My childhood was terrible.

How do you forgive yourself? I mean, after you go through the steps of self forgiveness? Pray about it, ‘let it go’, know that you did the best you could, ask for forgiveness, try to be a better person…. yada, yada, yada. The thing for me about forgiving myself is that most days, I do feel that I have forgiven myself. But then there are the other days.
You can fuck over every person in the world and find a way to forgive yourself. But if you did the wrong thing as a parent, it’s something that is so, so hard to let go of. And possibly, we are not suppose to let go of it. It may be the thing that keeps us doing the right thing because of the memory of doing the wrong thing.
To add to the complication of the wreckage that is my life, I have to really be careful not to live in the ‘I’m a bad parent’ world too much because the kids will feed on that. They will allow me to carry their mistakes by saying that they make them because of the horror that was their childhood. ‘I am the way I am because of the way you raised me’. If I had a nickel.
There was some bad stuff. Bad choices, bad memories, crazy, insane, drunken chunks of time. Bad, bad stuff. I guess what makes it hard to forget is that the kids remind me about it, usually, during a disagreement. So it’s hard to bury it when the kids are holding shovels.
Lately, it’s all just too much. On one hand I feel guilt. On the other hand I feel, honestly, like I don’t give a shit. I feel like, okay, I was a bad mother. Give me the tattoo, or the final grade, and let’s just say it is what it is so I can stop torturing myself. It’s all true. I did all those things. I’ve done what I can to make it right. The thing is that when you are the one that was wrong it’s not up to you when the people on the other end decide to put down the shovel. It’s up to them. And until they do, I feel like I can’t shake this feeling. And it’s not as if they don’t have the right to feel what they feel. They do. But am I allowed to bail out of the feelings without permission? To say, okay, hang on to that as long as you need to, but I have shit to do and naps to take? I can’t spend the rest of my life feeling like a failure. I have to move on.
If I move on and say your stuff is yours, that may be the thing that makes some of the insanity stop. You know, when you have to claim your own choices, you try and curb it. When you say, ‘I do this shit because of my parents’, it’s easy to keep doing it. But when you have to say, ‘I did this because I made this choice and have no one to blame but myself’, carrying the weight of your actions makes you want to stop making those choices. But I’m thinking that the kids aren’t going to come to that until I stop feeding in to the ‘my childhood was bad’ routine. Until the day that I say, ‘Yeah. My childhood sucked too. Everyone’s did.’
I myself did not grow up on a fairy boat. And still, I have gotten a thing or two done in my life. I am a published author and I can’t even fucking spell. So I’m going to pull myself up, and you pull yourself up, and this is how the day will look. Some days will be great. Some days will suck. I will make more mistakes and so will you. But we can wake up everyday and do the best we can.
I still don’t think I have figured out how to forgive myself. The plan is that I will start with a nap, and then go from there. When we get married they have that line where the priest says, ‘In good times and in bad times, in sickness and in health’. They say that because marriage is a forever concept. It’s a shame we don’t get that deal as parents. All we know as parents is that the nurse hands you the baby and she may as well say, “Don’t fuck this up.” Well, I fucked it up. So where do we go from here? I have no idea. But I will figure something out when I wake up.

