Do You Come Here Often?

Do You Come Here Often?

I’ve always hated this part.

“Lift your arm. Like this. Now rest your other arm here. Sorry, my hands are a little cold.”

The doctor presses her palms on my breast while I stare at the ceiling. I’m always worried the temperature of my hands will make my nipples stand up. Then this awkward situation will become all that more mortifying.
            Seconds go by. She concentrates on one spot, just to the right of my nipple. That’s never happened before. She checks the same area on the other breast. She returns back to the spot.

The doctor says the four words no woman ever wants to hear:

“I feel a lump here.”

My body feels like its made of little particles, and each one of them has just spread along the exam table. She keeps touching the spot as she asks questions. Did I notice it? I didn’t. When had I done an exam last? "Recently," I say. That’s all I say. I used to do them more often. I mean to do them. But I forget. What if I think it wasn’t long ago, but it was months or even years? The older I get, the more time has a way of speeding by. It’s like when I thought that wedding was two or three years ago, only to find out the couple just celebrated their five-year anniversary.

 Besides, when I push down, it’s all lumps. How do I know a lump is lumpier? In the past, when I was worried something was suspicious, I’d feel around it, and it sort of seemed the same.

The doctor measures the lump. She writes the information down. She says the number three. Three millimeters? Centimeters? Inches? I don’t want to ask. I had a baseline mammogram years ago. Could it be possible a tumor has been growing in my breast for these subsequent years, and I didn’t know it?

She makes me touch the lump. First I can’t tell. Then I realize it’s slightly bigger from everything around it. No, it’s definitely bigger. Here I am, touching my breast while the doctor watches, just minutes after my biggest concern was that I’d have erect nipples. How my perspective has changed. I came to this exam dreading the pap, worried about my cholesterol, wary of my blood pressure. For a long time, I’d forgotten to fret about my breasts.

The doctor tells me to change. She says she’ll return in a few minutes.

A few minutes is all the time I need to remember the conversation we had before the breast exam. When my long overdue check up hung in the air. And she found out that I’d been regularly having eye exams and dental check ups instead. And I’d asked if I should put off a mammogram for another several years because it was controversial for people my age. She assured me that an increased likelihood of false positives was not a reason to forgo the exam. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if yearly exposure to radiation could cause problems in the long run.

A few minutes is all I need to picture my uncertain future. I might lose my hair.  A chunk of breast. A breast. Would I get so sick that I’d have to quit my new job? I would if all the cancer metastasized all over my body. It happens to people. It can happen to me. And if it has, it’s my own stupid fault. Why did my fear land me in this situation? I knew other people who put off going to the doctor only to get bad news, and I’d shake my head. I knew people who’d died. And now here’s me.

The door opens. The doctor’s laughter tinkles and dies. Would she chuckle if she thought it was serious? Did she stop because lumps in breasts are common for her, and it’s not going to stop her from joking with her coworkers in the hallway.

She must see my expression. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings, like blind panic.

“I think it’s a cyst,” she says.

She rattles on that I need to have a mammogram and an ultrasound. And then she wants me to return when I’m in the beginning of my cycle. Am I having the ultrasound to watch out for false positives or am I having the ultrasound because there’s a possibility it is cancer. Is she trying to calm me down or is she telling the truth? I so want to ask her. I want to confess why I’ve waited too long and explain that this isn’t the person I am. I know better and I’ve made a mistake. 

But I just nod. She doesn’t know me. After all, I hardly come here.

PSA: Check early in your cycle and check often... and visit your doctor yearly.

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2015/10/mag-290.html
and
http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2015/10/mag-291.html

Transformation from Translation

Those of you who read my Facebook posts about hosting our Japanese exchange student know it was a positive (and often, humorous) experience. Please read my article about it on the Arlington Patch.  


I hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. 

We are Boston

Last night, my ten-year-old daughter slept in the bedroom with my husband and me.

She was freaked out.

I didn’t know I was until I woke up in the middle of the night, and the previous five days’ events whipped around my brain.

When 09/11 occurred, I lived in New York. The magnitude of what had happened shocked our nation and the world. I lived an hour away and knew people whose lives had been irrevocably changed as a result.

A month later, I moved to Cambridge, MA.

Eleven years later, I moved to Arlington.

A couple of months ago, I posted an article about how I felt at the time of the move from Cambridge to Arlington http://arlington.patch.com/blog_posts/open-letter-to-cambridge-ma. I learned that, for some, there was a divide between the two places wider than the Charles River.

