Forgiveness

I forgive myself for some of the stupid shit I did in my late teens and early twenties.

I forgive myself for making bad choices that, at the time, seemed like the only choice.

I forgive myself for being harder on myself than I am on anyone else.

I’m letting go of grudges I’ve held for decades.

They hurt no one but me.

I forgive myself, though, for holding those grudges.

I am going to stop hating myself for every little thing. The fact that the bananas I bought last week were a little green? Not a big enough deal to beat myself up over.

I didn’t vacuum yesterday? I’m not letting it weigh on me.

Was my family fed? Was the laundry done? Did they all have clean sheets to sleep on and clean towels to use after their warm baths/showers. Did they go to sleep knowing they are loved?

Yes to all of the above. And because of those yeses, I know I’m a good wife and mother.

I’m a good daughter and sister. I’m a good niece and cousin. I’m a good aunt. I could be a better friend but I forgive myself for that too because I’ve got a lot on my plate and my real friends do too. We understand that somethings have to slip in order for us to do the most important things.

I forgive myself for getting cancer. It wasn’t my fault.

Even though it might have been caused by my fatness, it still wasn’t my fault. Thin, athlete women get cancer too. And we all fight it the same way, with all we’ve got.

I forgive myself for saying I was an idiot the other day but I’m also going to try and stop doing that. I wouldn’t say that to a friend, why do I say it to myself?

Let’s all try this. Let’s be kinder, more loving to ourselves. Let’s be more forgiving. Let’s live our best lives, knowing we’re doing the best we can to be there for our loved ones.

We’re all important. We all matter. Words can hurt. Let’s start using kinder words, even about ourselves.

Being Friends and Ending Relationships

During our four years of high school R and I were best friends with two guys, J and D. J and D were great fun and R and I spent as much time with them as possible. We ate lunch together every day.

One September lunch period, we were sitting around talking about prom, which obviously, was months and months away.

Someone (probably R, she was the idea gal) suggested that the four of us go together. This was before I started dating JLC by at least a month, maybe two.

The rest of us thought it was a rad idea and so it was a date. I would officially be going with D and R would go with J but it was totally a foursome thing and definitely a FRIEND thing.

So when I started dating JLC a month or so later, I didn’t even thing about prom. My plans were set, and I wasn’t going to change them.

As prom loomed ever closer, JLC started making comments about us going.

I informed him that he wouldn’t be attending prom that year, at least not with me. He was a sophomore, so unless he found a junior or a senior to take him, he wasn’t going.

I told him about the plans R and I had made with J and D and how I had no intention of breaking those plans.

He wasn’t happy but what could he do? He did insist that I PROMISE to go with him the next year, even if we weren’t together. Because obviously, I was a woman of my word. Ugh. Whatever. I’m going to say right here to anyone and everyone, teenager, pre-teen, adult, elderly, EVERYONE, if you make a promise to someone while in a relationship with that someone for a future event and you break up before that event happens? Guess what? You CAN BREAK THAT PROMISE. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do or go anywhere you don’t want to go with someone you’re no longer in a relationship with even if you promised to do that thing or go to that place while you in the relationship.

I mean, come on! Why would you want to go to prom with your now EX-boy/girlfriend? Why?!?

My junior prom was so much fun. J, R, D and I had a blast. There were no romantic expectations, there was no pressure, it was just friends having a blast with each other. We went from prom to R’s house where we watched horror movies until 4am and crashed on her parents’ living room furniture.

Senior prom? Was not so much fun. I went with JLC because at that time we were still officially dating but we were on the brink of breaking up.

The weeks before prom were fraught with tension because I refused to ride to prom in his mom’s station wagon and his Ranchero had bitten the dust months before. Not that I’d have consented to riding in that beast to prom either.

I knew I was being a bitch about it and maybe I was trying to get him to break up with me over the whole car thing but I dug my heels in and was ready to die on that hill.

I offered to borrow my mom’s car and pick him up but he was a chauvinist pig and wouldn’t have anything to do with that. So I offered to just meet him at prom. I’d drive myself in my mom’s car (she had a Zephyr, it was a neat car) and he could drive his mom’s stupid station wagon and we could meet at the door.

He didn’t go for that either. I think he ended up borrowing a car from someone he went to church with.

I didn’t care. I just knew I’d won that battle and it meant that when it came time to break up with him, I’d win that one too.

When you’re relationship denigrates to the point that there are battles to be won…it’s time to just let it go. Break up and move on. Everyone will be happier, eventually.

Promise.

All The Wrong Reasons or More Memories

I went out with my high school boyfriend (JLC) because he liked me.

Let that sink in.

I didn’t actually like him all that much. I definitely wasn’t attracted to him. Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t exactly gross but he also wasn’t at all someone I found romantically attractive.

I dated him for a year and a half.

That’s so sad, isn’t it?

I thought I was such a badass feminist in high school and there I was, dating a guy I didn’t even really like but he liked me so…

We finally broke up after he kissed another girl. I was so relieved to finally have an excuse to break up with him. The REASON I wanted to break up with him was because I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore.

