I always knew where I fit with my mom’s pack of family. To screw me up, all you had to do was throw me to a weekend at my dad’s during the teen years and I knew I was the octagonal peg and I had no clue what shape the hole was I was supposed to fit.
Fast forward a decade or so and I learned that all four of us kids felt that way. I didn’t know till two years ago that my oldest brother actually moved out his senior year of high school because he couldn’t take it anymore. I should have clicked on the fact my middle brother had to feel out of sorts what with all the locking himself in bathrooms and volatile outbursts he had, and the youngest, well, he was just screwed, he was stuck in that nest of insanity after the rest of us fled for college and never went home on the weekends. I finally realized that none of us fit in that family, and that out of place feeling may just be what bonds us together now. If nothing else, we have tons of fodder to discuss over many beers.
I know my mom can’t watch Bonanza (it might be Gunsmoke) or Lawrence Welk because of uncomfortable, hair on the back of the neck standing up sensations left over from growing up. I was watching a little Kevin James stand up on Comedy Central a little while ago and he mentioned growing up in a home with a/c but with a father who would rarely use it. I think my blood pressure actually went up as I remembered hot sticky?Ǭ† summer nights when Dad would turn the a/c to … oh lets say 90 just for exaggeration sake … and not understand why we bitched about being hot. Guess who’s bedroom had a fucking fan on full blast? Guess who’s bedrooms did NOT. I remember Deacon used to pile on all of his covers while he was sleeping on the TOP bunk (hot air rises) and crawl under them for several minutes, just to feel the relief of the cooler air when he’d throw the covers off. Kinda like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer just b/c it feels so good when you stop.
I was huddled on the floor today trying to take some pressure off my back and contemplating Alex being an only child. Which is a sure sign of how ready I am to be done with this preggers thing b/c this would mean I would not be having a daughter in my future. I think mostly I’m afraid of getting pregnant again and having it be another boy. This led me to think of my step mom and how she had three boys, then married my dad – who had a girl. I wonder if she was excited b/c she was getting the daughter she’d wanted. Then I realized that I really must have been disappointing to her, b/c I really never was the kind of daughter she would have imagined. This isn’t a pity party statement (for once). This is actually me learning to understand this woman who I really rarely understood while growing up.
Deacon says I should write the book on our family, change the names and see how many people wouldn’t buy it because they would assume it was just too far fetched to be taken seriously.