Tag: Mom

I hate money

~ Christi ~ 1 Comment

I know that sounds ridiculous. Maybe you don’t believe me; I mean, money has never been a huge concern for me as an adult. I owe a debt of gratitude to Geoff for working so hard to make that possible.

But trust me when I tell you that money is a struggle for me. Or, rather, it used to be a huge concern. I grew up dirt poor. Because of her anxiety, my mom couldn’t work outside the home. She didn’t much go outside the home, remember? She received disability, food stamps, Section 8, and occasional gifts from my Bubbie. She sewed small things for a lady with a craft shop.

I grew up poor to the point where not-money had a lot of power over me. I carpooled to school because my mom didn’t have a car, and I lived in fear of being left behind. I was embarrassed about receiving FREE lunch at school. I never had any new clothes unless my Bubbie bought them for me. I missed field trips because my mom had no money for them.

My mom did an amazing amount with the small bit of money she had every month. But the fact was that every single grocery item got tallied up before getting in the checkout line, and the fact is that paying too much attention to money to this day makes me panic.

When I was a kid, I never starved but I did go hungry. There were no snacks and meals were small. My mom did her absolute best. She did better than that. She made our bread, she made all sorts of things from scratch. My mom showed me just how much you can make from almost nothing.

When I was a kid, Bubbie would periodically swoop in and take my mom and me to restaurants or to the mall for shopping sprees. Money was how Bubbie showed her love. She redecorated my mom’s apartment twice. On my birthday every year, she’d buy me a large savings bond, until she stopped.

Bubbie made me hate money. She didn’t mean to, but it happened anyway. She made it so I still don’t trust people giving me money. To this day, I’d much rather give a gift than sell something. And I only buy what I absolutely need. I hate the mall, hate shopping. I barely ever make a grocery list, let alone count up what I’m buying before I get in the checkout line.

Luckily, I have a fairly good, but not perfect, sense of what I need, of what my family needs. I kind of emotionally gauge my purchases and I resist many of my urges to buy things. It’s not a failproof system. But I have kind of insulated myself against money.

In my dream world, there is no money and everyone barters for what they need, because I like to negotiate and I hate money.

Appearances

~ Christi ~ 21 Comments
Copyright Jay Moore Photography
Copyright Jay Moore Photography

I’m a girl who runs. I’m a girl who runs on cool spring days straight to the lake and back. I’m a girl who runs in a fleece hoodie to angry boy-music.

Red wings flash from the right: No one ever dies.

 

 

Why do birds suddenly appear? 42 words for this year, Mom.

Feliz cumpleaños, chica

~ Christi ~ 1 Comment

Growing up is hard, that’s for sure. I’m not talking about those magical years when you get to skip out on college and bum around Europe or work some crummy dead-end job. No, I mean the day when you realize that you are irrevocably on your own for better or worse.

When I was 29, my mom died suddenly, from complications of an arthritis drug. She wasn’t exactly healthy beforehand but her death came as a shock. I got the call at five in the morning and we piled in the car and drove east for 12 hours with the radio off. I remember grasping for thoughts, for anything to make sense of what had happened. I tried to imagine a world without my mom in it, and I couldn’t do it. I was 29, about to turn 30, and I knew without a doubt that I was an adult.

I remember walking into a rest stop, and out of nowhere I heard a voice. “I love you,” the big warm voice said. “It’s going to be okay.” I looked around. No one was talking to me, but I wasn’t scared. I just imagined this voice belonged to my new – Hispanic, I imagined – mom. My new Hispanic mamá didn’t have to talk much to let me know she was there. She could just give me a word or two here, a hum or two there to let me know that things were all right. She calmed me down and showed me how to trust myself.

I know it’s silly and more than a little crazy, but I still think of my Hispanic mamá pretty often. She always knows just the right thing to say when I’m feeling bad, and she is always there with a smile when things are going right.

Today is my favorite niece’s birthday. She’s turning 29. She isn’t looking forward to her birthday or to the year ahead. She actually said that she can’t remember the last birthday that turned out how she wanted it to. She can’t remember the last birthday that was fun.

I love my niece, and I’m worried about her. She is a truly beautiful person who can’t seem to see that. She’s dealing with the fallout of having a mom who never knew how to love her. She’s struggling with health problems, with anxiety, with a comically bad living situation. I wish that I could do more for her than I can. I’m far away and ill-equipped. But I do love her very much.