Monday, two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon.

I’ve never gone to the marathon. Each year I mean to, but somehow don’t. I wasn’t directly in any danger. I knew someone who raced, who was fine. Later, I found out a woman who died worked not far from my house.

But I felt it profoundly. Boston is my home. Not Cambridge. Not Arlington. I don’t identify just with a street or a neighborhood or even a town. The reason my husband and I moved here is because we’d vacationed around Massachusetts when we were still in college and fell in love with the state. The whole Boston-area is home to me.

I wasn’t alone feeling Bostonian. Yankee Stadium played “Sweet Caroline.” Each time, I think about it, I get chills. Other cities, other people made similar gestures at other stadiums, plastered posters of solidarity on Facebook, set up races to honor Boston’s fallen.

The whole week felt surreal. It was spring break, but there was this unease. The persons who committed the atrocious acts were out there… somewhere. Would they be caught? Would they strike again?

Then Friday morning at 6:15, the events familiar to all of us began to unfold. For the next 16 hours, I was glued to the radio and TV and social media. Even though Arlington wasn’t on lockdown, the towns around us were. I had faith in the Boston Police and every unit of law enforcement on the case.

But other parts of the day were even harder. The picture of the suspect who’d escaped. He looked so earnest. I’ve taught children about the age he was in the photo in Cambridge for years. I’d even subbed at Cambridge Rindge and Latin two of the years he was there. I lived just blocks away from the suspects’ home. I had just PARKED MY CAR right by his house and walked past it on WEDNESDAY. Were either of the suspects in there at the time? What were they doing?

Had I walked the same streets with him at the same time? Had our paths crossed?

Even though the terrorists didn’t affect me directly, I was affected.

He looked no different than the kids I’d taught, the children my kids went to school with, the people I saw in the street. I’ve met the teachers in his elementary school. I can picture the kindergarten classes there.

I’ve seen terrorists on the TV before. It was easy to demonize them. While I know this suspect should and will be punished, I know he was here living with us.

How did he live with us, yet still de-humanize us? How could he plan something so big and horrible?

He was a part of Boston, yet he hurt it.

He hurt us.

More than ever, I am not just a part of my street or neighborhood or town. The Boston Marathon is an international event. Our world is as big or as small as we make it.

If we make our world big, then there is no us vs. them. There’s just us.

No matter where we are, we are Boston.

This appeared on the Arlington Patch: http://arlington.patch.com/blog_posts/we-are-boston

Anticipation and Experience

“A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.”

- Oliver Goldsmith

       My childhood was filled with negative dog experiences.  My maternal grandfather had a “crazy” dog.  I remember hearing him, sequestered in the basement, barking and scratching. My aunt had a French poodle that jumped when people first came into the room.  Imagine 4-year-old me looking at a large dog with its paws on my shoulders.  When I was 6, a dog chased my friend and me down a driveway.  My friend was faster.  The dog bit my calf. 

But my paternal grandmother had a nice Beagle mix.

       My daughter LOVES dogs.  When she was 2-years-old and full of Shirley Temple curls, she’d tell a giant golden retriever to sit in what she thought was a tough voice.  It didn’t work.  If that same dog passed by and knocked her down, she’d laugh.

Over the years, she begged for a dog. 

       I said, “I’d rather have another kid.  At least they’re potty trained after 2-3 years.”

       At some point my husband said, “Of course we’ll get a dog.” I told him it would be harder than he thought and that my daughter would do less than he believed. 

       The two of them broke me down. I agreed to get a dog once we’d moved to a bigger place and she was 10.

We moved in June.

She turned 10 in July.

Damn…

I had a long dog wish list:

Not too big

Not too energetic

Doesn’t drool

Doesn’t bark

Doesn’t lick

Doesn’t jump

Doesn’t shed

Needs little grooming

Has a BIG bladder

I knew dogs would be a mix of breed, temperament, and training. 

But it’s hard for me to not control everything.

When I worried about owning an out-of control dog, my husband reminded me that our kids weren’t out of control.  We’d have similar expectations.

I hoped he was right.

       We visited two shelters before we found a potentially right dog for us.  He was a two-year-old beagle that loved people.  We asked to meet him.  We completed adoption paperwork.  We were interviewed.  Because of a technicality we were told we couldn’t adopt him that day, so we might be better off not meeting him.

My daughter still wanted to meet him.

I braced myself for her future tears. 