The Waterfall

I don’t remember the name of my third grade teacher so for this writing, let’s call him Mr. Hot.
Mr. Hot and I loved each other. I was ten and he was thirty something and we had chemistry that was undeniable, like a fire that could not be extinguished.
As Mr. Hot spoke to the class I would day dream about how many babies we would have and I also wondered, where do you get these babies? I know you go somewhere to pick them up, but where?
One Halloween, I went dressed up like a Go Go girl. I guess it’s the equivalent of a whore outfit, but back then it was called a Go Go girl.
I’m in class, watching Mr. Hot eat grapes as he sat at his desk. He gets up and writes the names of each day of the week and then the name of a student. This was the chalkboard duty assignment for the week. If your name was on one of the days of the week, that meant you had to stay after school and clean the chalk board and the erasers. I see Friday and then my name. That is when it really sunk in. Mr. Hot is going to ask me to marry him on Friday. Oh my god. We would probably go straight from the school, after the erasers were clean, to pick up our first baby.
Because of the age difference, I knew we would not get automatic support from my mom and dad. But the thing is that we loved each other, and that’s that. You could not stop Mr. Hot and I from loving each other and getting the babies. I had a feeling that I would have to change to a different class because I can’t have my husband be my third grade teacher because he would give me guaranteed ‘A’s’. But if that was the only thing in our way, besides my parents, and possibly the police, I was willing to make the move to another class.
Thursday night, I spend three or four hours trying to decide what outfit I wanted to be proposed in. It could be anything I wanted because my mom was at work before I went to school. I went with my Halloween Go Go girl outfit.
I walk in the classroom. Tie died t-shirt tucked in to my black pleather skirt. Black fish net stockings and black pleather boots, that’s right, up to the knee. My hair was the finishing touch that would send Mr. Hot’s love completely over the edge. I had invented a hair do some time back. I thought this hair style would catch on and soon everyone in the third grade would be wearing it. But, I was the only one that followed my own fashion craze so I only wore it on special occasions. Like the day your third grade teacher is going to ask you to marry him. It was called the waterfall. I would flip my head over and get all my hair and tie it in a pony tail on the top of my head. Then I would pull the strands down in a circle creating a ’waterfall’. I was Lady GaGa, before Lady GaGa was Lady GaGa.
I felt pretty great about the look as I sat at my desk just waiting for the end of the day. One boy asked me why I was dressed like that. I told him it was something he couldn’t understand as I flipped the waterfall, one strand of hair whipping me in the eye and making it water.
The end of the day the bell rang. I felt a nervous thud hit the bottom of my stomach. All the kids were filing out of the classroom and I walked up to the chalk board to begin my duties. Mr. Hot was walking around the room picking up this and that and I guessed he was probably nervous about the proposal. Ask me Mr. Hot! I will say yes!
At this point, his fucking pregnant wife walks in. Are you kidding? No. I’m not. They kiss and he says, “How was your day?” She says, “Good. I’m tired though. Maybe we can order a pizza for dinner.”
Either, he is married and his wife is pregnant. OR, he loves me and was going to propose marriage to me when his pregnant cousin, that he happens to feel comfortable kissing on the lips walks in and ruins everything.
That was the first time I experienced a broken heart. As I walked home, no matter how many different ways I tried to convince myself that kissing your cousin is something that people do, no, it just didn‘t seem like a ‘hello cousin‘ kind of kiss. Mr. Hot was married. The son of a bitch was married. She was in her thirties and so was he and later they are going to eat pizza. How do I go on? I will never love again.
I laid on my bed and cried. For like fifteen minutes. Then I went in the back yard and tried to find lady bugs for my collection.
The next Monday at school I was not as happy to watch Mr. Hot eat grapes. Then the same boy that asked me about my Go Go girl outfit said, “I liked your hair on Friday.” So I wore the waterfall everyday after that and that boy followed me around the playground. Sorry Mr. Hot. I have to move on. Our love was a roller coaster. First math, then English, constant homework. With the new guy all I need is the waterfall. Which I still believe will eventually be a big hit in the hair world.

