sueeeus

I’ve been trying to figure out when and where I got the notions for how a life should be lived.

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a wife and mother. Certainly a mother, forever. I can always remember wanting to have children of my own. I don’t remember if the wife-and prefix always accompanied the -mother part.  Probably, because they went together.  People weren’t supposed to be mothers and not also wives.  That was a given, back then.  At some point, that particular notion solidified more, and my Plan A was to become a devoted housewife and stellar mom, and Plan B was to become a teacher, in case I needed another occupation, if a devoted husband didn’t come along.

In those bright eyed days, I knew that I could and would do a much better job at partnering and parenting than my parents did.  I was nice, after all.  I would be nice to my husband.  Therefore he would be nice to me.  We would be nice to each other.  We would like each other.  Anybody can get along if they’re kind. There would be children.  Of course there would be children!  Children are the most amazing things in the world!  They are fresh new people.  They like colors and sounds and shapes and feels.  They love to discover things, and there are new things to discover every day.  We would play.  We would laugh.  We would make things.  We would discover things.  We would learn things.  We would all like each other.  We would all be nice to each other.  We would all be comfortable with each other.  We would live happily together.  Happily ever after.

This is the part where the soundtrack cuts in and there’s a screech like the sound that a record needle makes as it’s dragged across an album abruptly.

I sure made a lot of grandiose assumptions back then.  I look at my boys and wonder what traumas I’m planting in them, in this revolution of the circle of life that we’re tumbling through right now.  That whole husband notion thing didn’t pan out very well.  Apparently there’s more needed than simple human kindness to keep a relationship afloat.  So far, I haven’t given them a childhood in which they get the benefit of a healthy father figure.  They get precious little interaction with their dad, and my heart breaks to think about what their hearts hope for, with him.  Because those are two more broken hearts to chalk up to the masses of children who grow up with parents who don’t know or care how to make their children feel loved.  As for the parade of men who have come and gone through their young lives, I only hope that they remember the fun times and that they never catch on that there was ever a competition in place, between them and those men, for my attention and affection.  As if there’s not enough for everyone.  Please.

I wonder how many men actually ever grow up.

The question that I think I’m trying to answer for myself is whether I truly want to be with someone, or if it’s a false notion.  I know that I need solitude, down time, quiet time, time to be in my head time, lost in my mind time, time to wash emotions through me time.  I think that maybe I don’t know how to be me around someone else, or maybe I don’t feel free to be me around someone else.  Or maybe I just  haven’t been with someone who really wanted to know me, what makes me tick and how I work.  I know that I  have been more lonely with someone than I’ve been when I’m alone.  Why this persistent yearning, this deep ache?  What is missing and why is it needed?

I think about the kinds of relationships that my kids will form when they’re older.  How will they treat others?  How will they be treated?  I haven’t been able to show them an example of a healthy adult couple.  I haven’t been able to give them the family life that I envisioned as a youth.

Instead of Plan A or Plan B, I’ve ended up following Plan C, in which I’ve spent a lifetime in a technical profession, devoted to my fellow working brothers and sisters, leery of the leadership.  Sort of parallels my childhood, now that I look at it this way.  I’ve given my work so much of me.  Sometimes I think I’ve given too much of me.

I think that I want to lead a simple life filled with simple pleasures like walks down country roads, smooth coffee, freshly baked bread, star gazing, cloud gazing, tree gazing.  Seems like nice things to do with the people you love.

I’ve been alive forever.

Oh Barry.  You have such a way with words.  I sit in my living room, clinging to the few precious minutes that I have to myself before I collect my children, and your voice fills my head and my heart, transporting me back to the girl I was so many years ago.

The timbre of your voice, like velvet, fills me and warms me.

My home lies deep within you, and I’ve got my own place in your soul.

I feel within me the stirrings of beauty, the dawning awareness of the magic of music.  Music fills.  Transforms.  Transports.  Breathes life to a parched heart.  Gives hope.

Music fills your heart.

My young mind is taking in the world around me.  I am filled with emotions.  I am going through the metamorphosis of child to young woman.  I feel everything.  I see beauty.  I am filled with wonder.  I am awestruck by the magnificence of God’s green earth.

I write the songs that make the young girls cry.

