A Little Something for the Ladies

This is a different night than one I am used to. Its dark in this living room, and I look out the window at palm trees that are black, and a sky that is a deep and dark purple. I have pulsing music playing on this little laptop, and a tiny child sits on the sofa.

I’m baby-sitting Elise, while my sister and her boyfriend celebrate his birthday. Tomorrow is Mothers Day. I never bothered with it before, and I don’t care for it now. The first Mothers day I ever cared to remember began with Pancakes and Emma by my side, and ended with the demise of my relationship. My family began to fall apart on Mothers day.

Funny.

I grew up with women. My mother, single and crazy and constantly looking for something better. My older sister growing and stumbling through life discovering that her father was a lie, her family was something strange and foreign. My little sister being raised by an 8-year-old boy who knew nothing of the world except that as long as his sister had food, and was in bed when Mom got home everything would be okay, even if I knew it wasn’t.

Latch Key Kids for the win.

On we went, moving constantly and all the time my mother surrounding us with crazy bible thumping older women who raised us on stories of The Lord and how men never treated them right. I was raised on these stories, and smooth jazz, and taught at an early age that a gentleman…

1Walks on the outside of the sidewalk.
2Opens doors.
3Nods, smiles, and acknowledges conversation.
4Leads a good dance.
5Doesn’t really exist, so try not to be too much of a dick when you’re old enough to fuck.

4 out of 5 ain’t bad huh?

I’m not 8 anymore. I act like I am most of the time but times are vastly different than I remember. I like Scotch, I like Red Wine, I hate crowds and I like a good smoke now and then (a pack a day is now and then right?). I’m still surrounded and defined by the women around me.

I even made one once.

And my big sister did too.

So did my little sis.

It’s different when you’re surrounded by women who care about you like a brother, a son, a father. It’s different when you never spent your summers under the hood of a car, but at the business end of a mood swing.

How do I say thank you? How do I apologize? How do I say that I am trying to become the standard you all set for me, but I have no idea how to do it? How do I admit I am not the man you want, but the one you got and now I’ve got to make up the difference?

Tonight is different because when I leave this apartment, after Leslie and Jeremy have come home to their child sleeping soundly in her bed I won’t know where to go. I could go home but why? I could go out but for what? I don’t know if I will sit at this computer writing nonsensical things, or uploading photos, or if I am going out to see if a friend or to feels like drinking themselves silly.

I woke up this morning with someone next to me. I looked at the ceiling and out my dirty windows while music played in my speakers. I lost myself in thought for a moment. I remembered things.

Somber, pulsing music from across the pond played me into a daze as I remembered where I was when we first picked up the album and talked about its simple but honest guitars, and soulful voice.

My companion asked me what was wrong, and nothing was but I was in thought.

I remembered the beginning of my adult life.

Leaving home angry.

Sitting with my sister and some friends for an evening drinking a bottle of Tequila into oblivion.

Driving up the 5 freeway to San Francisco while Emma grew in Vanessa’s belly.

This is the album I began to grow up to. It wasn’t punk and it wasn’t unusual but it meant something to me, and it played me to San Francisco. It played me to Erich’s Funeral and back home. It played Emma to sleep more nights than she will ever remember.

It played this morning and it didn’t stop until I got here to carry Elise to her bed. I put it on and began to write.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end for me. It marks the beginning of a new person that was born of me on that day.

I’m uglier on the inside. Angrier. I’m something else that wasn’t what was surgically removed from my mother’s womb. I am not the little ball of fat that my mothers friends used to dance with. I am not the exceptional young man with good manners and a gift for art.

I am not what I want to be.

I am nothing like I think I should be.

Today when Leslie kissed and told me she loves me and misses me and she’s so happy her bother is here it struck me that it doesn’t matter to me what I am. As long as the women in my life know how much I love them.

The little girls, the nieces and daughters and mothers.

If it weren’t for you I would be nothing.

I love you.