Eavesdropping on the Past

 

I found my sixth-grade journal and showed it to my daughter, who was dealing with some friend drama, to show her it’s normal. We laughed over an entry where a girl I hung out with told my friends I looked like I drooled - I ended it by calling her “the biggest bitch in the world.”

There were more juicy stories, like when a kid embarrassed me in class for “flirting,” and I proudly told him to “stop picking his butt.” The funny part? I remember the boy, and I thought he drooled.

Almost every entry was about a boy I liked, complete with details, only to declare two pages later that I liked someone new. Looking back, I was mesmerized by guys who looked twenty and probably ended up in juvie instead of finishing high school.

My kids cracked up over a three-page entry about how fine Brian Austin Green was. I forgot I was such a boy-crazy kid. I remembered professing my love for Eddie Furlong after watching Terminator 2, and my brothers and sisters teased me endlessly. I’m pretty sure that guy ended up in adult juvie.

Last week, my daughter and I went to dinner at a pub. She wanted to try poutine, and Google sent us to a place called The Fat Rabbit. It smelled delicious, like spilled beer.

We sat in a booth. There were partitions between them, like an old train car. When we walked in, the woman in the booth next to us smiled, and we said hello. Her guy was getting drinks and joined her after we sat down, so I never saw him.

I couldn’t help but listen to their conversation. They were on a first date. She talked about her son in college and that she took a break from dating, but she’s getting back on the horse. Then the man said his wife of twenty years filed for divorce two days earlier.

I felt bad for the woman; she finally musters up the strength to put herself out there, only to end up with a guy still in the infirmary tent after a grenade blew up his life. Now she’s his Florence Nightingale, pulling him through the night so he doesn’t drown in twelve beers and sad songs. His grief became hers. I guess thats how to cope, offload pain in small doses until it’s light enough to carry.

I was scrolling through an app when I saw a headline: “Why Seeking Joy is Better than Seeking Happiness.”

I figured anyone who clicked on it was clinically depressed. The author likely spent years turning this into a PhD thesis, meticulously dissecting and ranking two things most people don’t even bother to tell apart.

Imagine the resentment after years of this nonsense. The writer probably cringes at the words joy or happiness, now doomed to repeat the same talk at every regional TED event until they latch onto their next big distinction, like the difference between canary and lemon yellow.

I showed my daughter my old journal so she’d see that friend drama fades. With time, it becomes just another entry, and without writing it down, it would have vanished forever. I wrote it to offload pain, but thirty years later, it gave us a good laugh. Joy or happiness? I don’t know, I wasn’t sad enough to read the article. It felt good, and that’s what matters.

Gentle Wake Up Calls

 

I gently wake my daughter up in the morning before school, and she turns off the light and goes back to sleep. I continue doing this, and after a while, she screams, “Why are you yelling at me?”

I never yell at her to get ready, but I probably should since she thinks I am.

I did yell at the kids after an automated text message from their school informed me they were missing a ton of assignments. I tutor in the afternoon a couple of days a week, and the kids tell me before I leave that they are all done with homework, so they grab snacks and turn on the TV. Lies. I felt bad after I yelled at them and went to bed, hoping I didn’t hurt their self-esteem, but laziness is despicable, and I think it's worth the trade-off.

Geoffrey and I started taking care of his make-up work. He refused to make a change on one of his assignments, where the teacher commented, “Who is he?” About his summary of an article on a prehistoric man. I told him to change “he” to “the prehistoric man.” He refused and said, “She knows exactly who I am talking about,” and he pushed submit as I was screaming, “Nooooo!” In slow motion, lunging for the laptop.

It’s like he doesn’t care about getting an A in the class.

When G was little, maybe six years ago, I took him and Kiki to my work. We were in the photocopy room when another instructor came in. She saw the kids and wanted to talk to them, so she leaned over and gave the usual greetings. I am not even kidding here. Geoffrey looked at this woman and asked, “Why do you look like a man?”

I think I left my body. I blacked out what happened next, but I probably apologized and told G he was not funny. 

This story makes Kiki laugh, and it is funny even though I was traumatized. Kiki asked, “Did you hit him?”

Like Puff Daddy, I said, “You can't hit your kids in public.”

I wasn’t going to hit my kids. G loves the shock value. He tells me he is an atheist, and I am in denial and tell him, “No… that’s not true.”

He told me he won’t start the confirmation classes next year, but I have my ways to convince him, like a new Nintendo Switch. I’m explaining to him, this is fundamental, while he takes care of this, he is free to explore his beliefs, but my Grandparents expect this of me.

I’ve been talking religion a lot, but it’s because of these classes I attend as part of Kiki’s confirmation process. It will move to the back of my mind next week after our last class for the school year.

I love going to the parent classes because it’s a fun hang. Religion might bring us all to the room, but sometimes we just talk about the Real Housewives. We also feel free to say the things we don’t like about the religion, like the belief that unbaptized babies go to hell. Yes, that is a freaking thing people believe, but it is obviously malarky. 

Kiki has questions after the classes. Things I’ve had to tell her: 1) we can’t be mad at the people who say bad things about gays and divorces, they don’t know that they are being assholes, 2) It is fine to believe abortion is ending a life, but it’s not okay to judge a woman for making that decision, and 3) the fixation with virginity is disgusting and manifests itself in violent ways.

I’ve watched every cult docuseries made, and one evening in class, the teacher explained it is a sin not to give money to the church. I was struck by the similarities between the church and the cults. My heart dropped. It was a moment of such intense panic and fear. For the first time, I had the thought, “What if this is all a lie?”

I don’t care about the rules of the religion being a lie. I’m driven by familial obligation, and I disregard rules that go against the ultimate belief that God is nonviolent and loving. The fear was more about God and my son being right.

The moment passed. Too many weird things have happened for me to believe there isn’t an afterlife. I think there’s evidence all around and within; inexplicable dreams, premonitions, feelings, and spontaneous thoughts.

This week, I had a dream about my kids’ dad. I was mad at him over $80, and since I've got my mind on my money and money on my mind, I wouldn't let it go. I dreamed I stuck two nails into his eyes, but his head was filled with dirt and looked like a potato. I said, “You owe me $80,” as I drove the nails in, like a psycho mob boss. But then he turned into an old Hollywood actress standing in the doorway in a silk gown, and a tear streamed down his face. I woke up and decided to drop the $80. 

I get messages in dreams, through the way my children respond to their responsibilities, or in the wild, unexpected words of a four-year-old. God - except for the case of the ladder - speaks to me gently, like a mother waking her daughter with a soft whisper. Then it’s up to me: do I get up and listen, or hit life’s snooze button and pretend none of it happened?