I yearn for love, although I know not what love is.  I ache for something that I can’t put words to.  I have an emptiness that I can’t describe.  To belong.  To be cherished.  To be wanted.  To be understood.  I don’t know who I am, but I feel.  Oh, how I feel.  I am emotion.  I am music.

I am music, and I write the songs.

I want to wrap my arms about the world and fill it with all the love that I have, that I am.  I want to wash away all the tears, comfort all the sorrows, and heal all the brokenness.  I am love, and I want to sing.  I am music, and I want to sing.

It’s from me, it’s for you.
It’s from you, it’s for me.
It’s a world wide symphony!

That girl, so long ago, still lives within me.  Who was she?  What were her hopes and dreams?  The years, like layers of dust, have accumulated and obstructed the clarity of youth.  My sense of beauty is tarnished.  My sense of wonder is shrouded.  My sense of awe is eroded.  My sense of self is masked.  But the music!  The music takes me back.  The music reveals my soul.  The music sets me free.

Now, when I look out through your eyes, I’m young again, even though I’m very old.

What does a twelve  year old know of life and love?  Everything!  The innocence of youth allows hope to exist unfettered and pure.  To see and understand eternity.  Eternity!

I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song.
I put the words and the melodies together.
I am music, and I write the songs.

What did I know of the path ahead?  What did I know of the cares of the world?  We were poor, and though it tugged at my heartstrings to see my mother’s anguish over how to make ends meet and somehow maintain a semblance of sanity amidst the bedlam in which we lived, I didn’t understand.  Worldly things were not my concern.  There was a roof over my head, food on the table, shoes on my feet and clothes on my back.  So I was rich, and I was free!  I could dream!  I could hope!   My heart could sing!  I could get lost in the music.

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.

Now I am my mother.  The cares of the world are on my shoulders.  It’s up to me to see to it that my own children have a roof over their heads, food on the table, shoes on their feet and clothes on their back.  So they can be rich, and they can be free.  So they can hope and they can dream.  So their hearts can sing.  So they can get lost in the music.  There is a sense of wistfulness that the woman I’ve become has replaced the girl that I was.  But the music takes me back, even if but for a moment, and reminds me that I am still the girl that I was.

I am music, and I write the songs.

Facebook is great for rediscoveries.  I recently stumbled upon one of my very first boyfriends.  We were so young — back then when going together meant sitting next to each other in the lunch room, or secretly holding hands on the band bus, en route to an event.

teenage awkwardness

Teenage antics.  There was a dance called the ‘morp’ – the opposite of ‘prom’ – in which roles were reversed and the girls asked the boys .  I wasn’t planning on going, and at the last minute, my girlfriends said they were going, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and find a companion so I could go too.  I ambushed this poor boy with my invitation, after school on the day of the dance.  I was a sophomore, he was a senior.  I think he was stunned, but he agreed, and barely had time to rush home, take a shower, and return.  I don’t think we’d spoken a word to each other prior to the ambush, and we may have barely exchanged a word throughout the entire dance.  In fact, I might have actually ignored him completely, and hung out with my girlfriends.

And that is where we began.

puppy love

We never actually went out, other than the morp and the prom.  We were kids, poor, living out in the country in different directions from town, with very little freedom to wander.  But we were an item for that school year, and we’d sit next to each other in front of our lockers, and hang out whenever we could.  It was so sweet and innocent.  We were so sweet and innocent.

I’ve always had fond memories of that year; that chapter of my life.  I was coolly pragmatic, though, and when graduation time arrived, I let him go, broke his heart, and didn’t look back.

Through the years I’d wonder about him, off and on.  In my early twenties I heard through the grapevine that he had kidney troubles and might not have long to live.  I remember it was hard to hear that sort of thing, and I felt guilty for dropping him like a bucket of hot rocks and leaving him to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart and somehow patch them back together again.  I couldn’t process the thought of death at that time, so I did the cowardly thing and put my head in the sand, and went on with my life.

Thirty years passed.  The world wide web arrived, opening the floodgates for rediscovery.

Wonder of wonders, he survived the kidney failure(s) and is alive!  And not only that, he lives relatively nearby.  I apologized for my youthful cruelty, he graciously let bygones be bygones, and we arranged to meet, to catch up on the last three decades.