       He was sweet, scooting backwards to sit in laps.  We were told he was low on aggression (yay).  He’d also scored low on activity, which is rare for beagles.

We liked him.

But we couldn’t take him home.

       This was good for me.  If I’d just been able to take him home, I would’ve had an anxiety attack.  The situation made me (slightly) regretful instead.

The employee saw how well we’d bonded and was able to figure out a solution.

       My daughter named him Milo, after the main character in The Phantom Tollbooth. When we took the dog home, my husband and I had the same disembodied sensation we’d experienced when we took home our son from the hospital after he was born. We’re in charge now?!?  We don’t know what we’re doing!

       The next few days were overwhelming for my husband and me, but not because Milo was “bad”. Neither my husband nor I had ever owned a dog before.  My daughter and I read books to prepare. When I had a question, I’d scour the internet.  But it was an adjustment. 

       A week into owning Milo, we fell into a routine. My son had become a huge help. Our poor cat was warming up. A little. I’d boasted how well things were going to a group of people. They proceeded to explain to me how the dog was being good because we were in a honeymoon stage. They warned there’d be exuberance and howling.

I freaked out inside.

It was like “veteran” mothers scaring pregnant women about childbirth, or how their kids won’t sleep through the night or behave in restaurants.

       Afterwards, I told my husband we’d taken on too much, and couldn’t back out now because our children would never forgive us and I wished I could go back a year and say no to getting a dog and how this dog would be our responsibility when the kids went to college and I missed my cat… 

We calmed down.

       The next week was our biggest challenge. My kids and I were going away. My husband would be in charge of the dog all week.  He’d leave the dog all day while he worked.

Would the dog destroy the house?

Would the dog hold his bladder?

Only time would tell. 

I’m happy to report nearly 3 weeks in, Milo's list:

Not too big

Not too energetic

Doesn’t drool

Doesn’t bark

Doesn’t lick

Doesn’t Jumps rarely

Doesn’t shed

Needs little grooming

Has a BIG bladder

And the cat is back snuggling with us on the couch.

The dog has learned:

to sit

patience when the cat is eating

to stay off the couches… at least in our presence

I’ve learned a few things too:

I need to relax to be a good pack leader.

When all four of us chip in, it’s not so much responsibility.

Walking dogs is good exercise.

Like with raising kids, keep expectations high.

And, as with almost everything, anticipation is worse than experience.

Have you ever feared anything

that wasn't as bad as you thought?

Honorable Mention II

Going through the archives was scary business. Back in 2009, I mostly wrote about subbing. *shudder*

I originally posted this on 12/01/09. It had 6 comments. (It’s actually a comment thread between Alesa Warcan and me a year later.) Poor me, writing those early posts with no readers. I’m reposting this piece (with a smaller word count) because I wrote it from the heart.

The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels."

- Kate Chopin, The Awakening


As a rule, I try not to shove my children down people’s throats. Besides, I pride myself on being woman-mother, instead of a mother-woman. But my children are still a large part of my identity, and there are moments when something they say or do stops me in my tracks. I've compiled a few highlights:

1. My daughter periodically and sincerely tells me that I’m beautiful.

2. My son is a gourmet, so if I make an effort with plating, it never goes unappreciated.

3. When my daughter was a baby, if she was hysterical, my humming would be enough to soothe her.

4. When my son was just out of babyhood, he was struggling to attach two Little People farm fence pieces. Determined, he kept at it, until he exclaimed, “I did it,” which demonstrated his perseverity, dexterity, and first three-word sentence.

5. When my daughter was two, she idolized and tried to keep up with her big brother. He was a in big Star Wars phase at the time, so she’d circle the house with him, toting a play gun and squeaking, “Byoom, byoom, Storm Troopers.”

6. My son is a voracious reader, which makes it hard to believe that he ever went through a long and painful period of insecurity about learning to read. When he’s excited about something he's learned, he has to tell everyone about it in vivid detail. I'm not the only one to call him a walking encyclopedia.

7. Until my daughter turned five, any time I checked on her while she was sleeping, she would instinctively turn towards me, and try to burrow into me without waking up.

8. My son has a strong sense of fairness, is kind to his friends, and avoids troublemakers. Because of his “calming influence”, he won Class Peacemaker at the end of fourth-grade.

9. My daughter dives into everything with enthusiasm. She has passion for anything that she does. An aura seems to radiate from her, and her eyes sparkle when she's excited.

