I love a rainy day. I had been in the basement writing all day. The stairs to our basement were added after the original floor plan. Basically the previous owners cut a big hole in our living room floor and added stairs to the basement, so it was just like a lower section of our living room. You could hear each other if you spoke loudly enough. You could definitely hear cries or laughs or strange noises that should be investigated. I’d get up every so often to stretch my legs, walk up the stairs, get a drink of water, and check on Stella. She was either watching a movie, drawing some pictures, playing in her room with her toys, watching Nick Jr., looking at her books, or building a fort in the living room. The same thing she’d be doing if I were sitting in the same room with her in my comfy chair with the laptop on my lap desk.
But I found it distracting to work while Stella was moving about me and stopping me every five minutes to ask me her four-year-old philosophical questions. I couldn’t ask her to stop moving. What would Mrs. Obama think? I couldn’t ask her to stop asking. That stood against all that I am.
But I needed some quiet. So I took my laptop downstairs to write for the day. I explained to her what I was doing, that I’d be listening to her, that I’d check on her often, and that if she needed me she could shout down and I’d come right up. She had no visible reaction and went back to trying to cram one of the alien guys from Toy Story into Scooby’s Mystery Machine, and said simply, “Ok.”
After eight hours of working on my manuscript, I was exhausted and the grumble in my stomach was getting laughably weird sounding. I shut down the computer and walked upstairs. There was Stella, at the kitchen table. She had a plate, a knife, a fork, a spoon, a cup with milk in it, and she was spreading peanut butter on some saltine crackers. She had four baby carrots left on her plate, three of which had bite marks on them. The ranch dressing was gone except for the couple of parts she hadn’t licked off yet. And there was a banana peel sitting off to the side. The banana was missing but the outside of Stella’s mouth gave me a clue as to where it went. As soon as she saw me enter the room, she smiled wide and said, “Hi Mama. I made dinner all by myself.”
Emotions don’t just happen one at a time. That’s something I’ve figured out from having a kid. The moment the words “all by myself” came out of her mouth, I felt ashamed for having ignored my daughter so much that she had to fend for herself when she got hungry. Oh my gosh, I’ve turned into the mother in The Glass Castle. And yet I also felt pride swelling inside like the first time Stella let go of the arm of the chair and toddled across the floor. The first time she used the potty without my reminding her or assisting her in any way. The first time she dressed herself. The first time she woke me up by sticking her face one inch in front of mine, smiling so big I could see both sets of teeth and saying, “Look, Mama, I brushed my teeth all by myself!”
I tilted my head at her, smiled without parting my lips, raised one eyebrow and said, “Thank you, Honey Bee.”
Stella put the peanut butter knife down and jumped up. “Oh, honey. I knew I was forgetting something.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Her vocabulary seems too big for such a small body. Stella hopped on one foot over to her stool, pushed it in front of the cabinet with the honey in it, stepped up and retrieved the honey. She hopped off the stool with two feet but proceeded to hop all the way back to the kitchen table on one foot, almost making it. About ten inches from the table, she lost her balance and put both feet down. She made an exaggerated angry face like the characters on Nick Jr. always do in the episodes where they’re teaching children about how to read human faces using animated characters.
“What?” I asked
“I didn’t make it all the way back on one foot.”
I shrugged. “Hey, can I have a peanut butter cracker too?
She danced around a bit and said, “Sure!” She hopped in her chair and said, “I’ll make you one, Mama.
Who was the parent here?
Sometimes I feel bitter when I think about the ways my mom parentified me. I was her confidant. I was her emotional outlet. I was her therapist. I cooked dinner for the family and did the laundry because my dad sat me down in seventh grade and told me that because my mom worked full time it was now my responsibility to do the housework and cooking. Who cares about homework, right?
But I enjoyed helping my mom. She hated her job. She’s an artist but she worked as a bookkeeper and every day she had some story about how stupid her coworkers and boss were, and how it took her all day to find this $20 mistake on some ledger. She had headaches monthly at least. Sure, Mom, sit down, take off your shirt and have some spaghetti.
I didn’t mind my role while I was playing it. I always enjoyed helping Mom. She always gushed about what a wonderful daughter I was, how much I made her feel better, how she didn’t know what she’d do without me. Who doesn’t want to hear these words from your mother from the time your twelve until you hit your thirties? When a couple of different therapists I saw in my twenties brought up how my mother reversed roles with me, I didn’t understand what the big deal was.
