Sunday, February 26, 2006
This was supposed to be posted on lke the 12th? but I didn't get round to publishing it until now.
Nick's really my uncle but he looks young, and in fact isn't really that much older and as a result foled me for the greater part of my life into believing that he was my cousin. It only clicked a few years ago when it dawned on me that Nick's father was my
grand-uncle, which would make Nick my....
nevermindAs unauspicius as this might sound, it struck me during the wedding that weirdly, I've been surrounded most of my life my failed/ non-existant ages. My grandparents on both sides are more or less not on speaking terms with one another. My parents split up when i was 8 or 9, and an 2 outta 3 of my mother's sisters had dysfunctional/MIA/ultra loser husbands. I don't think any of my cousins plan on getting married. Hardly any of my mother's closer friends are married - One had a fiance die of cancer, another one's like nun-ish and married to the church, and another one is fanatically feminist and man-hating.
It’s disconcerting to think that this is my norm. I am so used to father-less, husband-less households that they seem more real to me that father-ful, husband-ful normality.
But what I want to say it this. Living the way I do is difficult, but not in the way most would expect. I am not scarred for life, I do not hate my parents, and I don’t feel that marriages are doomed and therefore fiercely for the idea of a lifetime of spinsterhood. On the contrary, if anything, it makes me doubly determined not to fuck up my life the way my parents did, and their parents before them.
Being the only kid in a single parent household, for me, makes it hard to live through the little things. Tiny insignificant details that no one thinks about.
Like food. Food’s always been a strangely hairy issue at home. Its hard cooking just for two, and even then there’s always tons of stuff left behind. So we’re not much of a cooking family, and when I’m off in hall, my mother never cooks, and I have no idea what she eats because the fridge seems permanently devoid of edibles. She calls me in school and says she hates eating alone. Well its sad but what can I do? As much as I feel a degree of responsibility towards her I need to live my life too, and I can’t try and multi-task as a daughter and a husband-surrogate. It’s too exhausting. And there’s only me and her and no in-between buffer.
Like the faux passes of kindly but unknowing relatives at wedding dinners/ new year visits/ funerals. Like a cousin twice removed morbidly put,
you can’t blame them if you see them once every funeral . Its very difficult to answer a question like “Where’s your mother?” without bringing on a barrage of questions. Or something like “How are your parents?” Gee, they’re hardly on speaking terms, and how are yours? Its awkward and I don’t like it. At Nick’s wedding my mother wasn’t invited, and my dad nicely turned up with who he called his “lady friend”. It was the most fucked up thing ever. Nick’s sister and a bunch of other people were all trying to figure out why my mother wasn’t there and the moment Dad + Celia walked in a dozen pairs of sympathetic eyes turned on me. I don’t give a shit what they do, but I do wish they’d settle their messy little affairs among themselves and not leave me to handle situations that I have hardly anything to do with.
I wouldn’t want to inflict this on anyone, ever. I’m prepared to mess up my own life, but not my kids’, if I ever do have any. I don’t feel prepared to sacrifice my sanity and happiness for the sake of my mother even if my duty as a daughter decrees otherwise. As un-nice as that might sound, and anyone’s welcome to despise me for it, well I don’t want to go through life saddled with the burden of a decision that wasn’t even mine to make. And I can’t expect anyone to do the same for me.
And still I believe in happy endings.
In the middle of Nick’s thanking everybody speech he kinda choked and started tearing onstage. I don’t blame him, I would too. There’s so much too hope for, and so many possibilities for happiness. I don’t believe I’d consciously give any of it up.
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