Yesterday was Matthew’s birthday. He’s 1 already. If he could understand I would thank him so so much for being patient with me and my personal issues long enough to allow me to grow to love him without measure. He’s the sweetest boy ever and I’m one lucky Aunt to have him. He still smells like little baby…so precious.
It’s nearly 6 a.m. and I’m wide awake. I haven’t done this in forever. I’m wired because of the last few stressful days. But oddly I don’t want to talk about the house. I want to talk about something I don’t think I’ve ever talked about.
My brother in law Doug. He is Rick’s half brother from the same father, different mother. Doug and I met the same exact night I met Rick. In fact it was Doug’s then girlfriend who introduced me to Rick but yet it was a joint effort because Doug went and got Rick from where he was to bring him to where I was.
Doug is a notorious smart ass and so am I and so he and I have always had a sort of love/hate relationship. We love to hate each other. We consistently try to outdo each other with the insults etc. Tonight Rick and I went to visit Doug. I normally allow Rick to have his “man” time with his brother Doug. Doug has lived less than five minutes away form Rick and I for the last 5 years. While I don’t know Doug’s precise age, I do know he’s at least 12 years older than Rick, perhaps more. I’m sorta rambling here, but tonight I realized that in my heart of hearts I really LIKE Doug and like him a lot in fact. I love to verbally spar with him and I especially love the fact that he says what he truly means and means what he always says. I can really dig a person who does that. And he really doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about him or how he chooses to live.I think I’ve always truly liked Doug but his personality mixed with mine creates a humorous back and forth sparing that is always hilarious. I rarely speak about him because I tend to veer away from speaking about Rick’s family out of respect. I have always envied him his relationships with his brother’s. They do not always make sense but they always look out for each other and they’ve always been close. When I met Rick I gained all of these other zany boys in some way too. In the last 5 years I have grown quite used to them and have grown to appreciate them on a different level. I’m no longer envious of Rick’s luck and more grateful for my own.
Tonight, all in one evening, Rick’s twin brother Randy and his family came to visit and I quite enjoyed shoving my nose into baby Matthews neck and sniffing in his baby glorious smell while he giggled and allowed me to kiss his chubby cheeks endlessly. I then went with Rick to visit his brother Doug and sat with them while they rambled on about poker, bills, life, etc. I’ve always enjoyed any time that I’ve gone to visit Doug and tonight for the first time I realized entirely a piece of the puzzle. Doug reminds me of my own father in so many ways. My father was outspoken, zany, fun and also didn’t give a shit what people thought of him. But he too was just a good guy.For the first time ever I asked Doug for his email address so I could shoot over some house pictures for him to see. When we lived in the apartment complex there was never any parking and Doug would complain about coming to visit us because of this fact.
So when I sent my email I said “we have tons of parking space too!” I got a return email from him saying
…it looks nice I SEE IT GOT A POKER ROOM HEEHAWS
This is his reference to our screened patio at the back of the house. Doug has one on his house and it’s the notorious poker room everyone goes to. I can only hope that Rick will have many hours of rowdy poker playing fun with his brother’s in our new home.I suppose I just wanted to state for the record, I love Rick’s family and I’m glad they let me. I had a moment of clarity tonight when I realized we spent a majority of the evening with his brother’s separately and I had a great time being a part of family. The line between what is his and what is mine has completely blurred and it feels wonderful. We also had another encounter on Thursday night with his nephew Sean and his girlfriend Kelli. Sean is now 18. Sean was just 13 when I first met him.
I’ve always joked with Doug that Rick is not allowed around him without my permission because he’s trouble and a bad influence…lol…….but tonight…after much realization…I responded to his email as follows. Yes it has a poker room and yes he’s allowed to invite you over to play. I can close the door on y’all. 
Doug jr., Doug and Sean showing up for our wedding two years ago. Doug never dresses up so this was me grabbing the camera because Doug and his son bought matching suits for the wedding. It was a great moment. Sean changed clothes after he arrived. So this is my nephew, my brother in law and my other nephew.
Rick has two sisters too. One lives in Illinois in Rick’s hometown and the other just moved with our 3 nephews including Sean, to Ohio recently. We have 5 nephews (including baby Matthew) on Rick’s side of the family and 2 nieces on mine. Rick also has another half brother who lives in Orlando. I’m lucky. But don’t tell Doug that I actually “love” him.
