I SAID LISTEN BABY, YOU REALLY WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND
drawled slowly by boundcreature
It really happened.
I guess, throughout the planning and ideation stages, I just assumed that they would never go through with it. I mean, shit, on the night of their initial engagement (Christmas Eve, 2003) he had a fucking heart attack! But, they ambled on for a few more years, broke up and got back together and on Saturday, September 10, my Mom got married again... and now, I have a stepfather, an estranged step-sister and two step nieces to complement my stepmother and two half-sisters.
The wedding was rad; the kind of thing that only my Mom could plan. The reception featured "I Was Made for Loving You" by KISS (their disco hit), "Be My Lover" by Alice Cooper, and "The Time Warp." Everyone in attendance wore tie-dye for the outdoor ceremony, which ended (for me) when a woman not ten feet behind me, misjudged the arc and power of her toss and pelted me in the back of the head with a generous handful of rice. I looked over my shoulder, she mouthed the words 'I'm" "sorry" and we shared a smile.
Six hours later, the wedding and reception are over, my family has gathered for the first time since my Grandmothers funeral three fucking years ago. Three years with people not talking, people still fighting and carrying wounded feelings and wounded pride because a sick woman was finally allowed to die. The woman, the ultra-Mother, who, in a way, gave us all life, is gone, the ultra-Father, a couple of years previous and we are all alone, her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren trying to make sense of each other.
The family made it through the wedding without a hitch, on good terms with one another for the first time in years. Too good to be true, I thought, my Mom doesn't get happiness like this, where is the catch.
I saw his feet, toes pointed up, on the deck, his pant legs leading up, ascending to his midsection... the rest obscured by drunken onlookers. I heard murmurs of "seizure" and "call 911" and I felt my midsection drop out behind me and honestly, I felt it again, this is it, the second heart attack, the first on the night of their engagement, the last on the night for their wedding, the black cloud following my Mother's every move. I felt it again, my brother waking me up on Christmas morning, telling me that he had a heart attack, realizing for the first time that I actually cared about him, that he transcended the gulf from my Mother's boyfriend to a member of my family. I stood by myself, just watching, within minutes, the slurred deductions made by the attendees was that he had passed out because he had not eaten all day (he is a diabetic) and soon, he was sitting up, drinking orange juice and slowly gathering himself. All the people kept watching and I wanted them to stop, because they were making it worse, he's a man's man and the last thing he wants is to be cared for. But, they don't get it, drunk people never do (funny sidenote, they actually clapped when he stood up!).
Still on the ground, doing better, I still had that leftover panic, like that feeling you get when you assume your lover has done you wrong and you are gonna call them on it, only they didn't, you were mistaken and you have this well of anger that they don't deserve and you can't release. In the ensuing chaos, I watched his two best men (a term, here defined in reality) weed through the gathered crowd and take stock of the situation. Ben (Ron's friend and boss), a man I have been at odds with, but have since mended our relationship, ran off to get the orange juice, while Dave (Ben's brother, Rons best friend) helped him sit up and wiped his forehead with a paper towel.
It was, an odd scene. Ben, Dave and Ron are all about six feet tall and each weigh between 200 and 250 pounds. They all wear XXL work shirts (when I worked with them, I had to cut off the t-shirt sleeves because they hung past my elbows and I had to tie off the waist with a knot at my lower back becaue you could fit three other people in the shirt with me). So, the scene was of muscular, normally angry men, red from working in the sun, being more caring then any woman in attendance could've been. The delicate touch that only comes from "the shit being real."
And, palo came over to me, sensing the need to comfort me and I didn't know what to do with it, because I couldn't very well say all of this stuff and really, I'm such a solitary vessel sometimes, that I think trying to comfort me is only a way to hurt yourself.
Once the paramedics checked him out, we left the afterparty and went to a fair, content that my family would finish off the evening by getting smashed silly and stumbling to wherever it was that they were spending the night.
The sidenote, is that, the next morning, after getting along with one another, my Uncle Ron and Aunt Sandie got into a fight over something my cousin's (Shannon) drunk gilrlfriend (Brenda) may have alleged to make up for her feelings of guilt for talking shit on my cousin and his mother (Diane) all night. Within hours, my Aunt Diane who had said to me, maybe ten times, that it was so nice for the family to be together, was the one taking sides and brewing up the bad feelings (which, still have no basis in reality). She was the one who made it rough in the days of the funeral and who, six months afterward called my Mom to say it was nobody's fault and everyone should forget it, when, in reality it was partly her fault and she didn't want to accept it. I find it easier to forgive my Uncle Ron's conduct than my Aunt Diane's, at least he stood by his actions, she never has and her son never does.
What do you do, when the man who was like your older brother growing up, grows into the kind of person you wake up everyday trying not to be?
What do you do when family is revealed to be, not the safety net you were raised to believe, but a carnival of misery, facades and immature actions? What do you do when the adults become the kids and the kids become the adults becoming the kids and you're left alone not cheating on your girlfriend and not hiding your sorrow in religion or alcohol?
