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3 de Noviembre 2008
two nights in a row
i have dreamed i could rescue you.
but maybe not rescue you, more like distract you.
or maybe not even distract you, but own you: tell you what to do, where to go and when to come home.
but when i woke up, i woke up knowing that
you have to rescue yourself.
my abuelita always tells me: 'we'll be here for [insert holiday], you can always come. stop off and get a movie for your grampa when you get into town... unless you get a better offer.'
there is always 'unless you get a better offer'. and she means it too. she wants me to be happy. it is the most incredible thing. and she has wanted it for so long but it was only recently that i was able to imagine it as a kindness. i could just never figure out why she wanted me to be happy when no one else cared either way.
my stepmother told me, around the time i was married, that these were my years. she said that the years between my childhood and parenthood are the years i am a free agent. she said that when we were young we were dependent on the parents and when we are older, our parents will depend on us. but for now, the time in between, we have to do what we have to do.
she told me again when i was 24, after i finished student teaching. i was working at the barnes and noble, nannying for triplets, teaching reading and was about to take over teaching at my jazzercise class until i went to the doctor and she said my stomach hurt all the time because i was working on an ulcer. when my stepmother found out, she became very serious and told me she was responsible. she said she and my dad had taught me that working was all that mattered, that you could and should just keep working until all you could do when your kids came for a visit was lay on the couch and watch sleeping beauty with them. she said it was what they had to do because they didn't get an education. she said it was finish school or sort shorts in the prison and she had chosen the latter but i had opted out and ought to quit living her decision so i could live my own.
she told me she had done me a grave disservice, she was sorry and wanted me to quit at least one of my jobs, if i thought i could do that.
and just not worry so much about it. and once she even said that her favorite thing about me is that i don't have kids of my own... yet.
she is a genius all the time and i love her. she has an immaculate sense of humor--she laughs at all my jokes.
last time we were together we drank two tumblers of a little cocktail we affectionately call the dirty [step]mother and she told me that i am a grown up and i make my own decisions so if i want to bum a cancer stick off her that is okay because she remembers the time i told her i blame her that all my best memories are set to cigarette smoke and George Michael. she told me, she won't even stand up and wave at the motion sensor on the porch light, and i knew in my heart, we could just sit on the back porch, in the dark of the redwood forest encroaching on their backyard, and send smoke signals into the night...
it was her way of saying,
you are grown, you are good, you have to rescue yourself
or better:
you get to rescue yourself.
help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 9:41 AM
