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She goes on to say how she can’t believe I wouldn’t stop singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs when the mood was clearly so sad. She can’t believe how I didn’t get that. How could I possibly be so upbeat when my surroundings were so obviously heavy? I was two.
Age is no excuse. I feel tremendous guilt every time we rewatch the home video. How could I not have known better? What a stupid idiot. How could I have not sensed what Mom needed? That she needed all of us to be serious, to be taking the situation as hard as we possibly could, to be devastated. She needed us to be nothing without her.
The fragility of Mom’s life is the center of mine.
I’d rather be wearing a baseball cap, but Mom loves this style and says it makes me look pretty, so butterfly clips it is.
Whatever, guess the kids will have to get through ANOTHER NIGHT without their DAD. That’s on you, Mark. That’s on you.”
I know better than to ask certain types of questions, the ones that go too deep into specifics. Instead, I just let Mom offer up the information she wants to offer up, while I listen closely and try to take it in exactly the way she wants me to.
Already at 6 shes aware of how choosing of innocent words and questions will cause unwanted reactions from her mom
But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for you, Net. ’Cuz I’m not like my parents. I want what’s best for you. Always.
The lack of self-awareness here. Never actually asking what she wants .
Mom wants this more than anything, not me. This day was stressful and not fun, and if given the choice, I would choose to never do anything like it again. On the other hand, I do want what Mom wants, so she’s kind of right.
“Look at me, getting over my fear for you,”
Guilt tripping her even though this is all her moms dream, not hers. Infuriating.
Our garage is filled floor to ceiling with stuff. Stacks of plastic bins are filled with old papers and receipts and baby clothes and toys and tangled jewelry and journals and Christmas decorations and old candy bar wrappers and expired makeup and empty shampoo bottles and broken mug pieces in Ziploc bags.
our bedrooms are so filled with stuff that you can’t even determine where the beds are let alone sleep in them; we don’t sleep in the bedrooms anymore. Trifold mats were purchased from Costco for us to sleep on in the living room.
“Huh?” Grandpa calls out. I swear to God he huh’s me whenever I ask him something he doesn’t want to respond to.
I’m desperate for something else to talk about with him. For some kind of connection. With Mom, it’s effortless. Why does everything feel so stuck with him?
She lunges at Dad. Dad takes a few steps back, causing Mom to trip onto her knees. She starts screaming, “Abuse! Abuse!” Dad grabs her by the wrists to try to calm her down. Mom spits in his face.
Mom says he doesn’t help the family enough, he’s always late from work, he’s probably cheating, he’s not interested in his children, he’s an absent father, etc.
I dont understand why adults do this,esp to young children.
“Sorry,” I say while I poop and Mom wets a paper towel with water. I’m embarrassed she still insists on wiping my butt. I tried to tell her recently that now that I’m eight, I think I can handle it, but she looked like she was gonna cry and said she needs to do it until I’m at least ten because she doesn’t want skid marks on my Pocahontas underwear.
I know if I did it there wouldn’t be skid marks, but it’s Mom’s tears I’m more worried about.
Please bless that Mommy sleeps well since she struggles with that sometimes.
Forcing emotions into a thing is uncomfortable in the first place, but then putting on those emotions for other people to see feels gross to me. It feels weak and vulnerable and naked. I don’t want people to see me like that.
I think it’s the sugar-free Red Bulls Mom has me drink before comedy auditions because she says I just don’t have comedy energy otherwise.
“Nutty Coconut’s been your favorite for eight months. You’re changing. Growing up.”
Its a fuckin ice cream flavor. This mom is emotionally draining
“Never mind. I want Nutty Coconut.” “You’re sure?” “Positive.” I nod.
The fact that the 8 year old has to console the mom and change her choices to create emotional stability for her mother.
I’m secretly sick of the coconut flavor but I’m sure to make lots of mmms so Mom thinks I love it.
So sad that this child has to fake reactions so her mother remains stable and happy.
He also goes back there because Mom says there’s no way she’s sleeping in the same bed—or even the same room—as someone who disgusts her so much.
the first birthday party of mine he’d been to in a few years due to his work schedule. He gave me a birthday card, which he had never done before. He spelled my name wrong on the envelope. People spell my name wrong all the time, and I usually don’t think much of it, but that time it made me sad. I opened the card to see what he wrote inside. That’s the more important part anyway. “Love, Dad” was all he wrote underneath the poem in the card.
