Filling in the Blanks

The #metoo movement is what really motivated me to start writing my memoir.  Then it was the comments and feedback from you, my OD friends, that have kept me motivated.  I really wanted to explain my experiences with men, and my own experiences with myself, so that’s what my Diary has focused on, thus far.

But there are dozens of great stories that I had to bypass.  There are people who have been almost completely left out of my story so far.  Trying to write things chronologically frustrates the hell out of me, so going forward, I’m just going to share stories as I think of them.  I’ll try to give you some idea of when these things occurred by telling you approximately when they happened relative to things you’ve already read.

For example, as I have been going through my old journals and emails, I came across this gem that I want to share.  It is actually part of the “Dear Lunch Buddy entries that are from about 12 years ago, after Rick had broken up with me and I started this diary to cope with my grieving process.  I love this entry, because it shows the love and joy that my family has managed to cultivate despite the ugly times, as I’ve called them.  I also love how it shows how my sisters and I have teamed up to try to make sure that our younger generations are strong, too.

April 16, 2006 – Easter

So I don’t think I’ve filled you in on the latest family gossip.  Tessa, my 13-year-old niece was spending her vacation with my parents and Dani, my 10-year-old niece who lives with them. Tessa is the niece who was caught calling boys she’d met on the Internet and looking at pornography in Dani’s room. One night, at 3:30 in the morning, my dad got out of bed thinking that the girls had their TV turned up too loudly. It turned out that Tessa and Dani actually had two boys out in the back room and Tessa was letting them feel her up.

As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s some drama happening around there, right now, but there is an amusing story to come out of it.  Apparently, my mom was sitting at the table talking to Dani about all of this and told her, “You know this isn’t over, right? You’ve still got the Aunts to deal with.” My dad heard this and shouted, “she’s got ants in her room, too???” My mom laughed and said, “no, Aunt Jenna, Aunt Audra, and Aunt Angel.” My dad said, “Oooh. You mean the Killer Aunts.” I can’t tell you the smile that puts on my face. It feels good to be a part of a family of strong females.

***************************

Today was, by far, the best day I’ve had in a long time. I woke up early and showered and then made shrimp and chicken kebobs to take to my parents’ house for Easter. After they were prepared, I came into my room and saw that Audra had sent me a message over MSN. She told me that there was more on the Tessa and Dani front. Dani had actually shit in the bathroom sink in the spare room and had left it there for my mom to find. She, Dani, had claimed that she had been dared by Tessa, and it was, therefore, not Dani’s fault. I knew it would be an interesting day following that news.

When I arrived at my parents’ house, my sister was already there. Dani seemed very excited to see me, and she ran up and hugged me in the kitchen in front of everyone. I knew she was waiting to see how I would treat her, as she knew she would be getting a scolding from all of us. But I hugged her, and kissed her head. Then I told her that I had heard she’d been behaving like demon spawn, lately. She laughed and nodded.

“Are you proud of that?” I asked her, sharply. “No,” she said, more somberly. Then she went outside to play.

I gave my mother the wind chimes I had gotten her for her birthday, which is tomorrow. She loved them. Then, throughout the rest of the morning and afternoon, we proceeded to act like the village necessary to raise children.

Mom told me that Dani hadn’t written the apology letter to her teacher that I had instructed her to write after getting into trouble on the last day of school. I told her she’d better get her butt in gear or she would not be hunting Easter eggs when the time came. So she begrudgingly got some paper and sat at the table to write the letter. “How long does it have to be?” she whined.

“Long enough to say what needs to be said,” I told her. She wrote a couple of sentences and started to bring it to me. “I know you’re not done already,” I told her. She sat down, quickly and scowled at her paper.

After several minutes, she brought me what she had written. “I’m sorry I was rude to you. It won’t happen again. I pinkie promise.” She gave me a sweet smile and I handed her back the paper and told her to erase the pinky part.

“It’s only cute when you mean it.” She gave me a dirty look and sat back down. “Why are you sorry?” I asked her.

She gave me some weak answers and finally, Angel came over and said, “Is she sorry? Maybe that’s why she can’t come up with a good answer.”

Good point! “Are you sorry?” I asked.

Dani looked at me with a confused expression on her face and said, “I don’t know what you mean.” I told her that being sorry means that you feel bad that you’ve done something. I asked her if she felt bad about what she’d done. She said she did, and I said, “Ok, then why do you feel bad?” That’s when she wrote the following:

“Dear Mr. 4th Grade Teacher, I’m sorry for being rude to you. I really really am. I promise I will not do it again. I know it’s hard being a teacher because my Aunt is a teacher. I know it’s hurtful having mean kids like me in your class. I’m very sorry. Love, Dani.”