There is something warm and comforting about reconnecting with childhood friends.  We shared those formative years, and perhaps the bond feels tighter because we grew up in such a small town where everybody knew everybody.  It was a sweet reunion.  As adults, we live out of the hub in opposite directions, just like when we were kids, only the hub is much larger and the distance is much further.  We met in the city and walked arm in arm along the downtown streets and talked for hours.  We stopped for coffees, got drenched in the rain, stepped around puddles, and strolled and talked and talked and strolled.  We shared our stories of our families and friends, and reminisced about the innocence of youth.  Every now and then we’d giggle over catching glimpses of our childhood selves in expressions that crossed our aged faces.  We walked and talked the night away.

It was just what the doctor ordered.  I’m inspired to reconnect with more of my childhood friends, and awaken more fond memories.

It’s been written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. I can’t say how many troubled people are the product of a troubled home environment, be it drunkenness, drugs, depression, abuse, and the like, but I can see myself, and my brothers and sisters. I see these people, who I hold most dear, and think of them, who they are, the people they’ve become. I’ve watched them grow up, raise children, marry, divorce, die. I’ve watched their children grow up, raise children, marry, and struggle.

I’ve seen what happens when a troubled person becomes a parent and tries to overcompensate the shortcomings of their youth in order to avoid raising another troubled person. And I’ve seen it backfire with tremendous force. As it would. And I’ve seen us develop those traits that we despise most in our parents. When we promise ourselves while we’re young that we will never, ever be like that. Never. Only it happens. Somehow, it sidles up and slips right in, and the next thing I know, it’s like I’m having an out of body experience in which I look at myself in shock and horror as the voice of my mother or my father is issuing forth from my own mouth.

Other People’s Children.

I suspect that the next month or so will be filled with laborious posts about me working through my lack of graciousness as a host, step-mother, and human being.

It could be, in part, due to pregnancy hormones. I suspect it’s mostly just me, though.

My blood sugar is up. Way up. It’s been a few days, and I want to try to regroup my inner self and work my way to a place of relative tranquility, and reassess before I call my doctor and get the order for injectable insulin. I know that stress wreaks havoc on blood sugar control.

I don’t know why I let things get to me. I think I might feel a bit helpless, in that I’m sort of forced into the situation of sharing my home and my life with near strangers for a while. It rocks the boat somewhat, and add to that the fact that I’m the one who is basically shouldering the expense for the better part of all of it. Not that I’m complaining that much about the cost (yet). I sort of doubt Gadget would be able to see his kids if he weren’t married to me (unless he moved to Kentucky). He doesn’t make enough to cover more than the child support (and it’s only for the one) and basic living expenses, so if he had to come up with enough to cover plane tickets, entertainment, and food, I think he’d be hard pressed. And of course he wants to bring both kids out. Which is fine for now, but the boy is 19 now, and at some point this summer I’m going to have to let it be known that he’s welcome to visit in future, but he has to get here on his own dime. Or else I’ll tell Gadget that he’ll have to come up with the tickets on his own. Oh, I don’t know. I sound like such a selfish money grabbing cow.

And of course, Gadget takes every opportunity to bring out the comparisons, that I don’t freak out when MY nieces and nephew are here, and I have a much higher threshold of tolerance for them than I do for his kids. It’s true. I tell him that of course I’m more comfortable with my people, just like he’s more comfortable with his. He’s been making comments about how spoiled and privileged mine are, and how annoying that is to him. All of which I don’t appreciate one bit. I think its in defense of his own kids, but it’s a childish way to reason things out, and I wish he wouldn’t do it. Just accept that his kids are the way they are, and don’t compare them to mine. Please!

In many ways, I think his kids are more spoiled. They’re not raised to be independent thinkers. They’re not raised to learn responsibilities. If they had more income to work with, they’d have more privileges and conspicuous consumption. As is, they each have their own TVs, VCRs, and DVD players in their own rooms. They have video games. They don’t have the latest and greatest, but they have much. I don’t plan on allowing my little one to have his own TV, ever! If there is TV time, I want it to be family time, and limited. The same goes for video game time. Bedrooms are for sleeping and imaginative toys/play, but not mind-numbing electronics.

