Diary of a Sex-Starved Pseudo-Mennonite, Part 18

I guess I mistook structure for love. I grew up with no bedtime, bathtime, dinnertime--no time at all. A kid's dream, you'd think. I could watch horror movies, R-rated movies, X-rated movies, and observe my brother "babysitting" me (which was all of the above). My brother's chosen babysittlng lullaby was Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" on blast. Try to sleep through that. I dare you. I think I was the only girl in my first grade class well versed in the lyrics to "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and "Big Balls" and perhaps the only girl on the little kid honor roll who everyone knew would lose her shit if "You Shook Me All Night Long" started playing anywhere, anytime. None of the other kids seemed to judge me. They reveled in my abandon. Why did a person my tender age need abandon? I shouldn't have had deep problems I needed to kick away by embodying filthy songs. But I was not a kid. Which is why I knew to be excited about getting shook all night long, cuz I'd done it 'til the timbers creaked in a Viking longhouse under a reindeer skin; I'd done it 'til the roof grass rained like confetti in an Irish sod house sandwiched between sooty kids and hungry babies; and God only knows when and where else I'd been all shook up. This is why adults have been telling me their secrets since I was old enough to listen. That's why I have to write. It's not telling if it's silent. One bright little girl can only hold so much adult dark.

My ex-husband gifted me with a framework. Instilled a schedule and rules and discipline. It used to make him crazy that I would just straight up eat food he deemed ingredients. Food meant for greater things. Food was food, I thought. When there was no Dad and Mom didn't cook, there were no ingredients. Just food. I would climb my girlfriends' countertops and cupboards like a jungle gym, looking for food. I guess I was hungry. My brother and I were skinny. We thought it was genetic. I ate all the time, but mostly Doritos and Ding Dongs and Tombstone pizza that was supposed to be my brother's which I would burn and eat and not enjoy but eat it all anyway. He might notice I took it and he might not. He ate like a python. An obscenely oversized meal was savored something like once a day or week. If he was home or at my grandparent's, he'd pass out on the living room carpet after, stomach distended, and sleep the deep snoring death of post-banquet Henry the VIII.

I was drawn to people who seemed to know how things were supposed to be. Knowers of propriety and budgets and the food pyramid. Those who could do calculations in their head, no counting on fingers and biting of bottom lips in the process. Those who could drive somewhere once then know how to get there again. My ex-husband raised me for 21 years, then released me into the world to see what I might find with my deep background in finger-counting, frozen pizza burning, and blind love.

I found out the world is too much with me. I suffocate under the toxic weight of schedules and meetings and budgets and time time time. You know what happens when you read the works of or talk to real smart people? They spill the tea on open secrets. Like that time is an illusion and money is a lie and both are just deeply entrenched bullshit games most of us keep playing because it seems too hard and potentially unpopular and uncomfortable to do something else. I mean, does anyone really believe a super cool dude (or dudette, let's pretend) with the collective best interest at heart invented time and money? You can't keep time and you can't keep money. You can't keep anything, and you shouldn't want to. I'd like to knee that dude in the nuts 'til he wakes up a dudette.

I started working as a babysitter to neighbor kids when I should have still had a babysitter. My first gig was with a cop who lived 2 houses away when I was somewhere between 6 & 8. The grown ups in the neighborhood sensed I was operating on a different level than the whiny dimwits they brought into the world (and wanted me to watch). So they hired an apparent baby to watch their babies. The labor of 6-year-olds is inexpensive. I squirrelled away dollars from babysitting so I could buy the stuffed animals and Barbies and clothes I wanted but didn't need. So I could be a first grade baller. So I could shine and no one would have to know I woke up alone each morning, my mom at work, my dad a world away, my older brother sleeping through the whole school day if I didn't do something about it. A drunken sailor when shook or shouted awake, he'd curse death upon me and air punch towards my voice, just because I tried to keep him from being an elementary school dropout. Cuz Mom said that was my job. He was almost 6 years older than me. I could care less if he got expelled. He was an asshole who wanted me dead simply because I came after him and tried to do what Mom said. I had to get myself up. And take Mom's call. And get dressed and make my lunch and wake the hostile dead and walk myself to kindergarten and first grade and second and on and on, all with no breakfast. It was bullshit. But it was what I had. So I couldn't wait to get outta there and arrive at fucking school. Where I could shine instead of suffer in drudgery and shadows.

