronizing a Rent-a-Center, please drop a bag of hammers on your foot.

Later on that night, the husband and I ended up watching Spies Like Us, which is way more hilarious than I remember. We were cracking up over the training sequence, particularly the Radical Vertical Impact Simulation exercise.

We then ceased being able to breathe when the husband read the comments for this video. Someone actually formed this thought and then typed it:

They watched the explosions, the bog of pig shit with machine gunfire, flamethrowers, g-force exercise, and an airplane smashing into the ground, and THAT was the detail that gave them trouble.

* * *

I’m taking this week off of 30 days of truth because the topics that I would tackle this week, my views on religion, politics, drugs, and alcohol, are way too long-winded to crank out during a lunch break blog post. Next time!

Way back in 2000, just a few weeks after the husband became the boyfriend, I came down with a really disgusting stomach virus. It was a total disaster because as poorly as I handle vomitous situations now, I was way worse back then. I wouldn’t calm down about what was happening and kept trying to find what I considered, in my no doubt delirious brain, the most appropriate receptacle for my stomach contents. Because I was sick and weak, I never made it to any of the arbitrary destinations I had in mind, and ended up throwing up all over the goddamn place. It was pathetic. I’m pretty sure that I begged to be taken to the hospital mid-heave on the dining room floor.

My mom had to come and help mitigate the situation, but the husband stayed right by my side the whole time as I ran from room to room, ruining carpets, and slept on the couch with me while I watched The Outsiders and clutched a bucket.

Ten years later, almost to the day probably, in some weird, messed up cycle, I came down with another bug. It wasn’t quite as intense as the original version and I’m slightly less of a baby about the whole thing. But…ugh.

I was fine yesterday, but in the car on the way home, my stomach felt a little uneasy and I suddenly became very sensitive to smells. “I smell burnt plastic,” I snarled, but no one else did.

When we got home, I headed to the kitchen to make dinner, but spun around and told the husband and the baby that they should dip into their soup reserves because I wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to make anything. Then I headed upstairs because I needed to go to the bathroom.

I sat there, slightly concerned, but figuring/hoping that going to the bathroom would take that away. But then I started sweating out of nowhere and thought, “That…generally doesn’t happen.” And, of course, the baby was talking to me about…something through the door until I had to tell him to please stop because I was physically unable to talk anymore.

I stood up, flushed, and tried to evaluate the situation. “Yeah, I think maybe it’s going to happen. It’s okay. You can do this. Try not to think about what you ate for lunch today and how that will look in reverse. You don’t know how long you have at this point. Best to get ready. Take off your sweater. Secure your hair. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It’ll be–HHUUUUUUGHGHHGHHUUUAAAAAAAAHGHGHGGHHHH.”

The baby had still been talking until he heard the unmistakable noises of hurling. As soon as there was a break in the (very graphic…believe me I am sparing you SO MUCH detail) action, he sweetly called out, “Mum? Are you okay?”

“Bleh. Cough. No.”

Once everything had calmed down and I had cleaned up the bathroom, I shuffled into my room and changed into pajamas.

And so it continued for the next few hours, though thankfully not as dramatic as the initial episode. The husband and baby kept their distance, but brought me Saltines and ginger ale and the baby made me the sweetest get well card which he ended with, “P.S. Don’t throw up on this leter.”

It was much like this, but without the drinking and the shame:

Unfortunately, I knew exactly who I was going to write about for this one as soon as I saw it.

I met Stacey in 1993 when she started at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School. She was a level and a grade ahead of me. We didn’t really get to know each other until that following summer which was when we found out that we were a lot alike. We both had red hair and extremely fair skin. We were both quiet. Neither of us was very enmeshed in a group of people at either ballet or school. We had similar senses of humor and similar interests outside of ballet.

During the two years that we were together at PBTS, we became very close and remained in touch when she moved to Richmond, VA to dance with the Richmond Ballet. A year later, I followed her down there and it was a given that we would be roommates.