People can live rich and fulfilling lives with very little income. There are many wholesome and satisfying things to do. But these people have very limited vision and imagination. I think Gadget is just as guilty of this as anyone. Why else would I call him Gadget? He always wants things. Motorcycle (unauthorized acquisition), boat, big screen TV, hot tub (another acquisition that I regret, frequently), fancy truck, electronics, and on and on and on. And he’s got most of these things! (I’m an enabler, and I need to make it stop.) I do make sure that I often express that there will be no boat, ever, unless it’s a rowboat or canoe. No snowmobiles. No ATVs. No dirt bikes. No, no, NO!

Anyhow. I’m trying to put my finger on what’s causing me the most immediate stress. I’m finding myself very weary with the boy’s attitude and mannerisms. He’s constantly making noises. There’s a steady commentary. Or else just body sounds, like noisy throat clearing, or grunts and groans. Lip smacking. Loud gulping when he drinks. And he sniffs everything. He opened a box of cereal and stuck his whole face in the box, then inhaled. I don’t know why, but it bugs the hell out of me. When I’ve got the food laid out on the table, he sticks his face close to the various dishes and inhales. It makes my skin crawl. And I think I saw him sneeze without attempting to cover his mouth, with the silverware drawer open. I hope it’s not true, but I suspect it is. I didn’t empty the drawer and re-wash everything. But I felt like it. I have kitchen towels for drying dishes and separate ones for drying hands. I have a huge stack of towels for kitchen use. I don’t want anybody using the dish towels for hands. And I find that it bothers me to use the same hand towels, even, after I see him using one. I think my OCD is teetering on the brink of something more serious. I’m a little ashamed of myself, but at the same time, think that maybe I need to just respect that this is the way I am for whatever reason, and work with it so that there can be as little rocking of the boat as possible. So I can always just get myself a fresh hand towel, and reiterate that the dish towels are only for dishes. It’s easy enough without making him feel like he’s untouchable. I think that may be what it boils down to though. Or else it’s just the aftermath of how I process the extreme lack of common sense and independence that I’m witnessing on a near constant basis. It’s very wearisome to hear I can’t spoken over and over and over again, without actually taking a moment to assess and at least try to figure out ____. I can tolerate it with my three year old. He’s three, and I’m trying to teach him to think about things and try things, rather than say he can’t. But these folks are not three. And I was over half way through college when I was 19.

It makes me grateful for my own upbringing. Yes, my dad was a tyrant and my mom was a martyr, and living conditions were generally deplorable, but they were both strong and independent people and they both had a good hard work ethic. Yankee Ingenuity. It’s something my dad would often say in reference to my mom. While he had the scholarly genius (and complete lack of common sense), she had the practical genius (and somewhat lack of scholarly intellect). And although neither were active in teaching us anything, that I can recall, we learned much from observation and example. We (some of us, anyway) learned that we can find a way to do nearly anything, given the will. We left home and struck out on our own at the earliest opportunity.

I can hardly imagine this boy on his own, making his own way. It sounds as though he wants and hopes to live at home, that his mother wants him home, but the stepdad wants him out. Of course he despises his stepdad. I can sort of see the stepdad’s point of view though. Even though neither adult is working, he does and has worked sporadically, so he is the only income generator in that household. I can’t even begin to comprehend the mother. I can’t put the points from A-to-B, that a person can live without contributing or generating some of that living. My mother was a homemaker, a SAHM, who generated no income, but she worked her ass off. She was in no way or shape any kind of a drain or burden on anybody. But their mother… They learn from observation that they can get by without actually working. It’s a shame, and it bothers me deeply. I guess she thinks she contributes financially, because she collects the child support from Gadget, and they use that to live on. So by bearing his child, she’s done her part until the girl turns 18. Of course I think Gadget should support his child. And so does he. It just seems that she should make an attempt to do so as well. If she were teaching them life skills, values, and simple appreciation, that would be one thing.

Maybe it’s a Southern thing. A Southern, cultural thing. I don’t know. It seems like there are hard-working, intelligent, and responsible people who come from the South. And if I think of it, there are plenty of unimaginative lazy people in every part of the country. Even here.  So it can’t just be a Southern thing.

Meanwhile, I need to get a grip.  I took my little one and left the house on Saturday morning, went to the gym, then got groceries.  I needed to be AWAY.  I felt bad, knowing those kids were feeling housebound and would love to go grocery shopping, but I needed to be AWAY.  We were gone for over four hours.  It helped a little.  Yesterday I left again, alone, just to go to the store for more groceries.  (These people eat a LOT!)  I’m used to quiet, so having people underfoot all day, making strange sounds on top of everything else, is grating on me.

