Sure enough, as the days grow shorter, or a stream grows wider, slowly yet impactful, so does my anger and frustration with the inevitable.
My mom expects perfection, in the finest quality, topped off with great ettquitte and manners.
On the contrary, my father is an artist, expecting a vividly colored mind, crafted with i spiration and lined with absolute beauty of one's own seeking.
Torn between the two, I don't have a clue what to do. turn towards mom and become the lady she's begging me to be, against my own unlady like posture and gratitude, or the latter, sit and imagine life and the meaning of it, the meaning of art, decode specific masterpieces, and waste a life that could be full of my own pleasures and seekings?
Mom promised future. Dad promised now.
Two parents, so very yet different, though, still brogh together to create little ol' me, breathe life i to me and raise me up for sixteen years, well taken care of.
Divorce sought the best of them, dared happiness, and chaenged them. after loosing baby acter baby, a life of miscarriages, mom had had enough, sunk into a deep place, and still has yet to come completely back up. Instead, she fills her day with cooking and cleaning to keep the memories pressed back, unkept and dusty, so she can breathe again for a little while.
"Ladies don't cry in public."
" Then why did you throw a complete fit in Walmart when we walked past the cribs? "
" You'll never understand, Cora, you'll never understand. "
I didn't want to. I had learned to live my days numbered. Being an only child, Icould easily say, leaves a lot of responsibilty.
There's never 'who did this?' Honestly, who could I blame?
Not the dog, Oscar, who couldn't physically pull cereal out of the cabinet and dump the whole box in the sink after one too many parties in Philly.
Then there was Dad, who remarried and had a lovely wife, who worked as a nurse and cussed feequently at everything. She brought two kids, Matthew, who was nine, and James, who was seventeen.
Both a little chaotic, only because one, they were boys, and two, I was used to only myself and myself only.
No fighting over showertime. No worrying about someone eating your food, or moving your things.
Me, I don't have a big story to tell. Not a love story. Not a comedy, or a scifi. No, I would say that the events that follow me around are more real, and vivid than any painting my dad could compile. more complicated than my moms recipe book.
And definately challenging.