10. One evening, my son to watched my daughter for a couple of hours. When I returned, he had cleaned the dinner table (okay, coffee table, where they ate dinner and watched television - I'm a bad mother), washed the dishes, and was in the midst of microwaving apples that he and his sister had cored and spiced. Even though they sometimes fight, she adores him, and anytime he’s in charge of her, he takes the responsibility very seriously.

I love My son is stubborn and bossy (like me), but can be so thoughtful that my heart swells. My daughter is easy-going (except when she’s not), and possesses an intuition to gauge people’s moods, and responds accordingly. My son screams like a banshee when he’s angry, and my daughter has a gift of throwing herself on the ground when she’s furious. Sometimes I’m enraged when they behave this way, and work on teaching them self-control, but other times, I have to smother a smile.

Before I had children, I was sure that differences in gender were nurture, rather than nature. Then my son turned one, and everything that had wheels and could move, became sources of fascination: police, fire trucks, construction vehicles, guns, Star Wars, army, and World War II. When he turned two, I bought him a doll and carriage, which he had zero interest in. When my baby daughter had only begun sitting, she’d gravitate towards baby dolls and pretend to be their mother. As soon as she turned two, her favorite color became pink, which lasted five years. Although she’d play war with her brother, she used her pastel dolls and animals alongside his army guys. In other words, they've learned to compromise in unique ways.

I learn something from my own children every day. Raising them is a privilege. And having the luxury of time to do so is an honor.

For other blogfest entries starting 12/16, click HERE!

Giving Thanks

My son wants to succeed on his own.

I ask questions:

Is your homework done?

Do you need me to look it over?

Do you have any questions?

Did you call your partner about completing that social studies project?

I receive responses:

Yes.

No.

No.

We can’t do it now because we didn’t bring home the instructions and the textbook, but I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

Seventh-grade. 13-years-old. 4 classes. 4 teachers. Transition.

He wants to attend Harvard. He plans to volunteer because it’s not just about grades, but also being well rounded.

Should I hover, interfere? When I push, he pulls. I was a seventh-grade teacher, so I know how to help. But I need to let him make his mistakes, right? I fret.

He comes home, telling me about students who don’t care, don’t work well in groups, bringing his grade down, while he takes over parts that aren’t his or gives up.

What do I do now?

Math test. Mediocre grade. My husband helps him understand the material.

I ask about that social studies project. Is his response a real answer or an excuse?

New rules: No video games or You Tube until homework is done. Don’t save your work until nighttime. Make sure you write your assignments down.

I spy a Halloween worksheet. Not done. A week after Halloween.

Am I nagging or helping?

Progress report. I unfold the paper with trepidation.

His grades are lower than last year’s.

I’ve failed.

Do I yell? Say how disappointed I am? Have the teachers e-mail me weekly with updates? Make him show me his agenda? Demand he go over each and every assignment with me?

I thought we were past this type of intervention after fifth-grade.

Before I say anything, he says, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m so disappointed in myself. I’m going to do better.”

He means it. I can’t say anything to make him feel any worse than he does.

My son, my husband, and me - we talk strategies, priorities.

We buy another agenda. A blank slate.

The three of us head to parent-teacher conferences. I brace for what I’ll hear. I’ve prepared what I’ll say. He’s better than this. I’m better than this. How did we all let this happen?

Teachers offer suggestions. They’re upbeat about him as a student. They remind me that other seventh-graders are struggling with the transition too. This is a progress report – not a final grade.

I know all this. It’s easier for me assure my students’ parents. It’s harder to be a parent and let your child flail.

These teachers say something else…

My son greets them each time he comes into the room. He asks about their weekends. He says goodbye at the end of the class and at the end of the day. Sometimes he thanks them at the end of a lesson.

One teacher said, “I don’t know if I should say this, but I look forward to speaking with him. He makes my day.”

My son reddened to the tip of his ears.

I went to the parent-teacher conference thinking I was going to hear certain things about my son. I left proud of him, but not for the reasons I expected.

Pickles and Peroxide

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”

- Mark Twain

Because I grew up in a less-than-happy house, I wanted my own home to be filled with love and laughter. I don’t want job searching and query rejections to leave a cloud over my kids’ heads. Have I succeeded? I hope so. Here’s a short window into our home:

Exhibit A

Sunday night, my husband and I were preparing dinner. For some reason that morning, my husband bought a GIANT jar of pickles. If you saw how crammed our refrigerator already is, you can imagine why I’d nag about said pickles.

While I tried to get my son to wonder with me why we needed such a large jar. He said, “Can I have a pickle?”