So after that was done, Mom, Audra and I proceeded to fill Angel in on all the details of the Tessa and Dani saga.  Shortly after that, Tammy arrived, bringing Tessa and some other friends and family with her. Tessa was very apprehensive about coming into the house. I think she knew what was coming, so she was very stand-offish and quiet. She was wearing sunglasses in the house and that really bugged me, but I didn’t say anything for a while. Eventually, she came in and sat down with us. Tammy’s mother-in-law and another friend of hers were sitting at the table drinking sodas and Tammy was sitting with them.

Finally, I said, “the teacher in me wants to rip those glasses right off of your face.” Tessa gave me that dirty look that teenagers give adults who act like asses, and I was embarrassed for having said that to her. I could have approached that a few other ways that would have been less confrontational. So I let it drop with her eyes rolling.

But this started a whole new conversation. Tammy’s friend, whom I will refer to as Dorka, from this point forward, said, “Oh, you’re a teacher? What grade?”

“High school and adult ed, but I sub in middle school sometimes.”

“How can you stand it?” she shouted, and that set me to telling my teacher stories, which I love to do. One of the stories I told was the story about a kid who lied to get out of my class and then claimed I’d taken the class to a homosexual assembly so that his dad would come in and get him out of trouble. When I was setting the stage for this story, I mentioned that there was a large population of LGBTQ kids at that school. Dorka shouted, “how disgusting!”

Everyone laughed uncomfortably, and I stopped, unsure of where to go with this story. Finally, I said, “are you serious?” At which time my mom and my sisters all laughed loudly, realizing that we were all taken aback by her reaction. She apologized awkwardly and asked me to continue with the story, but I told her it sort of lost its momentum after that. I got the impression that she wasn’t really homophobic, but that she was just trying to fit in with what she thought was the mood of the room. I kind of felt sorry for her, but there’s no excuse for that kind of ignorance. Better to say nothing than to say something like that. (Later my mom patted me on the back for calling her on that, instead of just letting it go).

So after a while, the room cleared and a space at the table next to Tessa opened up. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her for a hug. I apologized to her for saying what I had said. She said it was ok, and I said, “No it wasn’t. I could have asked you to take them off, but instead, I said something nasty and unnecessary.” Then I asked her to please take off the sunglasses and told her that when she looks at us over the top of them, it feels very disrespectful. I told her that it also felt like she was hiding from us and didn’t want to be a part of the conversation. She admitted that she kind of was hiding from us because she knew she’d be getting an earful. She took them off, put them away, and was much more comfortable in the room.

Audra wouldn’t let either girl move without reminding them of their crimes. Every time someone said the word “shit”  (and my family is full of potty mouths) she would make some comment about Dani and the sink. I thought it was a little brutal, but hilarious and certainly not undeserved.

One of the persistent complaints that Audra and I have had about Dani is that her belly is always hanging out. She’s a chunky child because she eats a lot of garbage and isn’t very active.  In any case, it’s not that she’s showing a little belly because her shirt is short or her pants low cut. It’s because she doesn’t pull her pants up over her gut, AND she wears shirts that don’t go long enough. At one point, she stood in front of my mother so that I was looking at her profile and I saw that belly hanging over her pants and out of her shirt. She started to walk out of the room, so I pulled my skirt down so that my belly hung out, and pulled my sweater up high and called her back. To my great surprise and delight, Audra followed my lead and did the same thing; and she has a post-baby belly! When Dani walked in, she was mildly stunned; but then Mom iced the cake by pulling her own belly out! I laughed out loud! Dani laughed, embarrassed, and ran out of the room. Next time I saw her, she was wearing a cute, zip-up cardigan that covered her belly.

At another time, just Mom and I were sitting at the table with Dani hovering near. Mom farted and excused herself quickly, but Dani grabbed on to that and made a huge stink (pun intended). “Grandma, that’s gross!” she said, among other things, and she proceeded to poke and scold. My mom just looked at her seriously and said, “I’ve never shit in a sink.” Dani’s next words were, “wow, it looks like the sun is coming out!” I laughed for a long time over that one.

The day progressed with food, fun, and laughter. There were deviled eggs, chips and dip, ribs, shrimp and chicken kebobs, hamburgers, tri-tip, vegetables, and more chocolate than one can imagine. I played with Baby Drew (my nephew) throughout the day, rocking, feeding, burping, and changing him. His smile just makes my heart scrunch up and his laugh is precious music.