I’m not often reminded of why smalltowns suck, but when I am I am again grateful that I no longer live in one. Everyone in a small town must either
a. cause problems for others
b. snoop into other peoples business
or
c. wreak havoc
I don’t really want to explain except to say that I feel that I am an adult and need no one’s permission to do as I choose in my life. People in smalltowns think they have a right to butt into your business.
I barely speak to my family as it is. Why? Because for the most part they do not know me. They haven’t coincided or been a part of my life in any real way for a very long time. I choose to keep it that way. I prefer it that way. I am again reminded of why.
While nothing life threatening happened it is again a reminder that I prefer to live where I live, in a world where people are not smalltown backwards.
Being a college student means that at some point you get into a groove and it becomes an item about your life that is pushed to the background instead of being at the forefront of everything you do. Especially if you’re not 18 getting drunk sleeping in someone else’s bed frequently. You are a working adult fulltime college student, and other things in your world supersede the topic of college. But it also becomes a love affair that is happening in the shadows of your world.
You’re the one that’s sneaking a look at your syllabus during the strangest times. You’re the person making mental notes 24/7 about how to plan out one’s time to fit in a paper you won’t care about until it garners an A. You lament often that there are no red letters at the tops of any of your papers and what you will remember most about your education is the endless time sitting in front of your laptop with a window open so you don’t feel stranded. Your eyes are always tired and you’re nearly always in front of a computer. You read your coursework printed out in big sloppy reams shoved into manila folders. You get great glory out of throwing those big stacks in the trash after every class. It’s killing trees and yet you can think of no better reason to live to excess. The words stay with you long after the city dump owns them. You haven’t taken a “go green” course yet but you did do that tutorial for work. Work training and college courses blur together when you work where you attend. Your entire world is surrounded by those three letters. You consider having them tattooed on your flesh but you wonder if you’ll regret that choice one day if you attempt an education from somewhere else in addition to the paper you are chasing now.
You still read novels but you can’t help but find similarities sociologically and psychologically and even religiously speaking to what you are studying. You read magazines and when the author mentions Maslow’s theories for the fiftieth time since you learned about it, you smirk. You wonder if you are somehow running out of things to learn or if it’s like how when you buy a Honda you see every other Honda like your’s in the world the next day.
You run into fellow students that are brilliant and you wish you could have coffee with them. Then there are those that disagree with everything you say and while you chalk it up to it being because you are strong willed and open minded and write with intention and conviction and this is threatening to others. You piss at least one fellow student off in every course. However, you always send that student a message at the end thanking them for the “debate” so that should count for something, but maybe not.
You buy books about topics you never considered before. You find yourself engrossed in political articles and statistical articles that must be statistically longer than any other type. You write papers with a cup of coffee and a dog and little else to concern yourself about. You wonder how this became the person that you are. You wonder who you will be, what identity will you have when it’s all over. Does it have to be all over, you ask this question silently day after day as you see the day’s for this quest are diminishing compared to the number you started with.
You are on an A- streak that sometimes pisses you off and then you remember tenth grade, being grounded for a D- in World Cultures. You remember lying on your pink frilly bed, aged 15, wishing you were anywhere else. You remember missing your boyfriend, writing down lyrics and crying your eyes out. You wonder what you could accomplish now with that type of energy and time. Time freezes and yet it never stops. It’s cold and callous when it’s difficult. But you quickly remember you are no longer in 10th grade and when people ask you what year of college you are in you have to think too long for an answer so you respond, “I’m closer to done than to starting.”
When asked what you are studying, you think “everything I never knew existed” but the words you say are something else. The words are culturally acceptable, socially accountable and psychologically normal. What you want to scream is, ‘I’m doing it..fuck..I am really doing it.”
The only person that stays in the forefront of your mind is your mother who said you couldn’t, you wouldn’t and you send her smoke signals about how wrong she is. But you know it doesn’t matter because the only smoke she sees comes over the top of her soda cup from her Marlboro. She’s still living where the bathrooms echo early 70’s swirled marble and the living room is velvet gold forever. She’s licking the dust from her finger waiting for perfection to make her happy. And Daddy is watching her from the woods of misconception. Some knowledge comes from the book of time.
You blow your bangs out of your eyes and pick up that Sociology book again…. You’re not the girl from their world. You’re the girl on a longstreak of A’s. The minus is the plus. Perfection is a fucked up goal.