Guess my husband would be finding room in the fridge sooner than later.

My son put his pickle on the plate and left to set the table. I decided to take a bite of his pickle and pretend I didn’t do it.

Wow, it was sourer than I thought it would be.

While I chewed, I returned to the sink to wash dishes. I turned to see my husband take a bite off the other end of the pickle and return to the stove. That made me giggle. The vinegar burned the back of my throat. I began to cough and tears streamed out of my eyes.

My husband laughed at my appearance. This made him double over, coughing. I almost got control of it, but then glimpsed my husband, felt the sting, and started hacking all over again. My son returned to the room with my husband still laughing and choking and me spitting pickle bits into the sink.

“What’s going on with you guys?” he asked.

“We… were… playing… a joke on you… by biting your pickle.”

Exhibit B

Monday morning, my son and I lounged around reading, doing laundry, editing, and playing video games (guess who did what). Since my daughter is visiting her grandparents in New York, I decided to take my son out to lunch, just the two of us.

Around 10:00 am, my son returned to the living room from the bathroom. “We have no water.”

A couple of weeks ago, our third floor neighbor told us last minute a plumber was here because her shower hadn’t worked, so for two hours we were stuck without water when my nephew was visiting. We were smelly hostages in our own home. Was she getting work done again and failed to tell us?

I noticed there were several orange Cambridge-city trucks parked on our side street. Was it related?

I tried the water. Nothing.

“It’s probably the city, temporarily shutting off the water while they work. Let’s wait a little while. If it doesn’t turn back on, I’ll go out there and ask,” I said.

About fifteen minutes later, the water returned in little bursts. Was it beige? Must be a trick of the eyes. I ran it more. Nah, seemed clear. I announced the triumphant return of our water supply, and brushed my teeth and washed my face.

Then I turned on the shower...

It was like a scene out of a horror movie. Mixed in with the brown water, were bits of I don’t know what. Small enough to go down the drain at least.

Aaack! Was this the same water I’d just brushed my teeth with? I turned back on the sink water. Brown. What was in that water? Would I get sick? I put peroxide in my mouth and swished it vigorously. As my mouth fizzed, I realized I couldn’t exactly rinse it out with the contaminated. I ran to the kitchen and retrieved lemonade from my ultra-crowded (due to the pickles) fridge. I tipped lemonade in my mouth.

Except that I had just brushed my teeth… so, you know… lemonade.

I spit out the lemonade. I did it three more times to make sure I didn’t die of brown water bacteria or peroxide poisoning.

Then I went outside to talk to the workers. Turns out we had a water main break. Some “sediment” leaked into the pipe until they were able to repair it. (In a city, “sediment” means “You don’t want to know”.) I was told to run the water until it was clear and all should be well.

I did. After a few minutes of chunky brown water, it ran clear. I showered.

My son and I left for a lovely sushi lunch. We talked, we shared, we laughed.

See, my family is filled with the laughter I’d always hoped for.

Sense of Place

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.”

- Margaret Mead

I live with my family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We chose its location because when my husband completed his Ph.D., we had to move for his post-doctoral work. Our first two years of marriage were spent in Queens, New York. Cambridge reminded us of the neighborhood in many ways.

My first nine years of life were spent in Queens, NY. Then I moved to Long Island, living in a post World War II suburb (cape, split level, ranch, repeat). Although I spent the next fifteen years + a number of adult years in the suburbs, it never felt like home.

Though I do miss the beach. A lot.

For a couple of years, we’ve been looking for a bigger place. Four people in a two-bedroom condo is cramped, especially with a daughter and son. But to get the kind of place we’re looking for is out of our price range. We’re either sacrificing space inside our outside or in both spaces.

There’s a house we really like but the expansion potential it has won’t be realized until I land a full-time job. We’ll still feel like we’re a struggling to find our way instead of having arrived.

We’re considering moving to the suburbs – Salem specifically. For little more than our house is worth now, we could have a whole house with more than two bedrooms, a driveway, and property. We could even be closer to the beach. Like,blocks away or even with a view.

What’s stopping us?

If we move, we’d be another family that left before our children were older, draining the middle school and high school. I’m sure most of those families left because of space issues too.

Also, it takes time to have a place fit like a glove. New friends, new restaurants, new stores, new schools, new routes, new routines. At first, we’d lose more than we’d gain.

Then there’s commuting. My husband works five minutes away by bike. There’s so much we’ll lose with that loss of proximity.