I’ve been thinking of what to send my niece for her birthday. Cash is on the list, and music. But that doesn’t seem like nearly enough for a girl who is on the brink of adulthood and needs a lifesaving infusion of love. How do you love a girl from afar enough to make a difference?

I’m packing up a box to send to my favorite niece. I’m putting lots of little things in it that I hope will make her laugh, but I have one more gift for her and it won’t fit inside the box. Sarah, I’m giving you my Hispanic mamá. She’s yours now. Do you feel her inside of you? She’s sweet and kind and a little tough.

“Te amo, chica.” Can you hear her? “Tu eres hermosa.” Listen to her, it’s true. One more thing: She gives the best hugs.

 

 

Encore

~ Christi ~ 13 Comments

My mom was murdered by a used-car salesman.

If my mom were telling you this story, it would be a comedy. She would twist her heartbreak into dark tendrils of humor until you were on the floor laughing. But she’s dead, so I will try to do it justice.

My mom died under mysterious circumstances but she was not murdered. In retrospect, her death fell at the end of a long line of clues, as well documented as any stack of stolen credit card receipts shoved in a dresser drawer could hope to be.

My mom liked creeps and I suspect that she knew a lot of them. Three creeps in particular she knew intimately. She married one at nineteen, my sister’s dad, and she had a run-in with one at 35 that left her with me. She found the worst of her creeps in a phone-sex chat room in early 2002. She was 64 and ten years older than him – you can do the math.

Mike was an on-again, off-again used-car salesman. He’d sell you a used car whether you wanted one or not. He’d sell you a used car if you asked him about the weather and he’d sell you a used car on your birthday. He sold used cars so well that he went to jail for it several times, the last time just weeks after he married my mom in 2003.

My mom waited patiently for his return a year later. I won’t tell you about how I paid her rent and her expenses while he was in prison. It’s beside the point how much I worried that Mike the used-car salesman would return, or worse, that he wouldn’t.

Mike the used-car salesman returned shortly before my Bubbie died. He timed his reappearance well, and made off with my Bubbie’s life savings, an act that revealed his great ingenuity and patience. He spent his treasure trove on scummy motel rooms and gifts for younger, hotter finds from the sex chat room.

In 2006, my mom fell on the grass while she was walking their Yorkie. She waited hours on the ground for Mike to return from the used-car lot cum scummy motel room. My mom died a few days later in a crummy hospital ICU, her organs shutting down because of drug complications. My mom was not murdered by a used-car salesman, but she may as well have been.

In a cruel twist of fate like most twists of fate are, Mike the used-car salesman died two months later in my mom’s bed of all places. When I got there, I found all of his receipts and bank statements stuffed in a drawer and I had to laugh.

 

A revision of last week’s Yeah Write essay. Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Obed, I do think this post is a lot cleaner now.

My mom was murdered by a used-car salesman

~ Christi

It dawns on me that I don’t know how to tell you about my mom. Should I start with her untimely death or with her sad beginning? Should I tell you about her mistakes or her million miniscule victories? Should I start with the day she wished her father dead when she was five or the one when I stood in the shower at five a.m. and wished her back to life? Tell me what you want to know.

My mom did everything in the wrong order. She was a bad girl and then a good woman. She was a mother and then a girl on her own again, twice. She was a slut before she was a virgin and then she was a slut again at 60. My mom gave up everything she wanted for herself and then fought to get it back only to lose it again and again.

If my mom were telling you her own story, it would be a comedy. Somehow she would twist her heartbreak into dark tendrils of humor until you were on the floor laughing. One day I hope to tell her story like that.

Today I think I will start with the end, because one of you asked me to. My mom died under mysterious circumstances but she was not murdered. In retrospect, her death fell at the end of a long line of clues, as well documented as a stack of stolen credit card receipts shoved in a dresser drawer.

My mom liked creeps and I suspect that she knew a lot of them. Three creeps in particular she knew intimately. She married one at nineteen, my sister’s dad, and she had a run-in with one at 35 that left her with me. She found the worst of her creeps in a phone-sex chat room in early 2002.

Mike was an on-again, off-again used-car salesman. He’d sell you a used car whether you wanted one or not. He’d sell you a used car if you asked him about the weather and he’d sell you a used car on your birthday. He sold used cars so well that he went to jail for it several times, the last time just weeks after he married my mom in 2003.