We had some trying times as roommates…common annoyances like whose turn it was to do dishes or that time I accidentally got the phone turned off would have us sniping at each other. But we knew we were each other’s support. We laughed and cried together and spent many of our weekends chain smoking and “feasting” on bowls of sugar-free Jell-O or pretzels.

After I moved back to Pittsburgh, we kept in touch. When Stacey’s dance career ended from a persistent foot injury, she moved back, too. We became even tighter and when I got pregnant with the baby, she was one of the first people I told. I wanted her there when he was born. She showed up right after they had whisked me back to the operating room. I still thank the gods that she was there, as she was the only person with the presence of mind to grab my camera and take some pictures of that crazy morning.

Seriously, I could never thank her enough for capturing these moments. You see, I was over in my hospital bed talking to the pink elephants that were dancing around.

Durrrrr

Some years later, when the boyfriend was poised to become the husband, Stacey was the obvious choice to be my maid of honor.

We were still close, but by that time our interests and values had started to diverge a little. To be honest, I looked down on her new passions for motorcycles and guns. But I loved that she was standing behind me on my wedding day. I loved that we had been friends for so long. I loved her.

A few months later, I started working on my Master’s degree and became completely obsessed with this new version of my life, in which I was busy and working all the time and was sacrificing so much and nobody really knew or appreciated how hard it was. Stacey would try to make plans with me and I would decline or cancel and eventually stopped returning her calls. I was incredibly busy, too busy to even talk to her on the phone. Surely she knew that.

By the time our first wedding anniversary had rolled around, we hadn’t talked in months. I felt bad, but figured I would get back in touch with her soon enough. Another year or so went by, our only communication being Christmas cards. Last year, feeling incredibly shitty for how I had just dropped her, I wrote a note in the Christmas card that I sent her. “I miss you, Stacey. Can we reconnect soon?” I didn’t want to be too pushy after not communicating in so long.

I was stunned when the card came back with a bright yellow postal service label that robotically informed me that Stacey, one of my oldest friends, was no longer at that address and that the forwarding service to her new home in Montana had expired.

MONTANA?!?!?!

I deliberated over what to do and considered contacting her parents, who I hoped were still in Pittsburgh, for her new address. Before I could take any action, Stacey appeared on Facebook. I immediately sent her a sheepish message, telling her how sorry I was for being such a terrible, selfish friend and for being so careless with our friendship. Stacey kindly replied that it was fine, that she felt like she was getting in my way and just quietly bowed out of my life.

Her words stung, but only because they were true. In my foolish quest to be more important, to prove to myself that I was not a failure, I had utterly neglected her and she was too good of a person to call me on it, she just did what I wanted her to do.

I didn’t push for more interaction. I didn’t feel that it was my place anymore. I no longer had any right to influence how she felt about me.

A few months ago, a mutual Facebook friend tagged Stacey in a picture. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t shown up on my news feed when I happened to be looking at it. The picture was of Stacey, dancing with her father…in her wedding dress.

I was crushed. I wasn’t mad at her. I had no business being there. But I had failed her in that I couldn’t reciprocate the favor of standing and supporting her on her wedding day, vowing to be part of the network that made her marriage work like she had done for me.

I thought about writing to her to tell her all of this, but more photos appeared. She was beaming, beautiful, happy. She was fine without me and without my apologies.

I know that relationships, even the ones that seem the most likely to last forever, can just end. People grow apart, they no longer fill the roles in each others’ lives that they used to. At best it’s a chasm that quietly grows. At worst, lives are ripped apart. But it’s one of the few things in life that we can look at and see as being meant to be, whether we like it or not.

I still love Stacey and cherish the years that we had together. I will forever regret that I was the one responsible for undoing our friendship. Maybe someday we can try again.

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

My phone rang last week, displaying an unfamiliar number. I answered and was greeted by a representative from the baby’s school. He was a counselor heading up their new bullying prevention initiative. There had been an incident.

I automatically assumed that it was my son who had been at the receiving end of the bullying. But as I listened, it turned out that my son had been the bully and some other child his victim.

I couldn’t believe it.

I mean, my kid is an 8-year-old boy and obviously not the sweet baby that he was just a few years ago, but a bully?