THE BLITZ CAME TO FIGHT
as expressed by boundcreature
I misjudged the weather. I always do. palo didn't listen to me though and wore a sleeveless top, I had on a longsleeved shirt and a hoodie. The lack of judgement was apparent as soon as I got out of the car.
The girl came at me like a slow-moving bullet of affection, I saw her from fifteen feet away, when I heard her scream my name. Less than half my height, she would've smashed into my hjps if I didn't lift her straight off the ground mid-stride. So big. Ten years old, I can still remember when she followed me around the house and only came as high as the top of my knee when standing. Sometimes, she looks more like me than seems possible and she acts just like I did at her age. Ten years old and I suddenly realize what her brain is capable of processing, I was that age when my parents divorced, I remember the complexity of mental activity that surrounds that period for me... it's... interesting, to watch her go through that period without the trauma and the turmoil. I don't think my parents will ever understand what their behavior did to me psychologically, nor will they accept that it shaped me (somewhat) into the man that I am now; nor do they feel their rightful claim to the anger that comes out, suddenly, when they tread on that territory.
The other one, the little one, saw me a few moments later and the first thing she did was tell the assistant coach, with amusing pride in her voice, that I was her big brother.
Twenty-four years old. Six feet, four inches tall. Hovering between 190 and 200 pounds, now wearing a sleeveless Adicts T-shirt, skintight jeans and a studded belt, holding running around with two pint-size cheerleaders at a football game. My sisters will never see the world the way tha I do and never see my father or their mother (my stepmother) the way that I do. I don't fit in with them and I never will, but that doesn't really matter, because even though I haven't seen them frequently in the last couple of years, we built a bond that is unshakeable. They rested on my stomach as babes, they've spit food into my cupped hand when they tasted something they didn't like and on one lovely occassion, I took off my shirt to clean vomit off of the little one in an airport in Florida when she got sick on the tram (she wore one of my t-shirts the whole day of traveling, looked funnier than me in an XXL).
I never thought I'd be proud of cheerleaders or even be able to tolerate it; but, they each took their turn, Tara with the B team and Brooke with the C Team and they danced their hearts out, shaking their bottoms and throwing their arms with an adorable semblance of attitude. I couldn't believe they had memorized the sequences and that they had the aptitude to understand what they were doing.
Family is like a twisted knot and every loose string leads you back to the heart. You cannot walk away, ever. You can never really cut yourself free.
Alway the odd man out, I am accepted but never can find the right fit; as all of the children grow older I have less of a basis for connecting with them. I'm much better I suppose, when it comes to reading stories, throwing them up and down and catching vomit in my hands.
drawled slowly by boundcreature
It really happened.
I guess, throughout the planning and ideation stages, I just assumed that they would never go through with it. I mean, shit, on the night of their initial engagement (Christmas Eve, 2003) he had a fucking heart attack! But, they ambled on for a few more years, broke up and got back together and on Saturday, September 10, my Mom got married again... and now, I have a stepfather, an estranged step-sister and two step nieces to complement my stepmother and two half-sisters.
The wedding was rad; the kind of thing that only my Mom could plan. The reception featured "I Was Made for Loving You" by KISS (their disco hit), "Be My Lover" by Alice Cooper, and "The Time Warp." Everyone in attendance wore tie-dye for the outdoor ceremony, which ended (for me) when a woman not ten feet behind me, misjudged the arc and power of her toss and pelted me in the back of the head with a generous handful of rice. I looked over my shoulder, she mouthed the words 'I'm" "sorry" and we shared a smile.
Six hours later, the wedding and reception are over, my family has gathered for the first time since my Grandmothers funeral three fucking years ago. Three years with people not talking, people still fighting and carrying wounded feelings and wounded pride because a sick woman was finally allowed to die. The woman, the ultra-Mother, who, in a way, gave us all life, is gone, the ultra-Father, a couple of years previous and we are all alone, her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren trying to make sense of each other.
The family made it through the wedding without a hitch, on good terms with one another for the first time in years. Too good to be true, I thought, my Mom doesn't get happiness like this, where is the catch.
I saw his feet, toes pointed up, on the deck, his pant legs leading up, ascending to his midsection... the rest obscured by drunken onlookers. I heard murmurs of "seizure" and "call 911" and I felt my midsection drop out behind me and honestly, I felt it again, this is it, the second heart attack, the first on the night of their engagement, the last on the night for their wedding, the black cloud following my Mother's every move. I felt it again, my brother waking me up on Christmas morning, telling me that he had a heart attack, realizing for the first time that I actually cared about him, that he transcended the gulf from my Mother's boyfriend to a member of my family. I stood by myself, just watching, within minutes, the slurred deductions made by the attendees was that he had passed out because he had not eaten all day (he is a diabetic) and soon, he was sitting up, drinking orange juice and slowly gathering himself. All the people kept watching and I wanted them to stop, because they were making it worse, he's a man's man and the last thing he wants is to be cared for. But, they don't get it, drunk people never do (funny sidenote, they actually clapped when he stood up!).
