You'll Grow Into It
My Bloody Valentine has been my constant during yoga, and it's been humming in my head all day.
Despite the Weezer: for my children listen to nothing else. The occassional Jimmy Eat World, or Phantom Planet, or Warren G (say what?), but generally it's non-stop Cuomo.
I snaked the Suburban along the shore line of The Bay, and announced that I would love a digital camera for Christmas.
"It's too expensive," J, my twelve-year-old charge rebutted from the backseat. I began to argue that actually the prices weren't too bad considering the cost of film....
"SANTA SAYS IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE GODDAMMIT!!" was his overtly rude exclamation, but I laughed, like any of the rest of you would have done, because it's funny to hear someone deny my ability to receive a Christmas gift on account of Santa (fictitious gift-giver) finds it too expensive (my kids' parents are millionaires), and then the flurish of "goddammit" is contrary to themes of children, and santa, and Christmas, and gifts, etc.
Funny as hell, I tell you, that twelve-year-old boy.
Light of my life, that twelve-year-old boy.
I'm like a mommy, you know.
I remember being drunk, lying on that random sofa with that lanky boy a couple weeks ago, and while kissing his ear he told me, "your a bad mommy."
It strikes me that he was not intending on coming across as kinky, but it stood out in my delusional mind. In that moment I was guilty. People like me should not get drunk and wind up in strange apartments with Jehovah's Witnesses. These children look to me for guidance far more than they look to their parents.
V, my girl, asked me yesterday, "Michaela, have you ever been in an abusive relationship?"
Do you see what I am entrusted with here?
It's not cooking dinner.
It's not buckling their seatbelt.
It's not juggling a schedule.
It's the onslaught of hormones and stimuli that blend in a cacophony of erupting physical changes creating questions, and desires, and needs, and hurts, and loves, and ideas. And each one must be handled like a morning glory.
When I assaulted Jon after wiping the salt and lime from the corner of my mouth, I was introducing to him someone I entertain my friends with, but not to me.
I'm a very spiritual person, I told him. As we sat across from a church, and he shivered, and I didn't, because a drink every ten minutes will numb you to the cold.
Shame on me.
Dear God: ease these children into adolescence with my help, when I'm helpful, but in spite of me, when I'm abhorable.
