I won a scholarship competition at school for “a personal essay.” So, of course I thought I’d share it. I’m very excited. I’ll get an extra $1000 off school next year. Not much…but I’ll take it! Every little bit helps.
Enjoy!
I remember when my sister and I realized that our family was not like other peoples. Joy and I are only 22 months apart and as such had a lot of the same friends in high school. We were savoring our naughtiness, spending the night at Brenda’s while her parents were out of town, and our Mom and Dad were none the wiser.
Nine teenaged girls had spread themselves on Brenda’s basement floor, sipping on cheap beer and telling stories. The little group was in hysterics at hearing how crazy, stupid, or dorky all of our parents were. Joy and I couldn’t wait for our turn, snickering and giggling, nudging each other and dissolving into snorts each time our eyes met.
In tag-team fashion, we told our story, each one of us picking up the line after the other would fall down laughing. Mom didn’t drink very often, but when she did, it was well beyond the point of intoxication. Joy and I had been watching Saturday Night Live in the living room, reacting loudly to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady.
Mom and her friend Linda had been talking and doing shots in the kitchen. She stumbled into the living room and yelled at us for being noisy, her arms gesticulating so wildly that her naked left breast kept popping out of her blouse. The accidental flashing seemed to be in synch with Dana Carvey, punctuating each “Could it be Satan?” or “Well isn’t that special.” The more it happened, the more we cracked up. Her rage reached a near frenzy and she ran into the kitchen and came back out with her four shot glasses and threw them at us.
However, in her stupor, the little glasses fell noiselessly on the carpet no more than ten inches in front of her. Linda had come out to see what the commotion was and began to chortle at my mother. The two of them began to roll with an infectious laughter that spread to my sister and me. Finally, they returned to the kitchen and my sister and I to our regular Saturday night addiction.
Our friends looked at us like we were insane. Nobody could see why our story was so funny. We thought it was completely obvious. What isn’t funny about flashing boobs and drunks throwing shot glasses? Soon, my sister and I found ourselves the subject of an impromptu intervention the likes of which Aaron Spelling and his teen dramas had never seen.
Our friends circled us, hurling questions. Did our mother ever wear a bra? Was she a drunk? If she was, would she let them drink at our house? Did she do anything really bad like drugs or beating us? My sister and I were incredulous. Why didn’t they get it?
Mom has never taken to my sister and me sharing stories about our home life growing up. Her mantra was always, “what goes on in this house, stays in this house.” I think the Las Vegas commercials derived their famous ad line from her. Moreover, she has convinced herself that our family was completely normal.
As an adult, it became very important to me that she understand just how screwed up we really were. This is still something I obsess about. This summer when I visited her, she caught me reading “Our Mother’s, Ourselves” by Gina Shaw.
“What are you reading that for?” Her tone was accusatory and the book was snatched from my hands.
“It’s to help me understand my relationship with you and how it has affected me. Besides, I’m thirty-three and I can read what I like on my vacation.” I snatch it back. Actually, the book was required reading for my summer Psychology of Women course and I admittedly took perverse delight in irritating her.
She steals it back, runs to her bedroom, and locks herself in. Now I’m a little panicky. I’ve written notes in the margin. On the sections on mothers who love too much and narcissistic moms, I have highlighted copious amounts of text. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later she comes out of her room in a flurry and crying foul.
“Why are you always living in the past? Why can’t you just let things go?” Like a longsuffering parent with a petulant child, I roll my eyes and sigh.
“I’m not living in the past, I’m trying to deal with the past and learn from it.”
“What do you have to deal with? You had a roof over your head, you were always fed and clothed, and I sacrificed to send you to private school and college.”
Our play begins, and even though the script bores us, we quickly sink back into our old roles. I remind her that I went to both of those schools on full music scholarship. She gives me an itemized statement of the costs of uniforms, books, music, private lessons, soccer cleats, and on and on. That litany ends Act I: How I’ve Sacrificed For You Kids.
My character always loses that argument, so I quickly segue to Act II: Your Temper is Hellacious. This is a double whammy for her. For one, I’ve thrown a big word around and she is not entirely sure what it means, but she is sure it isn’t complimentary. She also hates this subject because she knows its true and any claims to the contrary are quickly refuted. There are people in this neighborhood whose ears are still ringing from arguments my parents had twenty years ago. The sound waves generated by her yelling are still looping through space, ricocheting off the moon and back to earth. This leads us to Act III: You Think You’re So Goddamned Smart.”
Now I’m sweating. For someone who has struggled with self esteem issues, I am curiously afflicted with a superiority complex about my intellect and command of the English language. She points out that I never know where my car keys are or for that matter, where I ever put anything. I am also prone to losing papers and forgetting appointments. My life comes to a screeching halt whenever I misplace my date-book. I weakly counter that knowing where things are has to do with common sense not mental prowess. Her right eyebrow arches in triumph: “Common sense, my dear, is a form of intelligence.”
Our play continues, each of us performing a monologue regarding the sins and shortcomings of the other. She accepts that she was hedonistic, overbearing, and punished us too harshly while I am forced to admit that I am stubborn, willful, and too smart for my own damn good.
At last, the finale. One or both of us is close to tears if they haven’t spilled already. As the play comes to a close, neither of us is any closer to understanding the other or any nearer to overcoming our disappointment that both of us have failed to measure up to the other’s impossible standards. Throughout my life, this very scenario has played out over and over, this tragicomedy once again taken off the shelf for another run in the theater of our relationship.
If we are fortunate, the play ends with a song. The one thing we can agree on is music. My gift is my voice and hers is the guitar. On this summer day I am lucky. She wipes the tears from her cheeks as I defiantly fight mine and watch her quietly go to the hall closet. She tells me she doesn’t want to talk anymore and would it bother me terribly if she plays her guitar. I mumble, only if I can sing along, and she nods her agreement.
I hear the familiar chords of what my mother used to call “Janette’s Moody Song.” No matter how angry or frustrated I am, this song has always soothed me. If I need that release of weeping, it helps to gently coax the tears. She begins to sing Lanny Wolfe’s “My House is Full” and my trained soprano harmonizes above her bluesy alto. One song is never enough, and soon fun is born from dysfunction.
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