This is my life... it is what it is: Swear on mom

This is my life... it is what it is: Swear on mom

Mama Lia

Mama Lia lived down the street from my grandmother. She was really, really old. Probably in her nineties. She was big on the bottom and wobbled when she walked. She wore bright flowered dresses and it seemed like she had an endless number of these flowered dresses. The houses on my grandmothers street, including my grandmothers and Mama Lia‘s, were about 500 square feet. It was as if someone took one large room and put up walls to make it a miniature house.
Me and my cousins, Janelle and Jackie, would go visit Mama Lia when we were visiting our grandmother. When you walked through the little gate in front of her house it was only about two more steps to her screen door. We could see her sitting in her chair and she would see us and scream with excitement. Then she’d do the thing that old, bottom heavy people do when they try and get off a cushiony chair. That rocking trying to get out. After about five rocks, she finally gets enough momentum to hurl herself out of the chair and opens the door, smiling.
We would sit and she would talk about people we didn’t know but we pretended we did because right next to her chair was a drawer filled with candy bars. After about an hour of hearing about Helen in Lubbock and Frank in Oklahoma City, she would open the drawer and give us our candy which was the equivalent of payment for a mental health provider. It was usually that simple. God forbid she was squabbling with Bernice from Waco or Martha from Deming. We could be there for hours and at some point you don’t care about the candy bars and you just want out.
Back then that was how old people were. Little kids and their parents didn’t have to be afraid of what insane, inappropriate thing they would do. We talked to everyone, including drunk men and they never did one bit of harm. It was a completely different time. These days that conversation would never happen. “Where’s Tommy?” “He’s in the house of the old lady that lives down the street. Don’t worry. She gives him candy.”
Mama Lia was a lonely, old lady, that’s all. She was so happy to see us and sad to see us go, walking out the screen door with candy bars in our hands.
Aside from visiting old people that our parents and grandparents did not know, we also walked to the shopping mall.
We would walk for a long time through neighborhoods. One after another, we’d walk. Then we get to the only freeway in Albuquerque at the time and there was a tall chain link fence so that children, like ourselves, can’t go running around on the highway. But on one adventure we found an actual tunnel that let out in to an arroyo that was on one side of the highway. Then, another tunnel to get to another arroyo, then another tunnel that dumped out to the edge of the parking lot of the mall. An arroyo is like a very dangerous ditch but it’s concrete and really wide. The tunnel ran right underneath the freeway. The exciting part about crossing an arroyo is that at any second, at and time, water could come flooding and rushing down the arroyo and in to the tunnels. So if you were going to cross this way to get to the mall and risk your actual life, you better really want to go the mall. If the water came, there would be no possible way to escape it. This is why before we began to make our way across we would stand on the edge and think about it. That’s not to say that thinking helped. We never once said, “This isn’t safe. We better not do it. Now that I’m thinking about it.” We always went in the arroyo, in to the tunnels and before you knew it we were looking at handbags and shoes.
We didn’t have any mall money. Ever. So we did what normal ten year olds do. We begged for change all day long and made a bunch of money every time. Me, Janelle and Jackie. We took turns. Jackie sucked. She was the worst liar in the history of lying. I made a mental note that if I ever formed a street gang or girl band to not include Jackie because she would have us locked up and sent to prison with the smallest level of pressure from the authorities. I loved her, but she did not have the rebel gene.
It was almost a competition to see who’s lie and the acting out of the lie would succeed. If it didn’t work you had to think of a better lie. You had to really give it up to the strange adult if you wanted the change. They would look down and smile at how pathetic you are and pat your head and hand you the change. The lie that never worked? I lost my parents in a fire and I need to eat at the food court. The one that worked every time? I need bus money. By the way, that line still works. I can’t say how many times I have given a person money for the bus. And when they say bus, they mean Bud. Whatever. I’m happy to help.
So, we’re doing our thing. Making quarters hand over fist. Mainly me and Janelle while Jackie stood there with her hands over her face saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I walk over to a lady and say, “Mam. (in a complete Oliver Twist way) Uhm. I can’t find my mom and I need money for the bus to get home. I think she left me here on purpose.” Who knows why that worked. She smiled, patted my head and gave me the change. Ten year olds are notorious for not being all that bright so I walk away, I am no more than two feet from the lady that gave me the quarter. I see Janelle has dumped all our change on a washing machine in Sears. There is about thirty dollars in change on the washer as I flip the quarter on the top of the pile and say, “I got another quarter!” I didn’t even have the chance to turn when the compassionate, giving woman that had tears in her eyes when I told my story of abandonment, spun me around and pointed her finger in my face. “You are a disgusting little child. Give me my money.” I fished a quarter off the mound of change and handed it to her. She says, “I bet your mother did leave you here and I do not blame her one bit.” And she huffed away. Give me my quarter? Are you fucking kidding with me lady? Even after I give you your quarter we will be chewing gum and riding the medal horses out side for the next six hours. That’s what we usually did. There was a horse ride in front of Sears that had three horses on it. The three of us sat there on the horses for hours putting our beggar money in the little slot. Did we feel bad? Not that much. We had pockets filled with gum and candy and the horses went around and around.
Well the day with the lady, our conscience unexpectedly struck us. It may have had something to do with the fact that my Uncle Cecil, Janelle’s father, worked at the Sears where we did most of our begging and had been informed by his boss, via the angry lady, that his kids were panhandling in the large appliance section. We got in a ton of trouble and got thrown out of Sears by my Uncle. We hung our heads and very sadly walked to the tunnel knowing we disappointed someone we loved, with pockets filled with money. Our pockets were so full that we could hardly bend down to run through the tunnel.
We were walking back through the neighborhoods and we came up with an idea so we could repay our debt to society. We decided to give all our money to Mama Lia. She’s poor. She needs money. But we knew Mama Lia wouldn’t just accept the money because she was too filled with pride and gin.
So we quietly stood by Mama Lia’s house far enough so she wouldn’t see us or she would want to talk about her family and we had to get home. In front of Mama Lia’s house was a bird bath. Our ten year old heads decided we would dump all the coins in to the functioning bird bath. The water swirled around and it even had a little waterfall for the birds to enjoy. It was pretty. So, we dump the change and we walk away feeling like children of God before we could see the change go down the drain of the bird bath. Excuse me heaven! It’s us! Let us in!
The next day we are walking down the street and see Mama Lia outside by her bird bath. We’re thinking that she is probably really pumped up about the fact that she is suddenly rich beyond her wildest dreams. But, no. She’s cursing. She’s pulling the coins out with a knife and cursing.
We walk up using our beggar acting skills, pretending we did not ruin her bird bath.
“Some dumb ass put change in my beautiful bird bath! It’s clogged and broken.” She’s wearing a white dress with giant daisies on it. “Who would do something so stupid?”
Me and Janelle glare at Jackie as she begins to open her mouth, then she covers her mouth with her own hand and that seemed to work.
We all tried to help and get the change out but it was futile. From now on the birds would be dining elsewhere.
Aside from completely destroying her bird bath, I think us girls took a tiny piece of Mama Lia’s loneliness away. Even though we were in it to get a candy bar. But we learned something that day. We learned not to dump change in a bird bath and we discussed it the following weekend when we were begging for change in front of JC Penny.