A few thoughts on my birthday
So, since it's obviously been, well, years since I've written anything, I thought I'd start small - just a toe in.
I've been sitting out on my lovely little deck - the best feature of my apartment - surrounded by all my plants, enjoying my birthday. The smell of the basil, the bright pink and white and yellow of the flowers. For the first time in weeks it's a day where it's bearable to be outside with the sun shining. After weeks of heat indexes in the 100s, a day in the eighties is beautiful.
While any other day I'd be content as hell to be lazy, today, of all days, I got a bug to do some cleaning. Stripped the curtains, took down and washed some of the blinds. I guess I spend so much time being lazy that, on the day when I'm entitled, it wouldn't feel special enough.
As I was sitting out here, enjoying the sun and the light breeze that's been blowing all day, I thought suddenly of my mother, who, for obvious reasons, does not often enter my thoughts.
To greatly reduce a long story, she left when I was five, stopped calling when I was seven and stopped writing when I was twelve. We spoke...two? three? times when I was in college, but that's all. It's been twenty-three years since I've seen her. I couldn't tell you what her voice sounds like. The only reason I could tell you want she smells like (or did smell like, in any case) is because she always wore Oil of Olay. The smell of it throws me back to this day - like crayons, but, obviously, with less pleasant associations.
I just wondered, on today of all days, if perhaps she was thinking of me. If she even remembers that this is my birthday. After that long, it would be understandable if she didn't - if it was just a date like any other, now. Twenty-eight years is a long time. It's certainly seems to have been long enough to erase me.
I do want to say, though, that I don't want this woman in my life. She's crazy - she is complete bugfuck nuts. When she called me for the first time in 10? 11? years, when I was in college, she just wanted to tell me all about her group of friends and her married boyfriend, but how his wife was dying and they'd be together soon. Nothing - not ONE WORD - about the fact that she hadn't bothered to contact me for years. Like it had never happened. Like it was something you could just ignore, and wouldn't it be nice for us to be friends now?
Seriously. What the fuck.
I guess as I sit here, waiting for my incredible Dad - who's on his way to take me out for my birthday, who thinks about me EVERY SINGLE DAY, who knows how incredibly strange and messed-up I am and will never love me one bit less for it - I'm thinking less about my Mom and more just about a mom. A real one, who could love me the way that my Dad does.
I was so lucky to spend most of my years growing up without that woman as my mother, just like I was so lucky to grow up with Dad - no matter how frustrating he can be sometimes. And sometimes I just wish things had been different - that she wasn't crazy and selfish. That there was no question of whether or not she even remembered which day I was born. That she loved me. That's all. My silly little birthday wish.
And now, enough of this shit. I'm going to have a good day.
I've been sitting out on my lovely little deck - the best feature of my apartment - surrounded by all my plants, enjoying my birthday. The smell of the basil, the bright pink and white and yellow of the flowers. For the first time in weeks it's a day where it's bearable to be outside with the sun shining. After weeks of heat indexes in the 100s, a day in the eighties is beautiful.
While any other day I'd be content as hell to be lazy, today, of all days, I got a bug to do some cleaning. Stripped the curtains, took down and washed some of the blinds. I guess I spend so much time being lazy that, on the day when I'm entitled, it wouldn't feel special enough.
As I was sitting out here, enjoying the sun and the light breeze that's been blowing all day, I thought suddenly of my mother, who, for obvious reasons, does not often enter my thoughts.
To greatly reduce a long story, she left when I was five, stopped calling when I was seven and stopped writing when I was twelve. We spoke...two? three? times when I was in college, but that's all. It's been twenty-three years since I've seen her. I couldn't tell you what her voice sounds like. The only reason I could tell you want she smells like (or did smell like, in any case) is because she always wore Oil of Olay. The smell of it throws me back to this day - like crayons, but, obviously, with less pleasant associations.
I just wondered, on today of all days, if perhaps she was thinking of me. If she even remembers that this is my birthday. After that long, it would be understandable if she didn't - if it was just a date like any other, now. Twenty-eight years is a long time. It's certainly seems to have been long enough to erase me.
I do want to say, though, that I don't want this woman in my life. She's crazy - she is complete bugfuck nuts. When she called me for the first time in 10? 11? years, when I was in college, she just wanted to tell me all about her group of friends and her married boyfriend, but how his wife was dying and they'd be together soon. Nothing - not ONE WORD - about the fact that she hadn't bothered to contact me for years. Like it had never happened. Like it was something you could just ignore, and wouldn't it be nice for us to be friends now?
Seriously. What the fuck.
I guess as I sit here, waiting for my incredible Dad - who's on his way to take me out for my birthday, who thinks about me EVERY SINGLE DAY, who knows how incredibly strange and messed-up I am and will never love me one bit less for it - I'm thinking less about my Mom and more just about a mom. A real one, who could love me the way that my Dad does.
I was so lucky to spend most of my years growing up without that woman as my mother, just like I was so lucky to grow up with Dad - no matter how frustrating he can be sometimes. And sometimes I just wish things had been different - that she wasn't crazy and selfish. That there was no question of whether or not she even remembered which day I was born. That she loved me. That's all. My silly little birthday wish.
And now, enough of this shit. I'm going to have a good day.