People are always surprised when they find out that I am ridiculously close to my family. My family being my mother, father and brother that is…the other parts of my family, not so much.
But seriously, like scary close; my parents are logged in to my facebook account on their iPhone’s... I let them see everything.
Side note: My father has just figured out how to comment (partially my fault) on facebook, while logged into my account… damn you Zuckerberg, damn you.
I don’t hide what I do from them (for the most part). They know about the blog, what I write (and aspire to write) about, and actually my mother is a constant source of constructive critism.
“Your last post wasn’t good.”
“Why not?”
“I dunno. You sounded too emotional and moody…. talk about me more.”
They are ridiculously supportive of me shitting away my college degree, too. Which, mind you, is a very hard thing for parents to do.
Every parent is just dying to hear their recent college grad say, “Oh hey! Remember all that money we all spent for that little piece of paper saying I have a degree? Well I’ma hide that in your closest, move to NYC and be riducously poor for the next 7-13 years! Yay! Now where’s that cake?”
My theory is its cause I was fat for so long as a child. They knew, that if I knew that my “innerness” sucked AND my “outerness” sucked, that I would never leave their house, or their side for that matter.
They liked sex way too much for that ever to be a possible outcome in their future.
Well that and the fact that my mom basically wants to be on a reality show with me like Kathy Griffin’s mom. And so the immense support came.
“Mom, I want to be a swimmer!”
“Okay!”
“I want to be a gymnast!”
“Absolutely!”
“I want to be a paleontologist!”
“Sure! Now go look for fossils outside while your father and I have sex.”
“Wait, what?”
“Look! Chocolate!”
It’s even more surprising that with all this love and support that I have even found myself attempting to pursue a creative outlet.
Kids with loving families don’t usually end up in the arts; they end up in a middle management position, with 2.5 kids and 401ks. Happy, content and settled.
They do not end up constantly debating whether or not they have enough money for tampons this month, while praying that this whole “health insurance” hoopla is just a way for corporate America to make you spend more money unnecessarily, and not an actual necessity to being a functioning part of society.
You usually have to be shit on constantly by your parents to want to go into the arts. I was not. Not even by my older brother.
“You know what you’re good at. Don’t let that go.”
He probably won’t remember saying that, and he will probably deny it later, like any good older brother would. But we were drunk around a fire pit with some friends when he turned to me and said that. I’ll never forget it. Two minutes later he asked me if I was a lesbian.
I’ve hit the point where I don’t know how to end the post, or why I found this subject matter even necessary as a blog post. I’m lucky. I guess that is what I’m trying to get at. I’m lucky that no matter what I do, they’ve got my back, which believe the next thing on the list is a doozie…
“Now as my mother…are you okay with me doing this?”
“…Maybe we just won’t tell your father about this one… just yet.”