The counselor explained further that the baby and another boy had created a game that involved smacking another kid, the object of which was for the smackee to stop the smackers in time. The boy who was the smackee asked them to stop several times. They did not.

I was somewhat relieved. This was not bullying as I understood it, someone with deep psychological issues who preys upon and terrorizes someone for arbitrary reasons, a behavior in adults we call stalking and harassment and sometimes even assault. I was even more relieved when the counselor told me that after the victim came to him to report the incident and the baby and his friend were called in to discuss the incident, the baby was very sorry and felt very bad about the whole thing and was very concerned about how much trouble he was going to be in with me.

I’m glad that the school has this program and that they’re encouraging children to speak up and seek protection when they’re being hurt. And I’m glad that the definition of bullying is broader than what I had assumed.

I told the baby later that I understood that he was not a bad person, that he had done something wrong but that I didn’t feel that he had set out to torment the child, who, in most other circumstances, is one of his school friends. I also told him about my experiences with bullying, that kids had picked on me for years because I was a small kid and because I was weird and because I was different. When he went back to school on Monday, he apologized to the boy and they made up.

As I was initially freaking out to a friend about this, she wisely told me, “I think it’s very easy for a kid to be a bully one minute, not a bully the next, the victim of bullying five minutes later, etc. I certainly played a number of different roles in the bullying landscape of school during my years in it…It’s complicated.”

“Like Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion?” I replied.

I remembered specifically my middle school experience, which was certainly the worst of my school years, I was picked on constantly, but I remember getting some sick pleasure of being mean to two other girls. One was the tall, fat girl, the other was the short, extremely smart and quiet girl who bent down to bring her mouth to her food and not the other way around. I made fun of them behind their backs. Doing so gave me a few moments of acceptance within the larger group, some relief from being the center of ridicule. I may have been weird, but I wasn’t them.

I can’t remember my mom or dad ever telling me explicitly to treat other people with at least a little bit of respect, to recognize that they’re human and have feelings. They might have or maybe relied on my Catholic education to take care of that aspect of morality.

I doubt that this will be the last time that my son is ever mean or crosses a line or hurts someone’s feelings. But I told him anyway, “Be nice to people. Think about how you would feel if you were in their position. Assume that they’re having a rough time and take it easy on them.” What else is there to do?

Something you have to forgive someone for…

I think I’m a pretty forgiving person. I feel like I used to be more extreme about it and used to completely write people out of my life for various transgressions that I perceived to be personal attacks. But with time I think I began to recognize more and more that there have been very few instances where someone acted in a way that was specifically to hurt me. Most of the time, people just act foolish and end up hurting others and we’re all guilty of that at least once in our lives. And really, life is too short to stay angry at people.

There are a few things that continue to bug me, though, that I really need to let go.

Obviously, I need to forgive everyone who was critical or unsupportive or acted in a way that I didn’t like about my pregnancy. Their words and actions didn’t come from a place of hate and while their execution was definitely shitty, it was their way of expressing concern for me and the husband and the baby. Relatedly, I need to forgive my mom and grandmother for forbidding anyone to throw baby shower for me before the baby was born, insisting that they would throw one for me after his birth. They never did. It wasn’t an intentional slight, just a casualty of life being busy, but it made me feel shitty.

I need to forgive the husband for not getting a job right away like we thought he would. It’s not his fault. And while he could be more fervent in his job search, we probably wouldn’t be in any different position than we are now. He’s not unemployed because he likes seeing me struggle. I know that. I just have to remind myself of it when I’m feeling like I’m doing all of this alone, because I’m not.

I need to forgive my dad for saying I was just like my mom and I need to forgive my mom for saying I was just like my dad. Neither observation was a compliment. They didn’t say those things to hurt me, but it sucked to hear both for various reasons.

I need to forgive my grandmother for being so opinionated. I really don’t like some of the things she has to say, but again, she doesn’t mean to hurt me.

I need to forgive the Steelers for losing to the Patriots in the 2004 AFC Championship game while I suffered frostbitten toes to cheer them toward victory.