Being around Mom can be tiring, sure, but at least I know what to do to make her happy. Around Dad, I never really know. It’s less work, but it’s also less rewarding.
I see Dad sitting on the bench with his legs crossed the way Mom doesn’t like,
Mom kicks in a cupboard door. Her foot gets stuck in the wood. She yanks her foot out. The wood is fragmented and splintery. “I’m sorry,” Dad says. “I guess she doesn’t have to act that one since it’s her REAL LIFE. A WISE LITTLE GIRL with a RETARDED DAD.”
“Heavenly Father, please grant me patience. And be quick.”
Each “good” thing Mom says about my “natural beauty” is followed up by its downside, which serves as the justification for its need to be enhanced by a little good old-fashioned store-bought beauty. And since it seems like every single “naturally beautiful” thing about me comes with a downside that needs to be enhanced by store-bought beauty, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really naturally beautiful at all, or if Mom’s use of the term “naturally beautiful” goes in the same place where others would just use the term “ugly.”
But I know better than to tell Mom that I got my character inspiration from her erratic and violent behavior. That would only invoke more erratic and violent behavior. I want her calm. I want her steady. I want her happy.
“Even with an under-performance, you still impressed. Imagine how impressed she’d have been if she’d seen your callback!”
I have a fever of 103 and a cold so bad it sounds like I’m pinching my nose when I talk, but Mom says it’ll look noncommittal if we cancel the first audition I got since signing, so here we are.
They both have bigger credits than me, which Mom whispers anxiously to me every thirty seconds, as if there’s anything I can do about it.
like the time I missed out on a Chef Boyardee commercial by not being able to pogo stick. Mom immediately bought a pogo stick from Pic ‘N’ Save and had me practice an hour a day for two weeks until I could get to one thousand jumps without falling off the pogo stick.
“Don’t be silly, you love acting. It’s your favorite thing in the world,” Mom says in a way that makes it sound like a threat.
“A LITTLE GIRL SHOULDN’T HAVE to worry about her entire family,” Grandpa says to me one afternoon.
“What?” I ask, not because I didn’t hear what he said, but because I’m confused. Of course a little girl should worry about her entire family. That’s what little girls do.
Fun isn’t a thing I’m particularly familiar with. Life’s a serious thing. There’s a lot going on in this place. Being prepared and working hard and doing well are far more important than fun.
Ive lost track of how old she is now. 8 i think?
“It’s just…” Mom looks down and smiles wistfully. This is one of her most rehearsed-looking expressions to me. I’ve never once seen her do this expression and felt like it was really coming from her in that moment. It always feels forced.
Mom doesn’t notice that I’m lying, even though it feels so obvious in my bones that I am. I absolutely prefer writing to acting.
Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say somebody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page. Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inherently real.
I can’t let Mom know I’m into purple, since Mom prefers pink. She would be heartbroken if I suddenly announce that I’ve switched my favorite color to one that isn’t also hers. It is an honor that Mom cares about me so much that something like me having my own favorite color would devastate her. True love.
Since Mom’s not a fan of me writing screenplays, I’ve taken an indefinite hiatus from those, but she is very supportive of me writing quick little poems about how much I love her, so I keep up with writing this way now.
Or I can let her sleep until eleven a.m., when I usually wake her up with her morning cup of tea.
If I start to grow up, Mom won’t love me as much. She often weeps and holds me really tight and says she just wants me to stay small and young. It breaks my heart when she does this. I wish I could stop time. I wish I could stay a child. I feel guilty that I can’t. I feel guilty with every inch I grow. I feel guilty whenever we see one of my aunts or uncles and they comment on how much I’m “growing up.” I can see Mom’s eyebrow twitch whenever they say that. I can see how much it pains her.
I know this expression well, the way I know all of Mom’s expressions well. I have learned them inside and out so that I can behave accordingly at all times.
“Well, sweetheart, if you really want to know how to stay small, there’s this secret thing you can do… it’s called calorie restriction.”
Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with a measuring tape. After a few weeks of our routine, she provides me with a stack of diet books that I finish quickly.
because I weigh myself five times a day. Five is my lucky number, so this amount of daily weigh-ins seems appropriate. I also want to make sure that I’m staying on top of every single shift in my body so that I can make proper adjustments and be on track for my weekly weighing session with Mom.
