it was the end of 2010

It was the eve of 2011, the end of 2010.  The lights up and down Newbury St were shining a soft white glow onto the trampled snow. The chill in the air biting at heels crammed in platforms and spiked wedges.

I watched waves of people come in looking frazzled and trying hard to cling onto the end of a year almost behind us. The looks on their faces merely mirroring their thoughts of regret, and goals left unfulfilled. They hid it, after all the hair spray and makeup was plastered onto them, they hid it well. Walking out the door knowing they were going to make the best of the last night of the year. Knowing, they had to.

I waited for her last client and climbed into her chair after closing time. She curled my short hair, only scalding my ear slightly in her hurry. After all, she had a new year to bring and an old year to say goodbye to as well.

We locked up all 5 floors and left out the front door. Wishing well and happy thoughts for the new year.

I made my way through lines thick with people. Trains filled with 2010 plastered across eyes and held on by bridges of noses. Hats with 20 on one antennae and 10 on the next. Bobbling back and forth as they swayed with the train as it stopped, and continued onward to it’s next destination. It didn’t care for new years, new days, or new stops. It had one destination to get to.

I made the 20 minute walk home in 15. Just another way of counting down the minutes. Watching time fly by, without my permission.

She came to my door while I was still getting ready. Perfectly dressed and handsome like every time my eyes set upon her.

I made her wait as I rushed from bedroom, to bathroom, to kitchen. Fussing with my stockings, then my shoes, then my dress. In her haste she had forgotten to schedule a cab. It was hopeless, we started to walk.

Arm in arm we fumbled. My wedges eating at the backs of my ankles, all the while the air biting at them. Raw, I could feel the blisters already waiting to form at the surface.

We got near the subway station, our reservation at the restaurant well under way, without our bodies in the warm seats. I took her arm fiercely in mine and turned a corner.

We entered a sushi restaurant, with all but one other patron in it. Close to 10pm, we were alone. I stared at her from across the table. This was my new years. I was starting it with her.

My previous new years erased in but a single swipe of her hand towards her beer glass. I forgot everything else. All the other times of disappointment and lost hopes of new beginnings. I was with her. What else could matter?

We laughed, and ate until we were full. She left a piece of sushi behind, like a calling card of some macabre sushi slaughterer. There is only one left alive..

We crossed the street and got onto the subway. What felt like minutes, we were at her house.

She gave me a pair of pajamas, for in our haste we hadn’t remembered I didn’t have any clothes at her house.

I put them on and we crawled into her cold bed. Foreign and strange to me, I loved it because it was hers. I imagined her laying in it late at night, watching tv or thinking of me. We laid close and kissed at midnight. The sheets warming around us. By 12:05, we were asleep.

wouldn't it be nice

I have this younger brother.

He’s the only sibling I have.

In my older years, I’ve learned to put differences aside, although we have very little, and I’ve grown quite close to him.

He asked to borrow $500, I gave it to him without batting an eyelash.

He asked for tickets to come visit my girl friend and I, I paid for him and his girlfriend.

Let me dissect it a little further.

My brother is 3 years and 4 days younger than me.

When I moved back home after I dropped out of college, my mom tried to get me to pay rent even though I had a full time job I was trying to save up to move to Boston with.

My grandma bought, and paid my cell phone bill when I left for said college.

My mom made me get my first job when I was 15, over summer vacation.

I bought my computer with my own money from working and saving.

Now, on the other hand. My brother’s first job came when he was 20ish, and it was for less than 4 months over his summer vacation in college. He quit because he didn’t like dealing with people.

They never asked him to pay for rent while he lived at home and went to college. With no job.

He has a car that’s under my moms name and insurance.

He has a cell phone my mom pays for every month.

My mom just bought him a computer for graduating college.

He again, tried to have another job but quit as they wouldn’t cater to him only wanting 12 hours a week.

I listen to my mom bitch about my brother for hours on the phone, and I listen to my brother bitch about my mother on the phone for hours. I nod my head in agreement with both of them and never utter my opinion.

I was the first-born, I went through the ring of fire and know the wrath of my mother not wanting a daughter, and not wanting children to begin with. I’ve experienced first hand what it’s like to have a mother whose maternal instincts never kicked in. I’ve sat screaming at the kitchen table when no one would help me with my math homework. I’ve taken my own slides for portfolio review and admittance into college.

Every day I delve a bit deeper into the psych that  is understanding  my mother and her thin as a thread link with me.

She’ll tell my brother her communication with me has never been strong. And with me won’t say a word. Or the words she does say are thick with sarcasm and general animosity.

It’s so magnificent to me how truly obvious she is in her maternal neglect to even a grown child.