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Something you have to forgive yourself for…

There are a number of small silly things that I could put here. Not sticking to my Monday/Wednesday schedule for this exercise this week or standing outside of the bathroom plugging my ears while my kid puked on Monday, helpfully calling out, “Just let me know when you’re done, sweetie!” lest I hear, see, or smell his digestive malfunction and join him over the barf bucket. (By the way, the puking of Monday and the ensuing catch-up on Tuesday explains my truancy on my 30 days of truth schedule, so I figure that absolves me on that count.)

But there are, of course, some big things that I should probably tackle.

As horrible as this sounds, I need to forgive myself for having the baby. This ties in very closely with day 1’s truth.

Now, just to clarify, this does not mean, “How could I do this to myself?” This is about my insecurity as a parent and as a good person. Like I’ve explained (or at least attempted to) several times, my pregnancy was a pretty tumultuous time. There were countless reasons to not continue my pregnancy and they were all rational, good reasons. And given another time and another alignment of the stars, they probably would have prevailed. But I could not get my head past the fact that I wanted that baby beyond all reason and rationality. I wanted a tiny family with the husband and I wanted it to start right then and there. Mind you, this was not a Veruca Salt style, “I WANT IT NOW!” but just a certainty deep down inside of me that moving forward was the right thing to do.

But, as anyone who’s lived knows, certainty is a fickle bitch and there have been plenty of moments that I doubted myself. Pretty much as soon as I uttered the words, “I’ve decided to have the baby,” I started to have moments of panic because more than anything, I wanted to do right by the child that would have to live me and the husband as his parents. And I mean, really, how often would you look at these two people and willingly put a small child in their care?

Yeah, not so much

Those moments aren’t as intense as the first night we had him at home, which was one of the roughest nights of my life. I remember stumbling aimlessly around our apartment, exhausted from not sleeping in days, terrified at the weeks or months of sleepless nights stretching out in front of us, my body in pain and rebellion as things healed, swelled, bled, and leaked, and a tiny, squirmy child who needed every crucial thing in life and he needed me to give it to him. I remember sobbing, wondering who the hell I thought I was to thrust that poor kid into this mess that was my life, and volunteering for the immense duties of teaching him how to live and cope and be happy.

Now, I have some variation of that first night when I’m staring into our murky future, wondering how we’re going to make it, and letting the pressure and stress of that turn me into a madwoman. And I wonder what I was thinking to put him through this.

I’m not qualified to be his mother, but then none of us really are. And I need to forgive myself for that and keep on finding the joy in my absolute best goof.

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Jason stood in front of me, expectantly, as I pondered my purchase. His black jacket was smudged with foundation and he smelled like cigarettes, especially when he leaned in to apply the products that I was sampling.

“I’ll take the primer, the powder, the concealer, the brushes…and the eye cream. I don’t need any moisturizer,” I said, finally.

“Great! Just meet me up at the register and we’ll get you rung up.” Jason had some odd tic where he drew his breath in sharply and quickly through his teeth every few words.

At the counter, I went through the motions of signing up for some loyalty card and dumped the free samples that I’d earned into my purse. I fingered my credit card while Jason totaled my order. I couldn’t afford all of this stuff, but I wanted it.

“Okay, Kelly, that’ll be $115 even,” said Jason cheerily as his eyes darted toward the credit card machine.

My face flushed at the total. I felt shameful about my indulgence. $115 could buy nearly two weeks of groceries. I swallowed and slid my card through the machine and signed my name on the screen as Jason made chit chat with me about my job and my life. My name stared back at me from the oddly soothing light blue screen, choppy, pixelated, and more awkward than my regular signature. It was like a cartoon of commerce.

$115 got me a small bag that barely weighed anything at all. The eye cream was the priciest item. I had asked Jason about the dark, baggy circles under my eyes and had quickly added that I’d always had them, even when I was little. I realized that I always explained this unfortunate feature of mine away before anyone suggested that I was tired, or sad, or stressed out, or melting into the earth, eyes first.

