Sunday, July 12, 2009

house on harper st....full of love (part 2)

the truth is that growing up wasn't all that bad there was no locking in the closet or monumental beatings. We all end up a little fucked up in the end. Childhood is where it all begins, where the subtle spoken word or the misguided intentions of a parent inevitably attaches to you forming the person that you are today.

Being pregnant and 17 is just another chapter , one that will undoubtedly be a vivid one filled with raw experiences and gut wrenching emotion. The summer was long, in childhood the summers always flew by over before they even started and back to school. But now, now it was long and filled with uncertainty and change, my changing home (yes again) my changing feelings, my changing friends and my changing body. That was also the summer my grandfather on my father's side passed away. My grandmother, affectionately known as grandma Mae was close to me, closer to me than any other adult as few adults if any earned my respect and if they did not have that they were dismissed into the pool of contempt. She knew I was pregnant before anyone else, other than my mother. She just knew. I didn't need to tell her she guessed by the third day of my one week stay with her shortly after grandpa passed and she tended to me and loved me the same way she did before she knew. She didn't pass judgement or lecture, she simply loved me and accepted the things that came. This was; perhaps the greatest gift she could have ever taught me. We accept life as it comes we adapt and we continue to move forward. A week with her was a vacation from expectations that i could never achieve and judgemental tones, it was safe place where you could just be loved and when the time was right she would offer up some words of wisdom, usually during a heated card game of Gin, which she always won!

that summer we packed up our rental home and moved back "home" to Grandma Edie's, where we were not wanted and she made sure she let us know with every comment, every action, every breath. she didn't know i was pregnant and the goal was to keep that from her until we could leave her snake pit. this was to be a temporary move until we could buy our own house, my mother's ultimate goal her end all to all of the moving we only had to last 3 months with her, we could do that.....
the anger and resentment in that house was so heavy in the air that it stung my eyes. the distaste my grandma Edie had for my mother was so painful obvious it loomed in the house like the unwanted house guest that moved in along with us. her dislike for her own daughter, my mother naturally overflowed spilling out onto my sister and i who at 16 and 17 already had a deep dislike for authority figures, the combination of her bitterness and our hormones made for a combustible combination that lingered in the home just waiting for someone to throw the match. you couldn't breathe there she made sure of that.

mom hid most days behind her work, spending long hours there and leaving us behind for a slow and torturous day with grandma. most days started for me with an early morning wave of nausea that woke me from my sleep to remind me of the changes that were happening inside. suppressing the urge to throw up and draw any undo attention was always a great way to start the day. after the bile would settle back down in the pit of my stomach where it belonged i was often roused lovingly from bed by that nasty bitch from hell with a clapping of her hands and "chop, chop, time to wake up" this usually made me want to leap from my bed and punch her square in the face , but often only resulted in a string of choice swear words in attempt to vanquish her from my room. she didn't cease there if we didn't get up, which we usually did not, she would progress to the kitchen where she would bang the pots and dishes creating such a flurry of noise that it left you little choice but to get up.

life there was miserable, exhausting, painful...there was no escape from her always watchful eyes, no where to steal a private moment or hide away from her bitter tongue. this was going to be a long 3 months....

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