My mom waited patiently for his return a year later. I won’t tell you about how I paid her rent and her expenses while he was in prison. I won’t tell you how much I worried that Mike the used-car salesman would return, or worse, that he wouldn’t.

Mike the used-car salesman returned shortly before my Bubbie died. He timed his reappearance well, and made off with my Bubbie’s savings. He spent his treasure trove on scummy motel rooms and gifts for younger, hotter finds from the sex chat room.

In 2006, my mom fell on the grass while she was walking their Yorkie. She waited hours on the ground for Mike to return from the used-car lot cum scummy motel room. My mom died a few days later in a crummy hospital ICU, her organs shutting down because of drug complications. My mom was not murdered by a used-car salesman, but she may as well have been.

Mike the used-car salesman died two months later in my mom’s bed of all places. When I got there, I found all of his receipts and bank statements stuffed in a drawer and I had to laugh.

 

 

Betrayal

~ Christi ~ 11 Comments

He lay in a cheap hotel bed as she lay in the street, dying.

After they laid him in the morgue and her to rest, they found the truth lying in a drawer.

 

Thirty-three words on love gone wrong, minus love, sad, tears, wept, heart, and pain for this week’s Trifextra. Oh, and this is a true story.

Meditation on a mug

~ Christi ~ 14 Comments

My mom was an artist. She studied art in college and taught herself much more. She drew, she painted, she did beading and weaving. She liked very much to dabble. My mom, who spent much of her life suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, found an outlet for her pain through her art. Her disease fueled her creativity, and vice versa, in ways that I have only begun to understand.

When I was twelve, my mom bought me a sketchbook and sat me down at the dining room table. She put a cup in front of me and told me to look at it.

“Look closely,” she said. “See how the light hits it here?” she asked. “See this shadow?”

I did. As my mom broke the parts of the cup down one by one, I could see each part singularly. She taught me to notice difference.

“Now draw what you see,” she said, handing me her special charcoal pencils. She showed me how to use heavier and lighter pressure to make the drawing textured. She showed me how to blend, how to highlight with the eraser. She showed me how to re-create reality.

“Take your time,” she recommended gently. “Work on one part at a time.”

I drew slowly and carefully. When I finished, I had a lovely two-dimensional rendition of a mug, instantly recognizable. I’d like to think that I had real talent, but I think that anyone could break down a simple object like this and make something beautiful from it. In any case, I loved drawing. My mom’s lessons showed me the way to one of my earliest passions. I remember counting the days until art class, waking up early and full of excitement on Wednesdays and Fridays. Those were the days when I felt special. Those were the days when I got to do what I loved best.

My mom’s method of drawing was entirely rooted in the present. She taught me to be mindful, to make art a meditation. She taught me to overlook nothing. She showed me how even the simplest object can open you to creating beauty and can teach you a truth about yourself. It’s funny — you probably don’t think of drawing as a survival skill, but for me, it is.

My mom and pain

~ Christi ~ 3 Comments

I’m writing this because it needs to be said right now, but I’m jumping around in my story.

My mom had rheumatoid arthritis all of her adult life. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. You know, a disease in which your immune system turns on your body, fighting against it instead of for it?

Well, my mom lived with a lot of pain. All of her life. She had another daughter (that’s a story for another day). She went through a divorce. That divorce tore her apart and drove her crazy, and at about my age (35), she went through a period of soul searching. She went through a time where no one believed anything that she said. She even spent some time in a mental institution. All the while, living with her real physical pain.

The thing about my mom, the thing which was most striking about her, was her complete and utter lack of complaint about her pain. She never talked about it. The only thing that ever came out of my mom’s mouth was joy. Positivity. She just exuded that.

So, I wonder. where did all the pain go? When I am in pain, I need to let it out. That’s what’s happening here, on this blog. But my mom didn’t let her pain out. Except through her art. She was a fantastic artist, and I plan to get some of her art on here.

But even her art was positive. Never dark, never edgy. She never let more than one thing out of her. So, my theory is that her body was a vessel for her pain, and that’s why she hurt so much.

So much of my life has been lived in opposition to family members and friends who are different from me. I try to revise myself based on their bad examples. I want to be healthy. To even have the word crazy associated with me in any way is like stabbing myself in the eye with a pin. I cannot stand the pain, but I also know that I cannot hold the pain inside. It would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. So, instead, I am writing this blog. I’m going to put all of my pain here.

Then, readers and friends, I am going to need your help to edit myself. I need revision, constant revision. I want to be healthy.

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