Selfish cow.

Making gingerbread houses is one of those childhood memories that Mr. Gadget wanted to share with our little gadget guy. It wasn’t such a big deal when I was growing up. I don’t think a gingerbread house could survive construction in the home and surroundings of my youth, what with nine of us storming the castle on a constant basis. I do remember wonderful smells and treats around Christmas time. I especially remember a decadent Christmas in which my mother made cookies AND peanut brittle, and set it OUT, in dishes. I think we could even HAVE some. It was a magical memory.

So. A gingerbread house. I bought a kit. The first and last. If ever we do this again, I’ll make my own icing and gingerbread, or just use graham crackers. At least then it would taste good. That commercially packaged stuff was just gross. Blech. Not that anybody really eats gingerbread houses. Do they? Everything will be long stale and hard by the time Christmas comes. I think the young gadget, oh wait, we now call him Harry*. I think Harry had a good time.

*Harry Osborn, Peter Parker’s best friend, and son of Mr. Osborn who became the Green Goblin.

He tells me, “I’m Harry. I’m not <real name>, Silly.” <pause> “Just kidding!” <pause> “No, I’m Harry. I yam Harry.” <giggles> <eyes twinkle>

I love this age. I’m excited about making Christmas magical for him.  Next year we’ll bake cookies and decorate them.  We will all enjoy that, and this time, they’ll taste good too.

It’s an excellent day. It all began last night when the satellite couldn’t capture the signal. No point in trying to watch House. So off to bed by 9:30 p.m., and, surprisingly, no struggles from the nearly three year old. Woot! A good night’s sleep. Up at 5:30 a.m. Poor little guy was having a bad dream. A slug on his pillow. Too scary. I let him crawl into bed with me and snuggled him back to sleep. He’s the sweetest little thing. I could have stayed in bed, but decided to seize the day instead. I had a full hour to get ready, so indulged in a cappuccino and went about donning my carefully constructed costume, all the while smiling at how pleased my beautiful boo boy would be when he learned he could be Superman all day long. What a wonderful start. And when we got to daycare, who was there? Peter Pan. And tonight? His cousins will be here, and then we will all go trick-or-treating. I am just bursting with anticipation, once he discovers that he gets to be a superhero and walk the neighborhood with his becostumed cousins, knock on people’s doors, and get candy!! It brings back such sweet memories. The happiest moments I recall as a child were Halloween, opening my Christmas stocking and finding my Easter basket. Now I’m a mother and the idea that my own child will soon experience this wonder and delight has me beside myself.

My costume today? I am a teenager. I think the look is more aptly the skateboarder look. Blue jeans. Long black camisole layered under a short dragon-emblazoned glitter t-shirt, layered under an even shorter crimson hoodie with long cuffs that cover half my hands. Messed up hair (well, that’s my everyday look, but it works). I am so pleased with myself, giggling at my own silly humour. As if anyone is going to get that I’m in costume. But it feels good to feel young. I feel young. I should have started Zoloft years ago.

My grandmother had two children.  Sturdy Scandinavian daughters who produced a gaggle of offspring, which may or may not be surprising, considering the unhappy states of their respective marriages.  Each year my brothers and sisters and I would gather around my mother as she opened the hand-made Christmas card from her sister.  Those cards flaunted her limitless supplies of creative genius, and were usually filled with newspaper clippings of all the great accomplishments her children had made.  My aunt certainly could spin a tale, and how proud she was of her children.  When we visited our grandparents, we would hear all about these fine people and their accomplishments.  So and so is a national champion.  So and so is a fine actor, with all the leading roles.  So and so is the youngest all star ever to grace the state of Texas.  Did you know that so and so did this and that and that   Isn’t that just wonderful   And that one.  Isn’t she just beautiful   Obviously, Grandma was quite proud of those children.  How amazing and wonderful and wanted they were.  They could do no wrong.  They were the golden ones.  Not at all like the ragamuffin bunch of uncontrollable barbarians that we were.  We could do no right.  Grandma had to take valium when we came to visit.

We lived in a shambles of a home up to our ears in layers of laundry, dirty dishes, cats, dirt, more cats, and all manner of sundry items that one can find scattered about when one tries to keep eleven uncontrollable people under one small roof.  Their home was so much nicer than ours.  Clean.  Tidy.  Everything about them was superior to us.   

