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Jesus Mary and Joseph, why am I up at 3:00am writing? Oh, I was asleep at one point. Asleep on the couch. Needing my own space. Desperately seeking some peace and solitude and sense of… I don’t know, being able to have a small space of “control” in my life.
But now I’m awake. Needing… something. Ya’ see, on top of a million issues I have right now, it’s my birthday today. Yup, as of 2:06pm June 11th I will be 48 years old. Oh Christ that just gave me the heebers as I wrote that. Yea yea, age is just a number. And numbers have never bothered me before until this one. Maybe it’s because of the crossroads I’m at, my living situation, my health, my broke-assness… but probably mostly because of my Dad dying this past October. Sure he was a ripe old age, just over 2 months shy of his 90th birthday. But it also makes the mortality sink in. My Mom is going to be 87 in a couple months and was always Super Woman but now is becoming… human. My Mother hiked the Grand Canyon at the age of 69, for God’s sake! And now she gets winded after scrubbing the tub. Well at least she can still scrub the tub, right? And hell hath no fury if you offer to scrub the tub for her. Now I know where I get it from.
Have you noticed I love the ellipsis? I love it… a lot.
All right all right, this post isn’t going to be all melancholia and gloom and doom and whining. Yes, I know it’s what I do best but gosh darn it,”people like me”. (Sorry, just channeled my inner Stuart Smalley.)
Wait, what was I saying? Oh hey did you know that forgetfulness is common in pre-menopausal and menopausal women? Weeeee! So, I got that goin’ for me! (pre folks, PRE here) I don’t even need to drink anymore, I’ve got so many God damn altered states going on in my own self. One minute I’m happy, next minute I want to rip someone’s head off and use it as a bocce ball. One minute I’m sad, next minute I can’t remember why I was sad or why I came in this room. Then I turn flush and start to sweat. I stand in front of the open freezer door to bring back the mellow, dude. And then I… take a nap. The end.
Oh dear God, I’ve become my Mother. Sweet Baby Jesus in swaddling clothes! But I guess it happens to the best of us. Well not you guys. No, scratch that, I have seen some of you men become your Mothers. Mostly your Fathers, but a few Mommies. I want to channel the June Cleaver side of my Mom and not the Joan Crawford side of my Mom. No, my Mom wasn’t abusive but you know all of our Moms got frustrated and angry sometimes and started yelling things like, “I just can’t have anything nice, can I?”
So, why have I become my Mother? I don’t remember. (there’s that nasty symptom again) Oh right, because I’m the youngest of 6 kids and my Mom was 39 when she had me. So I pretty much had a front row seat to her “change”. She always made jokes about it. But I was also witness to the heartbreaking mood swings some times. Shit happens, right? Just another thing we broads have to go through that the sweet merciful Lord spares his precious men from. Nah, I’m not bitter.
But here’s something interesting, just last week I learned a hidden fact about my Mom. It’s funny how you learn things about your parents as you get older that you had no idea about when you were younger. My Mother had 7 babies, this I already knew. A couple kids ahead of me, I had a brother Patrick that didn’t make it past child birth. And also by the time I came along, the pregnancies weren’t so easy anymore. What she told me was that shortly after I was born in 1965 her doctor prescribed her birth control pills because as he said, “or else you’d be poppin’ out a kid every year until your 50”. Guess he knows us Irish Catholics. The pill was a new thing back then and was verboten in the Catholic church.
My Mother had always been a devout Catholic. My Dad used to tell embarrassing jokes about them practicing the rhythm method. *cringe* lalalalalalala, I can’t hear you! But at one point of my Mother’s life she decided to take control. Control of her life, her family, her body, her health, her sanity.
Now I have “Control” by Janet Jackson stuck in my head. At least it has a beat and you can dance to it. Wait, now I have her song “Rhythm Nation” stuck in my head but have changed the words to “Rhythm Method”. Oy, thanks Dad.
Control. I’ve felt a severe lacking of such in my adult life. Especially with kids, ya’ know? When you have kids, a lot of your control goes right down the shitter. Oh isn’t that what I’m doing on the couch right now? Control?
Why can’t I get control? Why haven’t I been able to gain control all along? I feel like stability has been a greased pig I have been chasing for about 25 years now.
Oh sure, I “took control” and wrote a book. But I can’t control if anyone buys it and brings me that stability. I mean I can sure as hell try.
Buy my book today, click here! 🙂
Eh maybe control is overrated. Soon I will be losing control of everything anyway and need to wear some Depends, so what does it matter?
I guess the only serious birthday question left to ask is… is it too early for a martini? Pull up a cocktail and let’s have a good old fashioned birthday party in the comments below. Hurry, before I’m eventually slumped over in the chair in the corner…
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