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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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2:54 p.m. - 2011-11-09
My kid made me a fried egg sandwich yesterday. No, sillies, not as in "POOF! You're a fried egg sandwich!", but as in he prepared me a fried egg sandwich. And it was really good. Wolf's a deft hand with eggs. Better than my eggs even. And I make good eggs. Mick and I voted yesterday and I've yet to check the election results. It was a small election for us, just local offices up for grabs. Though as I reminded Mick on the way over to town hall it's elections like these where every vote counts for much. If only 300 people are going to vote for the new village board member our yea or nay holds much more sway than the spit into the wind which is a presidential election. In yesterday's race most folks were running unopposed, thus no urgency about the election results. The neighbor on the far side of the Barkys most likely retained his seat as town justice. I voted for him even though he has to recuse himself if we come before his bench (we share a common property boundary) because I really like the new siding and the fancy new porch he and his wife put on their house. Got my vote, bud, just for having good decorating taste. Hey, there's worse reasons to elect someone. His snazzy addition and new siding and the classy porch and landscaping cost me a lot of quiet but gained me much in aesthetic value. Besides, if he's wanting his own place to look good and up its property value then I'll assume he has the same concrn for Mini-dunk as a whole. Not a guy who's going to take a wad of cash to give a variance to some jerk who wants to open a toxic waste dump in the wetlands preserve behind our place. I'm stalling. Nattering about neighbors and fried eggs. Mick has done something so astounding I'm staggered. I hardly know how to deal with this. Maybe to those who've been loved and wanted by lots of people, not just the made family built of friends but blood kin and spouses this is a nice thing, a decent thing but not earthshaking. To me it's a wonder. This shivers me to my bone marrow. Mick gave up his mother for me. Not his original intention, of course. But after two months of the cold shoulder and his mother acting like I don't exist Mick had had enough. He wrote a succinct, not accusatory, and very fair-minded email to his mother asking what her problem was with me. Made it quite clear that he's not willing to maintain such a false way of going on where he visits and calls and she acts like he has no wife or step-son. Not once had she asked about me nor had she picked up the phone to speak to me. Not once in over two months. Mick was hurt and confused and wanted some answers. "WTF, Mom? What did LA do to you? Object to being felt up by your slimy cousin? Admit she was heart-scalded over how you flat-out refused to believe it? Was hurt and betrayed even worse when you lied about how you'd gone on a tear over and over at the gym declaring Slimy George was this sainted hero and smashed LA's face with your cruel tirade? Then went out your way to treat LA like she had done something wrong by sticking up for her body privacy and her right not to be groped at a funeral? That LA had expected better of you? That at the very least you could show some bit of compassion and loyalty? LA has been a fantastic daughter-in-law, and she made him (Mick) so very happy, wouldn't any mother be pleased?' MIL responded with a furious shrieking phone call. Three calls, actually. Each time Mick quietly said he'd speak with her when she could be rational. No such luck. MIL was bonkers. Screaming at Mick. Cussing him out. Insulting me. Hurling ugly hateful invective. He held his temper and asked his mother to calm down and speak coherently. Nothing doing. So he hung up. Twice. MIL called back shrieking even louder. Badgering, hectoring, and finally on the third call drawing the "It's her or me!!!" line in the sand. Mick chose me. My husband put everything on the line for me. Is willing to close the door on his relationship with his mother because I am that dear and valuable to him. Me. Me? What? You must be mistaking me for someone who's worth a damn. Someone else. Some other stupidly tall, droopy titted, too weird, too embarrassing to acknowledge, too burdensome to keep chick. Nope. He meant me. I am trying very hard not to fuck this up. Since the extended-family dinner for my 7th birthday when my Da walked out during dessert and every birthday-candle wish since then was the same..."Please let me be of value to someone. Please let me count." I've wished for some sign that my worth was important. I was worth some effort and sacrifice. Goddamn I've waited for this. Hungered for it, humbled myself, humiliated myself in the pursuit of it. Do I want Mick to be on the outs with his mother? Oh God, no. No! I never wanted that horrible equation where to include me in meant another was included out. Never. Love stretches. It's no snooty exclusive club that only those born into privilege and those whose niche was filled by being male or brown-skinned or less ambiguously fathered are allowed to be members. Love has room for everybody. Go me. I sort of see why Mick would want me too. He gets back as good as he gives. I know this. In return for me teaching him patience and kindness Mick taught me to stick up for myself. Can't build a house without materials. You can wish and want for a house to go up on a vacant weedy lot all you want, but without the boards and brick and mortar coming in from the outside, the solid stuff from another source, then ain't nothing going up on your lot no matter how much positive thinking you aim at it. Is Mick perfect? Far from it. But then neither am I. Perhaps a bit stretchier than most thanks to the gift/curse of 'hearing' people, but no saint, paragon or whatever. Just a girl who ached to be necessary to a good decent person. Who wanted to matter. And I do. It matters to Mick that someone put hands on me. It matters to Mick that this upset me. Mick isn't affronted or disgusted or amused that I stuck up for myself. On the contrary, he's on my side. Thinks it's only right I made a stink and was in my rights to expect those who claimed to love me and be my friend show support and sympathy. And that his mother didn't, that she broke my trust and my heart...Houston, we have a problem. My ex-ex-husband blacked my eye for taking too many mushrooms from the spaghettti sauce. My ex-husband never forgave me for loving him in the first place and has spent the last 30 years punishing me for my presumption. Doing everything from humiliating me sexually to ruining my credit to forfeiting on his financial obligation on the house his own child lives in, the ex has made it his life's mission to pay me back for my 'crime'. And now this man- this muscle-bound, quick to anger, formerly miserable and bitter man plumps down and declares he loves me, believes in me and is willing to give up any and everything to show his loyalty to me and our life together. Even his own mother.
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