Granted, we were a wild tribe.  Strong souls, so defiant, trying to stake our claim in this world.  Wanting to matter.  Wanting to belong.  Wanting to be wanted.  

There were nine of us to their five.  Sometimes we felt as though they were the golden ones, literally, with their blonde locks and doe eyes.  There we were in our half-blood splendor. Dark hair, dark Korean eyes, creamy peanut butter skin.  We were beautiful!  We were brilliant!  We had talents.  We had abilities.  Yet narry a positive word.  My mother, bless her exhausted and exasperated heart, is an entirely different bird than her sister.  She’d share her life’s experiences and events with her mother and sister.  The reality spin.  The broken down, beat down mother of nine trying to make ends meet spin.  The good things were taken for granted.  They were good, so there was no need to go on about them.  The bad things, though.  They were bad.  They needed to be aired.  So and so got fined for this or that.  The police showed up for that or this.  That one wrecked the neighbor’s truck.  This one broke that.  That one spent the night in the pokey.  This one’s dropped out of school.   

Some young people can see through these things to grasp the reality and the truth, but I wasn’t able to until I became an adult.  I’m slow that way.  We were surrounded by continual reinforcement that, yes, we were indeed a band of inferior unwanted savages.  It was a miserable time for us, for me and my beautiful brothers and sisters.

Parents should edify their children.  Protect them.  Nurture them.  Bolster them so that they grow strong.  Help them develop and hold on to that precious, yet ever-so-elusive quality of self-esteem.  Encourage them so they are prepared to go forth and make it in the world, when the time comes. 

I don’t know if my aunt did as much of that edifying and bolstering as it appeared to us.  After all, she really could spin a tale.  She probably had her share of flip out days where she’d scream hysterically at her untoward children for not behaving or being mischievous.  Those kids had plenty of problems that we didn’t hear about, I’m sure. 

Now we’re all adults.  Some of us are doing well.  Some are doing great.  Some are just okay.  Some struggle.  One couldn’t find his way.  I think the cousins are in similar straights, except they’ve not lost one of theirs.

I’m not really going anywhere with this.  It all started with an overheard comment about weight that sparked a string of thoughts and memories.  That cousin, the one who is my age, was always the beautiful one, and she never had a weight problem.  Today she still looks like a Barbie doll, and her mother comments that she looks like she’s in her twenties.  She’s a bikini-clad beach babe.  All that I’ve never been able to achieve in life.

Isn’t it crazy   I’m as professionally successful as I want to be.  I’ve done well for myself.  I’m secure and confident in my professional life.  I have so many capabilities and strengths, yet this one thing, this body image thing, manifests itself beyond all reasonable proportion and overshadows every other shred of goodness that there is about me.  It shouts FAILURE!  It screams REPULSIVE!  It stomps on me, kicks me while I’m down, and leaves me cowering and quivering.

I wrote my mom a letter recently, and explained my miscarriage to her.  I generally don’t share much, because she just doesn’t get me.  Or us.  Any of us.  But I was reaching out.  I sort of hoped that she’d write me back and say she was sorry for what I went through, offer a little sympathy.  Not a word, though.  It’s not her way.  She doesn’t know how to deal with unpleasant things.  She just looks the other way and hopes they go away.

Not much nurturing, and it brings to the forefront of my mind all those feelings of childhood, and not being wanted.  These aren’t feelings I care to revisit, yet they rear their ugly head every now and then.  A 40-something year old woman on the outside, and an insecure, overweight, unwanted child on the inside.

I love to see the big, beautiful, strapping men that the wild boys have become.  I remember my teens, my twenties, even my thirtees — I may have seen them as boys.  Older boys.  Big boys.  Now, in their forties, I see them, and they are men.  M.E.N.  They are rugged.  Their arms, their shoulders, their hands – all big and strong.  Lines are chiseled in their faces.  They are fathers.  They are dads.  They are grandfathers.  They are husbands.  They are lovers.  They are friends.  They are men of men.  M.E.N.  I love who they have become.