Still on the ground, doing better, I still had that leftover panic, like that feeling you get when you assume your lover has done you wrong and you are gonna call them on it, only they didn't, you were mistaken and you have this well of anger that they don't deserve and you can't release. In the ensuing chaos, I watched his two best men (a term, here defined in reality) weed through the gathered crowd and take stock of the situation. Ben (Ron's friend and boss), a man I have been at odds with, but have since mended our relationship, ran off to get the orange juice, while Dave (Ben's brother, Rons best friend) helped him sit up and wiped his forehead with a paper towel.
It was, an odd scene. Ben, Dave and Ron are all about six feet tall and each weigh between 200 and 250 pounds. They all wear XXL work shirts (when I worked with them, I had to cut off the t-shirt sleeves because they hung past my elbows and I had to tie off the waist with a knot at my lower back becaue you could fit three other people in the shirt with me). So, the scene was of muscular, normally angry men, red from working in the sun, being more caring then any woman in attendance could've been. The delicate touch that only comes from "the shit being real."
And, palo came over to me, sensing the need to comfort me and I didn't know what to do with it, because I couldn't very well say all of this stuff and really, I'm such a solitary vessel sometimes, that I think trying to comfort me is only a way to hurt yourself.
Once the paramedics checked him out, we left the afterparty and went to a fair, content that my family would finish off the evening by getting smashed silly and stumbling to wherever it was that they were spending the night.
The sidenote, is that, the next morning, after getting along with one another, my Uncle Ron and Aunt Sandie got into a fight over something my cousin's (Shannon) drunk gilrlfriend (Brenda) may have alleged to make up for her feelings of guilt for talking shit on my cousin and his mother (Diane) all night. Within hours, my Aunt Diane who had said to me, maybe ten times, that it was so nice for the family to be together, was the one taking sides and brewing up the bad feelings (which, still have no basis in reality). She was the one who made it rough in the days of the funeral and who, six months afterward called my Mom to say it was nobody's fault and everyone should forget it, when, in reality it was partly her fault and she didn't want to accept it. I find it easier to forgive my Uncle Ron's conduct than my Aunt Diane's, at least he stood by his actions, she never has and her son never does.
What do you do, when the man who was like your older brother growing up, grows into the kind of person you wake up everyday trying not to be?
What do you do when family is revealed to be, not the safety net you were raised to believe, but a carnival of misery, facades and immature actions? What do you do when the adults become the kids and the kids become the adults becoming the kids and you're left alone not cheating on your girlfriend and not hiding your sorrow in religion or alcohol?
THE BLITZ CAME TO FIGHT
as expressed by boundcreature
I misjudged the weather. I always do. palo didn't listen to me though and wore a sleeveless top, I had on a longsleeved shirt and a hoodie. The lack of judgement was apparent as soon as I got out of the car.
The girl came at me like a slow-moving bullet of affection, I saw her from fifteen feet away, when I heard her scream my name. Less than half my height, she would've smashed into my hjps if I didn't lift her straight off the ground mid-stride. So big. Ten years old, I can still remember when she followed me around the house and only came as high as the top of my knee when standing. Sometimes, she looks more like me than seems possible and she acts just like I did at her age. Ten years old and I suddenly realize what her brain is capable of processing, I was that age when my parents divorced, I remember the complexity of mental activity that surrounds that period for me... it's... interesting, to watch her go through that period without the trauma and the turmoil. I don't think my parents will ever understand what their behavior did to me psychologically, nor will they accept that it shaped me (somewhat) into the man that I am now; nor do they feel their rightful claim to the anger that comes out, suddenly, when they tread on that territory.
The other one, the little one, saw me a few moments later and the first thing she did was tell the assistant coach, with amusing pride in her voice, that I was her big brother.
Twenty-four years old. Six feet, four inches tall. Hovering between 190 and 200 pounds, now wearing a sleeveless Adicts T-shirt, skintight jeans and a studded belt, holding running around with two pint-size cheerleaders at a football game. My sisters will never see the world the way tha I do and never see my father or their mother (my stepmother) the way that I do. I don't fit in with them and I never will, but that doesn't really matter, because even though I haven't seen them frequently in the last couple of years, we built a bond that is unshakeable. They rested on my stomach as babes, they've spit food into my cupped hand when they tasted something they didn't like and on one lovely occassion, I took off my shirt to clean vomit off of the little one in an airport in Florida when she got sick on the tram (she wore one of my t-shirts the whole day of traveling, looked funnier than me in an XXL).
I never thought I'd be proud of cheerleaders or even be able to tolerate it; but, they each took their turn, Tara with the B team and Brooke with the C Team and they danced their hearts out, shaking their bottoms and throwing their arms with an adorable semblance of attitude. I couldn't believe they had memorized the sequences and that they had the aptitude to understand what they were doing.
Family is like a twisted knot and every loose string leads you back to the heart. You cannot walk away, ever. You can never really cut yourself free.
Alway the odd man out, I am accepted but never can find the right fit; as all of the children grow older I have less of a basis for connecting with them. I'm much better I suppose, when it comes to reading stories, throwing them up and down and catching vomit in my hands.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
he emailed me again last night. it's so weird and frustrating and aggravating and yet it's reassuring as well. each time it's like "a-HA! you DO love me too."