To this day I still call her a distant older sister rather than a mother.

I digress.

How do you form the words to tell your brother the real world is going to cock slack him when he wakes up to it one day? You can’t always have everything handed to you.

it is but once a year

Christmas. It’s come, and it’s gone just as quickly. I’m often amazed at how fast time seems to be going by. I barely have enough time to get my head situated on my own shoulders, let alone grasp if it’s a Monday or a Thursday.

It’s been two, maybe three years since I’ve been home for the Holidays. I truly haven’t decided if this upsets me or if I’m just ok with it.

My mom has never been one for Christmas spirit, or for any kind of joyous feelings in general. Over the years, little by little she’s weeded away any festive decoration in the house and eventually stopped all together. The last Christmas I was home I remember seeing a foot tall wooden stick with random sticks branching out from it, taking on some odd shaped Christmas tree. Small wooden ornaments barely the size of my thumb hung from the branches.

It tugged on my heartstrings, and made me ache for a different kind of holiday. A holiday with a family, or with a person who cares.

My grandma always stressed out about the holidays. Giving empty threats and guilt trips when my mom didn’t want to travel down to her house. Which is a 10 minute car ride, even in bad weather.

No one likes to be bothered in my family, especially not for the sake of family. They do things out of obligation or to complain about them later.

I got my Chihuahua in 2006, shortly before Christmas. I wasn’t able to come home on public transportation so my mom and her boyfriend drove out to get me, as well as the person I was dating.

The drive is a total of 4 ½ hours, maybe 5 if you aren’t hustling. This was the first time since I moved to Boston that my mother bothered to come visit. She didn’t even come into my apartment.

That Christmas we fought, like most of our Christmas’ over a present. She’s the type of person that always needs to make sure everyone knows the sacrifices and hardships she’s gone through. Even if it’s just to give you a present.

They drove us home the day after Christmas in complete silence and left in silence.

That was when traveling home for Christmas lost all joy.

It’s always boiled down to how much money she’s spent, or how much she hates the holidays. Her kids are grown, but that doesn’t mean we want to hear all the awful things she has to say.

The worst of which is her “don’t ever have kids, kids just suck the life out of you, having kids is stupid “ speech. I think she often forgets we are her kids, even if we are grown.

For the first time in my life I’ve had someone that makes the holidays bearable. All the way from Kh’s friends inviting me to join their holiday gift giving traditions, to spending this Christmas at her families house.

I’m starting to build up my own holiday traditions with someone that knows me so very well. I look forward to buying her presents and seeing her reaction, because I love making her happy and proving just how well I know her and what she wants.

I hate consumerism. I’m really not all for it. But I just can’t stop myself from wanting to make her happy and watch her open gifts. I’d do it every day all year if I had the money for it.

I remember past Christmas’ and they all turn into a blur. A hazy memory of things that weren’t quite perfect.

Now. Now they are. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Without my little family.

when they're gone

I woke up this morning with a voice that's just louder than a whisper, after a night of screaming in my dreams. I was looking for Sophia, she was just beyond my grasp and no matter how much I yelled for her, she looked the other way. I went to bed with thoughts of loss and can only attribute this to the email I received prior to bed time.

Over the summer we had a small miniature pinscher stay with us several times. One of which was a rather long stint, just shy of 2 weeks. We grew attached to the little guy, which is often the case with me and animals. He was a tiny ball of goof. On many occasions he wasn't quite sure of how to pee, throwing his leg up in the air in some strange  yoga pose and would just start peeing. Hitting his front legs, and even my dogs head in the process. When he laid down he looked like a frog, and needed to be cuddled before bed. His owners moved back to LA after the Summer came to a close.

I checked my email before bed to find an email with the title of his name and a sad face. Instantly I knew. I knew what waited for me and I still read it. He passed away during a teeth cleaning procedure. Cardiac arrest. He originally had been put under to have a cyst removed and all went fine with it, but during the teeth cleaning he died. Just like that. His owner went on to talk about how still and quiet his eyes were. He always had large wet eyes that saw everything. I’m not sure how much of what he saw he understood, but he saw it.

Days earlier I had seen an old picture of him I had taken during one of his stays. I remember his meat-head tiny football player body and how he’d throw himself around. I knew after his move I’d never see him again, but I took solace knowing he’d be on the other side of the country peeing on himself and snuggling up in all the blankets he could find.

Now he’s gone. His owner said she can barely look at his things anymore, thinking he’s going to come rushing after a toy or pop out from under a blanket. My heart breaks for her. I’m holding my little ones extra close today. Death is a natural cycle in life, but it doesn’t change the pain we feel until it numbs over.

RIP little man.