Those boys were rough and rowdy boys.  They had a tough time growing up.  They walked a rough road.  It wasn’t easy for them.  I never met the oldest.  He was grown and off on his own, doing well.  He died young — a tragic accident took him.  It was very difficult for them to come to terms with his loss.  Their first born.  Gone.  He was making his way well, in life.  Double the shame.  Next was No. 2.  I didn’t really know him.  He was graduated and married to a Native American woman named J.  They had two gorgeous girls and I used to play with them.  Then there was No. 3.  I liked him.  We used to visit.  His mom and my friend would take me along when they visited him.  It was nice to get out and away.  He had a daughter A, who used to call me Oosh.  It was the cutest thing.  No. 4 and No 5 I remember best.  They were the wild boys on the back of the bus.  Sometimes hung over.  Sometimes glassy eyed.  Often rowdy.  Always scary.  No. 4 was volatile.  He kissed me once, just to freak me out.  It worked.  It upset me.  I don’t think I’d been properly kissed before, so he was my first.  Wet, warm, soft, taunting.  I felt violated and I was upset with him for a long time.  It was just a joke for him.  He had such a devious twinkle in his eye, and he was good looking in a paradoxical clean and unkempt way.  Dangerous.  Crazy.  He was fearless and reckless.  Explosive.  I liked him.  He had verve.  No. 5.  The youngest boy.  Ruggedly good looking. 

They used to get high in the basement, 4, 5, and my brother 1/9. Our moms were upstairs playing Scrabble and drinking coffee.  They never knew.  But they must have.  How could they not   They must have turned a blind eye.  Those boys would always try to get me to join them, but I wouldn’t do it.  I was such a goody two shoes.  If we’d met earlier, while I was still impressionable, between 10 and 13, maybe I’d have gone for it.  I don’t remember exactly when I became a goody two shoes, but it was some time before I turned 13.  The summer of ’77, I guess, is when I decided it was up to me to choose the kind of person I wanted to be.  Before that, it didn’t occur to me.  I was very daft.  Naive. 

No. 5 joined the army.  I was in high school when he came back.  On leave, or for good, I don’t remember. It must have been on leave.  I was visiting and we were alone together in their living room.  I don’t know where his mom or my friend were, or how we ended up alone.  There must have been raging testosterone and pheromones at work in that room.  It was palpable and I could have lost my virtue to him, had I not been so staunchly vigilant with my goody two shoes lifestyle decision.  Never in my life have I experienced such a sensation of chemistry.  Perhaps that will be something to regreat another time.  Had I acted on it, no doubt I would have had a child at 16, and I would have been the first teen mother in my class, instead of my friend, his sister. 

Growing up was hard for them.  All of them.  There was drunkenness.  Debauchery.  They were raging.  Reaching out, trying to find their fit in this world.  It was hard for them.  They had struggles.  Heart breaks.  Traumas. Losses.  Misunderstandings.  Altercations.  They’re all grown up now. Big, strapping, manly men.  Deep raspy voices, like their dad.  Mischievous twinkle in their eyes.  Like their dad.  Manly men.  Like their dad.  Sunday they gathered to say farewell to the man they loved, and probably sometimes hated.  I know he wasn’t the best dad or husband.  He had a rough road too. A tough time making his way. He wrestled his own demons, and in time he conquered them.  I had the privilege of knowing him for only the best of who he was. The man with a twinkle in his eye.  I loved him.  I see him living on in his sons.  Sons who are making their way.  I don’t know any of them.  It’s been over 20 years.  I re-introduce myself, and see the recognition.  I see them looking at me, with some curiousity.  I’m not one of Them anymore.  I’m a stranger from a strange land.  I’m from another world.  A white collar world. Not a yuppie, but a muppie.  A middle aged urgan professional.  I see them looking at me.  I see them wondering.  But I don’t know their thoughts.

If this were a film, pan to the clip of the gorgeous long legged model, and the obvious — who is that breathtakingly gorgeous girl

But it’s not the movies, and I’m no long legged model…

I want to speak with them.  Ask them how they are.  How they are making their way in this world.  But instead, I just look at them and marvel at how beautiful they are to me, these complete strangers, the wild boys whose lives mingled with mine many many years ago.  They are men now.  Real men.  Manly men.  I hope they are all well.  I hope they are all happy.  I hope they have all found their place in this world. I hope they remember their dad with love and no regrets.  I hope their sorrow is fleeting.  But how can it be   They have just lost their dad.