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No one in my mother’s family ever talks about anything that can be categorized as unpleasant or having to do with emotions, and, as a result, they no longer have anything to say. My mother has no idea how to carry on a normal conversation; my aunt Meggy never stops talking and yet never says anything constructive; and getting more than four words out of my uncle Pat is a major feat. For them it’s not a matter of keeping secrets; it’s a matter of being polite, mannerly, and tough. The McLaughlins couldn’t spill their woes or ask for help even if they wanted to, because they don’t have the
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I tell men whatever I think they want to hear, and once the words are out of my mouth, I half-believe them. I never tell anything close to a whole truth, to anyone. Unfortunately,
It is your possessions—your favorite chair, your grandfather clock, your large black-and-white photograph of every single one of your children smiling at the same moment—that make it home, not a mortgage or a backyard or a husband or a view.
“Might have,” she says finally. “I’ve never set any stock by ‘might haves.’ I might have become a nun. You might have grown up someplace else and never met my daughter. There’s no point to that kind of talk.”
“You need to make something of your life before life makes something of you.”
Keep this in mind: A baby is simply, and decisively, and irreversibly, a baby. To give birth to a child is to take on the responsibility of another human life.
My memory brings me pain, because everything reminds me of everything. Everything is connected. All it takes is a glimpse, a flash of color, a smell, and I am taken into the past.
I came to realize that I had spent my life trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be: a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother. I had done nothing to feed my soul, nothing to set myself free.
No one ever tells you, when you are young, that your entire personality can change—will change—as you grow older.