And that’s reason enough. But when you’re eighteen, you think you have to have a REAL reason and just wanting someone to go away didn’t seem like real enough.

Obviously, I know better now.

My best friend (R) in high school hated JLC. She thought he was a tool and a loser.

She wasn’t wrong.

JLC wasn’t R’s biggest fan either but his ambivalence toward her turned to a white hot hatred the summer before our (R’s and my) senior year. JLC was a year behind us.

I worked at the Dairy Treat in our town. It was a tiny little establishment with both table inside people could use and be served by waitresses as well as a window at which people could place their orders and wait to pick them up.

One day that summer, R had shown up as my shift at work ended. I don’t know what we were going to do but as we waited at a picnic table outside the Dairy Treat, JC pulled up in his new-to-him car.

This car was ridiculous.

It was a Ranchero, which was the Ford version of the El Camino.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the Ranchero:

The Ford Ranchero is a coupe utility that was produced by Ford between 1957 and 1979. Unlike a pickup truck, the Ranchero was adapted from a two-door station wagon platform that integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body. A total of 508,355 units were produced during the model's production run.

JC’s Ranchero looked very much like this:

Except his was in much worse shape. In fact, it was hideous. As he drove up the road toward the dairy treat, where RO and I were sitting, the hood on his car came unlatched and flew up, obstructing his view of the road.

Smoke and dust billowed from the engine and JC was hanging his head out the window trying to see where he was going.

Obviously, this was hysterically funny and while I tried to contain my mirth, R did nothing to stifle her laughter. She laughed until she cried.

JLC was pissed.

He loved that stupid, horrible car and her laughter at the awfulness of that car just fueled his anger.

Our senior year was rife with JC’s distain for R and her ‘haughty’ attitude. For her part, R thought JLC was a schmuck and didn’t care even a little that he didn’t like her. She also didn’t understand why I was dating him. She was never mean to me about it but she didn’t hide the fact that she thought I was WAY too good for him.

I don’t know why I’m telling this story, except maybe to remind everyone out there that sometimes (most times even) we should listen to our friends. They are a little removed from romantic relationships and they see things we don’t always see or that we ignore.

RO was so right about JLC. He’s been married three times, divorced twice, has five kids and has been arrested for domestic violence.

I was lucky to get away when I did.

Memories...All Alone...

My earliest memory is from when I was still sleeping in a crib.

We lived in a house in Metz, Indiana, a place so small that there wasn’t a post office. The only form of commerce was the Pepsi machine that stood outside the volunteer fire departments garage.

I slept in a crib that was under a west-facing window. I’d wake up from my afternoon naps and lay there, watching the dust motes float lazily in the rays of sun shining in the window. I could hear my mom outside the room, sometimes in the hall, sometimes in another room, humming. She often had a laundry basket on her hip.

I’d wait for her to come check on me. She’d approach the crib slowly and smile when she saw me awake, saying softly, “Oh, you’re awake.”

I always felt so safe in that home with that lady. I always knew she’d be glad to see me.

I was a November baby, so this memory (or conglomeration of memories) is probably from when I was seven or eight months old. I say that because the weather seems warm in my memories, like summer time.

I have a scar on my right hand. The injury that resulted in that scar happened in the house where my first memories were built. We must have lived there until I was a toddler because my mom says the scar happened when I was maybe a year and a half. We were outside on the front stoop of that first house. My mom was sitting on one of the step. I was probably toddling around on the steps too. I started to fall and my mom reached out to stop my fall, forgetting she was holding a cigarette in her hand. The cigarette burned my right hand, leaving a small scar that is there to this day.

I don’t remember that moment though.

I also have a scar just below my bottom lip. I don’t remember getting this one either but my mother reports that this scar was the result of me being a bit of a brat. I wanted lunch and I wanted NOW. I was small enough to be in a highchair with a tray. She told me it would be ready soon. I didn’t want ‘soon’ I wanted ‘now’. When she didn’t produce food right that second, I threw my head against the tray. I put my bottom teeth (probably the only teeth I had at that time) through my lower lip.

My mom pulled my lip off my teeth, blotted the blood and fed me. She was one tough lady.

I have two younger brothers. My closest sibling is my brother who is four and a half years younger than I am. But I didn’t grow up isolated with just a brother or two. We had cousins galore. We were never, ever lonely.

My mom and her sisters basically raised us as if we were all siblings. There was always someone around to do something with, even if it was just playing with Matchbox cars in the dirt outside beneath the boxelder tree.

And yet with all those cousins and brothers, I had plenty of time alone too. I hit a tennis ball against the roof of our house. I swung on the tire swing so much I had calluses on my hands. I created all these stories in my head, riding my bike as if it were a horse through the town.

My parents divorced when I was eleven. My dad moved three houses away. He was always just up the street.

I guess you could say I had an idea childhood. I was so, so lucky. So very blessed.

I hope with all my heart that someday, my girls feel that way about their childhood.