 

My brother stole my squirrelled away money. My grandfather stole my mother's squirrelled away money. I was a good hider and I'd change spots frequently. But big bro was quick to anger and threaten my life and shouted the meanest things imaginable to me so when he said to tell him where the money was, I eventually did. I worked for that money. He didn't work for shit. On the most wholesome babysitting nights, he would take the money Mom gave him to watch me and just leave. Making him responsible for my care was asking the Tasmanian Devil to babysit your tender, rumpy pet bunny. I'm crazy about my brother. You cannot help but idolize your big brother, especially one this big and blond and electric and mustang wild. He is my only full sibling and we feel each other's wounds and delight in jokes for the disturbed. Together we make a boundary-free team of danger and delight. But he is 1 reason why I thought it was okay for people who were supposed to love me to hate me and abuse me and take everything from me and I should still love them and always forgive them and keep trying to earn their withheld care.

My dad loved strippers. Which is perhaps why he named me Vanessa. My brother loved strippers. He played on his local strip club's softball team. My uncles and Grandpa didn't hate strippers. They would go see them together, as a family, at the holidays. One Christmas Eve this led to my dad getting cussed out and assaulted with liquor bottles by a stripper he had wronged. My uncles ducked and crawled on the icky strip club carpet, drinking deeply from the salvageable bottles.

During my trip home this month, Mom shared that Dad was real excited about a date he finally procured with a particular stripper shortly after my parents were engaged. Dad was put out when Mom said he had to break the date. He didn't get it. I mean, a hard-to-date stripper? That's something! And Mom still married him, so you know stripper atmospherics and tolerance were woven into the fabric of her childhood as well, Catholic school and all.

Until he had his second all-girl family (excepting him), my dad was a misogynist. His mom gave him up for adoption, so it seems he hated her without even knowing who she was, or wanting to know. She rejected him. So he rejected her. His adopted mother doted on and worried over and force fed her skinny only child. So he hated her. His adopted father loved my mother. Dad adored his adopted father. So he married my mother. Then hated her. And cheated on her with a lesser woman and probably only the best strippers.

Like my ex-husband's people, my dad liked to leave, then come back. Leave. Then come back. He asked my mom to leave, separate, give him a break. He moved his side piece in and kept her for insurance when he tried to come back--side piece unknowing, left alone at what I hope was the Tall Corn Motel. Mom an indentured servant to Irish pride who was never head over heels for my dad anyway, but didn't want a job so she married him, said no dice. She chose life without him. Dad then blamed her for our broken family. Mom promptly ripped him a new one. Dad backpedaled and left. My mom is scary. I get why Dad wanted a break. So he slithered back to the side piece who eventually became the main dish cuz she just wouldn't leave. And once the divorce was final we saw Dad maybe once a year. Sometimes twice. Until no one could make me see him anymore.

Also during my visit home this month, Mom shared that once Dad, who lived across the country and saw her almost never, tried to get her to go upstairs so he could bone her. In our house. Not his house. He said he had never cheated on his now main dish side piece. Not sure how that nugget was supposed to increase the likelihood of sex with the ex. Dad's main dish is 12 years younger than my mom. My mom's hot. She's a Scorpio and as I may have mentioned, unpredictably terrifying. She took a hard pass on a piece of ass with her ex. I'm not sure if Mom's scariness hindered, haunted, or induced hunger in the pussy hounds orbiting our front door.

Before he had his all-girl second family, my dad said he couldn't be expected to bond with me because I was a girl. He took the easy route and focused on my brother. I was wrong for having a pussy and perhaps having the poor taste to remind him of my mother. Who rejected him. After he rejected her. A pattern I have repeated with him my whole life. It's not personal. He's just not that into me. And guess what? Neither was my husband.

Until Next Time, Sweeties!

Ness Sweet Ness