pumpkins and country roads

I miss my friends. I miss my life. I miss the simplicity of that life, back then, when I didn’t know that I would miss my friends. I miss naivety. I miss curfews. I miss innocence. I miss that night when he and I were watching Heathers and he kissed me – my first kiss. I miss him.

Tonight, as I write, I’m sipping a glass of wine. Teardrops trickle down as I reminisce. I had it good. I had it really good.I had parents who loved me and friends who were my identity. I had brothers who protected me and a sister who looked up to me. I had fun – good fun, bad fun, dangerous fun.

I was a smart kid who made dumb decisions, like standing on the back bumper of my friend’s car while she drove 70 down a country road. Hanging onto the roof of her car was exhilarating and freeing – we were immortal. I miss that day, that car. I miss her.

I’m thirty-seven. Did you know that? Thirty-seven is old – it sounds old. Thirty-seven is incomprehensible. Sometimes I say thirty-eight. I don’t mean to – it just comes out – like 38 is inevitable and I’m already owning it.

I found a note from her the other day – the friend with the car. It was in my senior yearbook. April 16, 1991, was written at the top. It was a Tuesday. She wanted to know what we were doing that weekend – she was a planner. I started giggling as I read it – she had made a list of all the “bad fun” things we had done during those four years of high school and wanted to know if we should relive one of them before graduation. Reading her note, I couldn’t help but wonder what we had actually done that weekend. I closed the yearbook, immediately called her, and sent her the note so she could share in my giggle-fest. As expected, she was just as excited to read the note and, even if briefly, travel back with me to senior year.

She remembered more – memories I had long forgotten. She made them fresh again – she made them new. We talked about the night of a hundred stolen pumpkins and the lady whose yard we put them in. We talked about the purse – the paper stuffed purse we strategically placed on the road to entice drivers to pull over, only to snatch it away with fishing wire when they tried to grab it. We talked about the car – the car we “borrowed” from my father when we were 14 – the car that got stuck in reverse when we were at a busy intersection. We reminisced for hours and for a short time, relived our reckless youth.

Those days are long gone, the people far away and those experiences – the building blocks of my life. They stay with me forever; they formed me. I may no longer be 18, naive and immortal. But every now and then it’s nice to travel back and for a moment be that girl. I miss that life. I miss that simplicity. I miss that country road. I think it’s time to call one of those friends.

*Written for an opinion writing class at College of Charleston…but I’m throwing it in here.

karma…the sum of a person’s actions, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences

Mom, do you still love me?

Yes, but not as much as I did, yesterday.

I’d accepted that… I needed to earn back the love I’d so brutally destroyed moments earlier. She was easy – I’d have it back, with interest, by noon.

So, what was my wicked act that caused her to say this to me? Who knows; until I hit 30, those conversations were a dime a dozen.

It was the if you don’t stop I’m going to take you back to the Katie store and exchange you for a nicer Katie that made my blue eyes puffy red.

Once. She said that sentence once. I fell to the floor in convulsive tears (I’m laughing so hard remembering this) and shed half my weight in salt after she said those words. Clearly, my mom was being funny and never expected that reaction out of me. She felt so bad, that she never said it again. But did I deserve it? What do you think?

There was that time I…

…covered my sister head-to-toe in Vaseline and baby powder, so I could have my very own Casper the Friendly Ghost; hid a dog in my bedroom for weeks so my parents wouldn’t know I had a new pet; was told by a teacher that he liked having me as a student in his class as much as he’d like bamboo shoots up his fingernails; snuck onto the train at Darien Lake while my grandmother was babysitting and she searched the amusement park for hours looking for me; hid a cat in my room for a month so my parents wouldn’t know I had a new pet; was nicknamed Ma Bell by my school’s principal for prank calling a boy and pretending to like him so my friends and I could all laugh; fed my sister an entire bottle of decongestant so that I could be the only daughter again; hid in my grandparents very expensive grandfather clock while my family turned the house upside down searching for me; stole my parents’ car…in diapers (me – not the car), and drove it into the garage door as my brother walked by and had to dive for his life; told my sister the devil was on the phone for her and he didn’t sound happy…she cried for hours after that call (special thanks to my brother for doing the devil’s voice)…

Yep. Let’s just say Mom should have held onto the receipt from the Katie store. For months after she said that I had nightmares that she traded me for one of the kids across the street. Every time their mom would stop over, the moment I saw her on our front porch, I would beeline my ass to the couch and hide behind it. I legitimately thought I was a goner. 

Now…the nightmares about my trade weren’t because the neighbor was a bad mom. She was definitely another mother of the year, but I liked my original mom, as I had spent five long years diligently training her…and a couple months prior to my convulsive tear-fest I jabbed a spade in the neighbor’s youngest son’s knee…and then ran away as he lay there with it dangling from the wound.

To this day, every time I see my friend Matt, he retells that story…and we just giggle.

As you can see, from day one I was a star…after Mimi gave birth to me, they were bringing her back to her room and she made them stop at the nurses’ station, so she could call her mom and say I have my little girl. Little did she know that hers was about to become a life of Katie’s Daily Shenanigans.

I wasn’t a bad apple, but I was mischievous… and naughty to the core; cheeky from the get-go and more than deserving of a mom who loved me a little less every day of my childhood. Who are we kidding…I was the apple of her eye.

Thankfully, by high school, I had learned to exclude her from those shenanigans. I always told her about them and one time someone said to her, you’re very lucky. You have a daughter who tells you everything. To which my mom responded, yes, and I wish she wouldn’t.