“Well, they’re hereditary,” Jason explained, which instantly made me feel a little better. It wasn’t my fault, you see. The bags weren’t there because I’d only slept a few hours a night for years or because I cried too often about things that I can’t change. “But this cream will keep that area moisturized and minimize the darkness by…” Jason droned on, spouting what I knew was probably pseudo-science dreamed up by the cosmetics industry.

My eye cream. It sounded so grown up. Of the things that I purchased that day a few weeks ago, it would turn out to be the one that I use most often. When the cream dried, it would stiffen slightly, making the skin underneath my eyes feel tighter, making me feel a little bit cured somehow.

I owned eye cream. I was someone who bought a product called, “eye cream.” This spur-of-the-moment purchase at Sephora wasn’t just a 4 ounce pump of white goo but a rite of passage.

* * *

The baby and I squinted in the morning light and I glanced down at him and winked. Up close he looked big, but he would pace a few feet away from me and I couldn’t believe how tiny he still looked.

“You look old,” he said, out of nowhere.

“Well, thanks,” I muttered.

“You do. You look old.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not saying that to be mean.”

“Thanks.”

“Quit saying, “Thanks,” all sarcastically!”

“Well, what do you want me to say? ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m old. Think I’ll just croak right here.'”

It wasn’t an angry conversation. I wasn’t even that hurt by his observation. The cracks in the veneer that start to show up on my people my age must look like giant canyons and vast forests of gray hairs. Everything is huge when you’re that little.

My family and I started making annual trips to Conneaut Lake in 2000. We had been there many times before, but that year it was determined (by some matriarchal figures, I don’t know, I wasn’t invited to the tribunal, I just show up when they tell me to) that as many of us would gather there at the same time every summer. Conneaut isn’t the most upscale vacation destination, but it’s affordable and family-friendly and just generally very nice.

The times that we spend there tend to run together in my memory. I can’t remember for sure what year it was that it rained all week or when the husband discovered the little gold mine of a record store in Meadville. I’m sure the fact that we spend most of our evenings tossing back libations doesn’t help, either. The landmarks are stuff like, “The first of two years that we stayed in that one cottage,” “The summer before the husband and I got together,” “The next summer, when I was pregnant,” etc.

I think this year’s landmark will be, “When the baby took off on his own.”

As I mentioned, the baby had a crush on a girl, one of his older cousins’ friends. And in general, he spent most of his time with his cousins, a group of boys ranging in ages from 2.5 years (though that one was still very close to his mama) to 18. At night, he slept at my grandparents’ cottage. Not with us in ours.

I wasn’t nervous for a second about that. His cousins, though rambunctious, are very good kids and would always make sure that the baby was safe. But it was tough to go the whole week without hanging out with him. It was my first real taste of not being his preferred companion.

Of course, having a week where I only had to half-parent was kind of nice. The husband and I did our own things. I got up early to jog. He slept in and traveled to the aforementioned record store in Meadville. We reunited in the evenings to watch Arrested Development and laugh our fool heads off. Then we’d squeeze together onto the Carter-era mattress that rolled us unwillingly too close together.

“Dude, give me some of the sheet! I’m freezing!”
“Get OFF me!”
“I can’t help it! There’s a divet!”

And we took an intimacy quiz from an old issue of Oprah’s magazine. Going by their measurements, we’re basically doomed. After tabulating our results, I peered at the husband with a grave expression and told him that we needed some work. “After all, marriage is serious business,” I noted, before we both dissolved into laughter.

It was an odd sort of loneliness last week. Surrounded by a ton of family members, the same people that I’m fortunate enough to see once a year, the one person that I wanted to spend time with and couldn’t is one of the people that I live with. I would try to hug him, he would push me away and insist that he was a big kid and I was treating him like a baby.

By the time we got home, he was more or less back to his old self, eager to join in our conversations and willfully giving me hugs on demand (though his kisses are growing more restrained, which just won’t do at all).

Right now, I’m in a weird space between trips. Still readjusting to regular life, I’m scheduled to depart for BlogHer on Thursday. While I’m in New York, I’ll miss the baby’s swim meet. I already can’t wait to get back.

Note: I promise that I’ll stop being so wistful every single post some time soon. 😉