Then something changed in my thirties. Tick tock. I wanted a baby. Only I was going to do things differently. I would snuggle and cuddle and tell her I love her fifteen thousand times a day. I would play tag with her. I would nurture her with my entire being. It made me think back on my earlier years. I suddenly could not understand how my mother could have let my dad get away with basically treating me like an indentured servant. I couldn’t imagine allowing anyone to treat my child the way he treated me. I knew my Dad envisioned me to be more of a domestic than an academic. The last time I bothered showing Dad my grade cards was when I was in ninth grade, back when I still made all As and Bs. He handed it back to me, chuckled to himself and said, “I never got more than Cs or Ds.”
I became hurt that Mom turned me into her little therapist by confiding in me and leaning on me for support during the last decade of her second failed marriage. Sure I loved counseling her, but should I have been? I had never even been on a date when I started advising my mother about her marriage.
The funny thing is it’s Mom who has always encouraged me to write. Since I was very young. She saw something in me and she believed in me. So since writing is my best therapy, Mom actually has been supportive of my healing journey. When we found out Murray was dying, the next time I saw her she gave me a fresh composition notebook and a new pen, the kind she knows I love.
As I sat there and enjoyed peanut butter and Saltine cracker sandwiches with Stella, I knew how my mom felt. I remember getting annoyed with her when we’d be sitting at the table and she’d be reading the newspaper or the cereal box or whatever had typed print on it in front of her, or even worse when she’d be sitting there, but she was starring off into space. I’d wave my hand in front of her face and she’s come to and go, “What? What?” I used to stand in front of the TV to ask her questions if I really needed an answer right away.
Mom and I don’t argue much, so I remember this one pretty vividly. I was begging her to leave my father one time of many. I was probably fourteen. At first she used the excuse that the doctors said he wouldn’t live long, but I pointed out to her that he seemed healthier than ever. Then she said something I had never heard her say before: “At least your father is here. He comes home every night. He’s not off drinking and cheating and ignoring his family. He comes home every night.” So then I felt guilty for having the better of the bad dads.
I didn’t say this to Mom, but I thought about it lying in my bed with my headphones on but not listening to anything. Being physically present is not the same as being emotionally available. Sure, dad didn’t beat us or drink or womanize. But he always had to have his way, he called us stupid, and he ignored anything that didn’t somehow relate to himself or his interests. I know in the Best Shitty Dad contest my dad would win over my siblings’ dad, but come one. They’re still both shitty dads.
But now that I’m a parent trying not only to raise my child right, but to take care of myself, I get that parents need a break just like paid workers do. Parents go through things and they can’t be emotionally available one-hundred percent of the time. Parents lose their siblings who molested them. Parents live in empty marriages and work at soul-crushing jobs. Parents lives don’t always turn out the way they want and things don’t always go their way. But children don’t understand that. And if you ignore them for too long, no matter the reason—even if it has nothing to do with the child—the child will start to believe you ignore them because they are not important.
While we ate our peanut butter saltine sandwiches, we moved over to the comfy chair so she could sit in my lap and we could cuddle and talk about out day. We do this every night and it’s my favorite part of the day.
We sat and rocked in silence for several seconds, maybe a minute. I had my face buried in her neck which smelt like sand and white dandelions you blow on. I love the way Stella smells. She broke the silence first.
“Mama, I miss you. When you be done writing your book?”
I felt a surge of nausea. I remembered standing at the front window as my mom drove away for work, sobbing, the babysitter telling me I’d be fine. I held Stella more tightly. “I’m sorry, Baby. I don’t mean to ignore you so much. When I don’t talk to you or play with you very much I still love you. I’ve been busy writing this story because it’s very important to me.”
“Is it because you’re sick?”
It amazes me how perceptive four-year-olds are sometimes. “Yes, it is. I’ve been upset and it makes me feel sick since Uncle Murray died. And writing about how I feel sick makes me feel better. Like how it makes you feel better when you talk about how you feel instead of just stomping off by yourself and crying.”
She pushed me slightly from her neck so she could see my face and smiled. “Yeah, I do that sometimes.” She smiled slyly.
“We all do that sometimes, Baby.” I said.
“Mama, I sorry you’re sick.”
"That you, Sweetie. But I'm getting better. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy writing that you missed me. I missed you too.”
She smiled up at me and we sat together, rocking slowly, for fifteen minutes before we cracked open our first book before bedtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment