Oh, Right, Forgot

Yes, I forgot that you might be following the train-wreck that is my deeply-sunken marriage. It is a Novela fraught with tragedy. Can you guess what that tragedy is? That’s right – the kid.

The innocent, quiet, funny, reposing, bright and observant kid gave me a little hint that she senses her mom is irretrievably insane. This time, I neither discouraged nor encouraged her. I want her to want to be with me, cause she’s just at that age when she can choose. She said two things – “You know how Mom gets, ” and “I don’t want Mom to go ape-shit if I don’t fold my clothes. like she cares.”

Rather than flesh this one out for you, read and re-read what this kid said to me today. Imagine the feeling of real oppression so much so she doesn’t feel she can express frustration or anger, nor can she talk about how she feels because it means she has “the wrong attitude.” Imagine you are that kid, with Mom, when she’s sober and not so thoroughly depressed that she doesn’t get out of bed all day except, perhaps, to go to the bathroom or harass your Dad, if that, vacillates between melancholy, non-contextual “I love yous” against a backdrop of chaos versus a plenitude of meaningless action, and because it is your Mom, you love her. Imagine what she’ll have to work out ten years from now when she finds, as she does now, that she’s not really able to foster an easy-going relationship with female friends or teachers as Mom decries all such people as “crazy.” Just imagine it. I have. That’s the true tragedy here, nothing more, nothing less.