I can walk to see the Red Sox play. I can walk to see the Celtics play. Okay, I can’t afford to go very often. But still.

When I lived an hour from Manhattan, I rarely took advantage of it. When I lived 20 minutes by subway, I did. Now that I’m a 20-minute walk to Boston I go all the time. The river is no obstacle.

The Boston skyline is beautiful.

We love watching Fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But I really think my resistance is more than the new, alien feeling of a place. It’s more about who I am.

I’m a city girl. I love saying I love in a city. I believe in my city. Do you know that we live a few blocks from the compost place? We almost make more compost in a week than we do garbage. We now have one bin recycling. And we can recycle nearly everything now. Our family does fine with a small car And the city is as diverse and inclusionary as it gets. It’s home.

Our family, friends, school, after-school activities, routine – it’s all here.

But we’ve visited Salem a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, and I can see fitting in there too. Maybe?

How do you decide where to live,

what that means about who you are,

how you want your family to fit?

On another note, thank you for your kind comments and support of 100 Stories for Queensland.

Congratulations to Vicki Tremper who won a copy of White Glove by Holly Black !

Silent Scars

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”

- J.D. Salinger

For most of my childhood, I knew something was off with my mother. Her behavior would embarrass me. When I turned 13, something clicked and I understood that there was a problem beyond embarrassment.

Sarah Fine has a definition for my mother’s condition on her BLOG:

Schizotypal Personality Disorder--odd behavior and thinking

But that doesn’t tell you much.

As a teenager, if a friend visited my home for the first time, I’d be filled with anxiety. I’d warn them. How people reacted after meeting my mother would determine how strong our friendship would be. If people couldn’t understand my mother, then they couldn’t understand me.

Those who see her at family gatherings or at her workplace, mostly view her as a character. I have no tolerance for the trite comments they make. When she was in charge of me, I protected my sister from the sinister side. So I can’t pretend nothing worse lurks behind the veneer.

Yet she’s not a wicked person. She loves her grandchildren. She’s one of my biggest fans of my writing. She’ll compare me to authors who write nothing like me, but the sentiment is there. And as soon as I told her about my short story in 100 Stories for Queensland anthology, she requested a copy. Repeatedly. Unfortunately, she also requested a copy from my sister, so we both unknowingly bought her copies. That’s part of her problem.

I have friends and acquaintances who have no idea about her. It’s my choice whether or not to share that part of my past and present. When it does come up, I have to figure out how much to reveal. I can make a blanket statement, but it feels like avoidance. If I reveal more, it’s too easy to descend into maudlin.

When people do hear snippets, they often say something like, “You should write about it.” And I do. Sort of. My manuscripts always have fractured relationships. I write for teens because I get that trapped feeling. Parents are in control of much of a teenager’s life, and it’s a teen’s job to loosen the grip so they can become adults. But what if the control is a chokehold? I hope my stories give teens the message that these hard times will pass.

I also write YA because I remember that time vividly. The reason I know a few exchanges with my mother by heart is because I’d repeat the words in my head to survive living in a house where words were twisted or forgotten.

I wrestled whether or not to share a specific story. My husband thinks it’s not right to write anything I wouldn’t say to her. That’s fair. I’ve only eluded to her in two posts, both many months ago. And with time, I can appreciate the good things she instilled in me:

- A love for reading.

- Seeing a person beyond race, religion, and sexuality.

- Feminism.

But most of her lessons were inconsistent. While she read to me, she also plopped me in front of the TV for hours. While she preaches equality, she’s also said some pretty inappropriate things while trying to relate when meeting a person of another ethnicity or religion.

Now that she’s older, I have different worries about her: health, decision-making, and job retention. It’s a battle. I have to work on keeping my patience when I talk to her. I should call her more. I should be many for her things I’m not.

But I’ve made great strides from the girl who hated her. Who worried that any moments she’d become her.

When I was around 17, after a pretty horrific scene, I called a friend in tears. He said, “That’s who she is. It’s not a reflection of you.” I exhaled for the first time in many years.

Yet I see pieces of her when I look in the mirror. When I was young we want to break free, be my own person. I can’t remove the physical characteristics my mother and I share. I could copy her speech patterns in a heartbeat. But I am not her. I strive to take the best of what she’s given me while I learn from the worst. But I also have to acknowledge that the good and the bad are part of me.

All these years later, Mother’s Day still resurfaces conflicting emotions. But I’m not embarrassed anymore. What to reveal? I’m still figuring that out.