Family
In every family with more than one child, does it automatically happen that each child is assigned a role that they are to play throughout their lives? I want to say that this is particularly the case for Asian families but I know that would be wrong. Families are not all that different across ethnic lines, it just so happens I have the most intimate knowledge about Asians.
So what’s my point? That we eldest children are expected to be provide a kind of reassurance that other siblings are not. Even Lyna, who is kind of a wreck, is expected to hold her sister’s hand through childbirth. No one seems to know or want to acknowledge that Lyna is drowning. Never mind that – the other daughter is having a baby!
CC
My friend CC and I have not been in touch much lately. This is what happens when you (well, CC) tell someone too much about your life. She has revealed too much to me about her boyfriend. I decided he’s an asshole. Now she feels bad/resentful that she told me all this because she knows that no matter what nice thing she tells me he did for her, I will keep remembering that he said to her “You do you and I do me,” meaning that he didn’t want to hear about her cancer problems.
This isn’t the first time this has happened with me and CC. It’s funny that we keep getting back together. I have had a lot of friends in my life and kept a good majority of them. I find her to be the most trying.
I am a bit more careful with sharing than she is. I tell 2/3 thirds of most stories. I leave out the ugliest parts (or what I deem to be the ugliest). I’m too concerned with what happens when the emotions calm. Damage control should be kept to a minimum.
Professor Dick
I am more and more uncomfortable with his “caring.” Today I wrote an email telling him that I’m going to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. The truth is that I have nothing to do for that dreaded holiday. I am going to risk insanity rather than be around him and his wife.
Professor Dick’s kindness to me reminds me too much of the way A hovers over me. Not that these gestures go unappreciated or unreciprocated by me, but I do wonder what the point of it is.
Politically Incorrect Self Labeling
Before I left for California, A and I were talking and he said something weird. I called him on it and he called himself an “emotional wetback” when it came to me. I have no idea what that even means, if anything at all. But I found it quite funny and felt bad that I couldn’t tell anyone I know that anyone I know said that to me. My friends are all screaming crazy liberals. Sometimes, they are oppressive in their embrace of political correctness and sympathy.
Summertime
At Columbus Circle about a week ago, on Broadway and West 61st Street, I had the clearest memory of an evening in August with A. I was wearing a blue dress and the wind started to pick up and the rain came pouring down. A and I ran north in search of some kind of shelter. It was a lovely time to be had by two broken up people.
Another night – M and I on his motorcycle roaring up Riverside Drive, across Manhattan to the FDR and onto the Brooklyn Bridge and then back across to the Westside Highway.
And another day – Heather and I napping on a blanket at Riverside Park at twilight. A boy asked to take my picture. Later the fireflies lit up the evening and we sat there to watch their show even though the bugs were attacking us.
And then that first night with AL on LaFayette Street – a first kiss at the entrance of the F Subway line and that was all.
In between all these days and nights I mentioned, there were desperate days and nights. What is my point? That I had a lovely awful summer.
I don’t know how it’s possible for me to say that, let alone mean it. I’m having trouble accepting that despair coexisted with a kind of happiness.
Snooping
This I have told only my shrink and CC. I told most of the story. I have access to A’s personal and corporate email accounts. For a few weeks, I checked both sites, hands shaking (from shame, maybe?). I don’t know if he’s changed any of the passwords. I don’t go snooping anymore. Not that I’m not tempted. But I am less interested for whatever reason. It’s too pathetic.
Baby
For the four or five days I was in L.A., I didn’t think that much about the abortion/fetus/baby. My mother didn’t say a word about it. But last night after everyone had gone to bed, I found myself thinking about it. Nothing specific, nothing I can name. But it was there. I suppose some part of me was fantasizing how it would be if I had a baby to share with my family. I couldn’t give in to the fantasy. Will there ever be a time when I can allow that?
Is there ever going to be a baby for me? That's the real question, isn't it? Funny that's the first time I've ever actually said that out loud. I wish someone would say for sure.
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