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My Profile
She blinded him with whiteness - 2008-07-25
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9:09 a.m. - 2008-03-17
I can't adequately explain about how amazing and cool it is to have a family after all this time. "Yo, LA, you've been a mother since 1985 and have had a couple of husbands, to say nothing of all those foreign kids you filled the old house with and the numerous runaways, throw-aways and assorted orphans (both feline and human) you've housed and fed, by any reckoning you've been up to your eyebrows in family since like ever." That's just it, this time I'm not The Mom. I'm especially not my husband's mom anymore and that is seriously cool. Because if you get past the creepy Freudian implications of Mike using me for sex, I was his mother. I minded his manners and cleaned up after him and bailed him out of his endless stupid messes and mistakes. When it was schmutzig I wiped Mike's face with a spitty napkin and told him to tuck his shirt in. I braided his hair and balanced his checkbook and did ALL the grown-up shit. I was everybody's mom and nobody's child. Now there is balance in my life. I am still a mom, but I am also a real wife. Mick has my back just as much as I have his. He looks after my needs and doesn't insist I do all the thinking and shoulder all the responsibility for our lives. Even cooler still is that I am someone's child. Mick's parents have taken me to their hearts and include me in as no parents ever have before. I even have a grandma! Me! LA the Eternal Outsider has a whole family. I believe Mick when he says his family likes me for me and just not because he and I are together. In 12 years of marriage his ex-wife and the MIL never fell in together the way she and I have. MIL was never rude or anything, she was even decent to Trashy (the woman is kind to everybody), but she truly likes me. Loves me even. As do FIL and Gram. If the unthinkable happened and Mick and I split up I know I'd still be welcome amongst the O'Gaelic clan, unlike Mike's family who turned their backs immediately and couldn't even bother to say good-bye. Mick's family is topmost on my mind this morning because they are coming over tonight. Even though we saw them yesterday for what's become our traditional Sunday dinner at the local Italian place. Of course this coming Sunday the meal will be here, I'm making the Easter feast. Gram will be joining us for that. But on a regular Sunday it's become our habit to meet the folks at Aldo's. We even have 'our' table and everybody always sits in their same seat. Wolf sandwiched between MIL and FIL on one side and Mick and I next to each other opposite them. We catch up on the week's doings and gossip with the waitresses. FIL produces several clippings he's culled from the many, many newspapers he subscribes to and reads voraciously. Wolf gets to pick the songs on the juke and usually draws a picture on the flipside of his placemat. It's a happy relaxed meal, though I still struggle with the way the parents insist on picking up the tab. Remember, I come from a life where my mother wouldn't waste free water on me even if I was burning to death at her feet. She kept every dime I ever made modeling and demanded I have another job too to cover the rent I owed her starting on my 14th birthday. This deal held for all of us except our youngest sister. Our 'rent' covered use of a bedroom and 4 meals a week. That's it. Everything else from tampons, to clothes, to food Friday-Sunday, we were expected to provide for ourselves. So the idea of parents treating us to a nice meal out every week is mind-boggling. Our limited budget keeps us from battling for the check so I am always happy when we can reciprocate in other ways. Like tonight. St Patrick's Day means a corned beef dinner and the folks graciously agreed to join us. Hey, I'd be making a big pot of boiled anyhow. Corned beef and cabbage isn't any more authentically Irish than green bagels are (to say nothing of green beer) but they are the done thing in this neck of the woods and who am I to buck tradition? (Besides, I really like corned beef.) Mick's always gotten along well with his mom. He and his dad are like all fathers and sons, but have finally mellowed past the need to always be butting heads like big horn sheep. Mick is quick to say his relationship with his parents has never been happier than since Wolf and I made the scene though. His bringing home another daughter for them to love and a new grandson who's just the right age to play with and spoil scored him a whole bunch of parental approval points. It makes his parents feel good to see their son looking so at peace with himself and so content with his life. I think that's all any decent parent wants- to know their children are happy. Even though my own grandmother was a wee lass from Cork I've never felt particularly blessed with the luck o' the Irish. At least not until my beloved Mick showed up and brought his amazing family with him.
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