Of course, we all have stories like mine.

she had me at freddi

I remember the first time I met her. I had just started dating my now husband and had driven down to Charleston to see him. I wasn’t halfway through the front door when she asked me to play Freddi Fish on her computer. She was seven; his daughter.

She grabbed my hand and we walked into her room; she sat on my lap and we proceeded to play Freddi Fish for hours. That was 14 years ago; I still have that game.

I will never forget that night. It’s permanently etched in my brain. So, for a girl with the world’s worst memory, that has to mean something.

She and I formed an immediate bond. Two weeks later I moved to Charleston and we became inseparable. I just loved that kid.

Two years later I became her step-mom…god, I hate that word. *Rant time – step parents should be revered. We kiss boo-boos, make school lunches, taxi them everywhere, build relationships with teachers, read to them at night, check under the bed for monsters—and when that still isn’t good enough—spend hours doing crossword puzzles at the foot of their beds until they finally fall asleep, dry tears, threaten bullies (step parents are even scarier with the bullies…we already have that negative connotation associated with our “step” branding, so, with nothing to lose, you never know the lengths we’ll go to, to protect our almost kids…just saying – don’t mess with the step-mommy – she just might be a crazy bitch) and one million percent become emotionally invested in their little lives.

Curve ball…I’ll be honest, when she was growing up, there was rarely a time when I felt like a mother figure to her – we were always more like sisters: she made me crazy, I made her crazy; she’d confide in me, I’d confide in her; she could really piss me off, I could really piss her off; she’d lie to me, I’d lie to her; she’d tell me things girls don’t really tell their mothers, I’d tell her things mothers don’t really tell their daughters; she adored me, I adored her; she’d complain about me, I’d complain about her. It was priceless.

Through it all—good times and bad—there was always that bond. Even during the rare occasion when we were super mad at each other, we knew it would blow over and we’d be fine…we just needed that time to be mad.

Then she graduated high school and things changed. She had her separate almost-grown-up life; she had things to do, so we drifted…not a lot, not even enough to notice it. But when her dad and I moved to Florida, the drift was noticed. I was positive that was it…we’d lose touch and only talk on birthdays and holidays.

But then she threw a curve ball…calling us all the time, updating us on the things happening in her life, asking for advice, sending presents at Christmas, calling my mom to update her on the 411 in her life…all the things parents hope will happen when their kids leave the nest. Funny – one thousand miles away, yet I feel closer to her now than during the terrible teen years when we lived under the same roof. I can’t explain the feeling…it could be almost motherly.

But even though she keeps in constant contact with us, it doesn’t change that we do live a thousand miles apart. I miss seeing that face every day. I miss those crossword puzzles. I miss that first night. And I really miss her. Love you, kiddo.

will write for shoes

I love to write. Writing, for me, is better than that first Christmas morning as a child, when you finally understand who Santa Claus is and you wake up wide-eyed at 5 a.m., run to the tree in all its gift-glory and rip through 20 presents so fast you get hiccups. Then, after all of the excitement in opening presents, you’re heartbroken it’s over and start thinking about when you get to do it again. That’s it – writing, every time for me, is a Christmas present and every time I finish, I can’t wait to do it again.

Writing is sacred and ritualistic; headphones blaring Black 47 and hours of painful, blank staring go into everything I write. Sometimes it takes an hour to get one word written, only to be followed by a two-hour first paragraph and finally – as part of my ritual – a change of mind and a start-over. It’s ridiculous, really. Who the hell do I think I am? It’s as if I think I’m writing the next Bhagavad Gita.

Photographed in my memory is the moment when I knew I wanted to be a writer. I was fourteen and my mother had just told me I couldn’t do something with my friends. How dare she? We weren’t going to be doing just something; it was going to be life-altering something and my mother had no right to tell me I couldn’t do it.

I pleaded my case, begged her and made many empty promises to be a better daughter if she would let me go with my friends and still, the answer was no. Vocal persuasion was getting me nowhere, so in a moment of adrenaline-filled panic, I sat down and wrote her a self-righteous, somewhat self-indulgent, yet poetically-persuasive letter that debate coaches everywhere would applaud.

The letter was good and I knew it. I also knew when she read it, she would see my side and I would be allowed to go with my friends. I didn’t question it; I knew for a fact she was going to read it and change her mind. Leaving the letter in her room, I almost felt sorry for her.

That was the day when I knew I could write. But it was the before – the actual writing – when I knew I wanted to write. It was the thrill and rush of adrenaline I felt as I sat down to write and words filled my head – words that my pen couldn’t keep up with – it was all happening so fast –a euphoric feeling of complete control and complete chaos at the same time; an almost evil euphoria. I was in love. I was in love with the power of my newfound talent. I was in love with writing.

Since then, I have often dreamt (dreamed?) of being the next Virginia Woolf meets Joan Didion meets… Carrie Bradshaw. However, self-indulgent wannabe is probably closer to reality. The truth is I’ll be lucky if I ever find a job where I can write – at least a job where what I write doesn’t include how someone died and where to send flowers.

That doesn’t change what I love to do and it doesn’t change the fact my mother did let me go with my friends that day. So yes, that day is photographed in my memory as the day I knew I wanted to write – now if I could just remember what that “life-altering something” was for which my pen fought so hard.

 

*Written for an opinion writing class at College of Charleston… but I’m throwing it in here.