Extra Ordinary Me

I overheard a mother speaking to her son (with her 2 daughters nearby) on the airport shuttle this past weekend. He was crying and she said, “Are you a boy, or a girl?” and then a few minutes later, “Well, then stop acting like a girl!”

Because, of course, girls always cry and whine and are unreasonable, right?

Who do you think hears this message louder? The boy? He learns that it is never OK to cry and whine because then people might think he is a girl, when, in fact, he is a boy? Or her daughters? Will they learn that it is OK to cry and whine and be unreasonable because that’s what girls do? Or will they think it’s a bad thing to be a girl?

I don’t know, but why don’t you just leave his gender out of it and tell him to stop the whining regardless?

No, really. Our air conditioner broke last night. This is going to be a long day…

I have moved around quite a bit. I’ve lived in 8 states, and one other country and within those cities have moved between homes a number of times.

The city which I consider my hometown is the one I grew up in and the one I lived in, so far, for the longest stretch of time (and in the very same house, imagine that!).

However, there is another city which I lived in for 3 years and have always thought of fondly. That city is… CHICAGO! My kind of town, Chicago is, my kind of town, Chicago is, my kind of razzmatazz, and it has all that jazz.

I had the opportunity to visit Chicago for a few days this past weekend and was amazed at how even after almost 8 years it all still felt so familiar. My son was born in Chicago and was thrilled to see where he entered the world. I was also able to meet up with an old friend which is always a treat. Other than the humidity and the rain and the storms it was a good time (although, I should say I don’t always dislike rain and storms.. they can be nice).

Living in Chicago was the only time (minus my time overseas) that I’ve ever actually lived in the city rather than in the suburbs. I took the ‘L’ to work every day. Imagine standing on that platform at 6 in the morning in the middle of the winter! I remember it well. I also remember the bar down the street with all the regulars (it was like Cheers!), and I remember that day on September 11th when we were all evacuated and sent home to plop down (I was 8 months pregnant so I plopped) on the couch and watch the news for the remainder of the day. I remember deep dish pizza, Devon street, and navy pier. I remember good times with friends and flautas.

I can’t say that I have a strong desire to move back there but Chicago is… a good city. It’s, as they say, a big city with the character of the Midwest.

I watched the movie Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire the other day. It was a good film, but difficult to watch in parts. I was disgusted, just as most mothers and decent human beings would be, with the mother’s behavior. At the end of the movie when she talked about when and how the sexual abuse of Precious started, I thought wow… how could a human being feel so low and so empty and so unloved and so unloveable that they would be willing to let someone abuse their child just so they can feel what they hope or imagine is something like love?

Course, this movie, as far as I know, was not based on a true story (although my sister’s SWEARS it was and that she saw Precious interviewed on Oprah before she died of AIDS). But, there are people out there, I am sure, who are actually this depraved. Children are abused all the time by the people who are supposed to love them. And there are people out there who are so desperate for love that they’d do just about anything to have it… or something resembling it.

I knew a woman when I lived overseas who admitted to me after being friends for about a year that she had 3 young children in the United States. She left them with their father to move to this new country with her new husband and agreed not to ever tell any of their new friends that the children existed. I asked if their father, at least, was a good man, a good father and she said, while tears poured down her face, that no, he was a terrible father, he was a jerk.

She had 3 more children with her new husband to help her forget about the other ones. When I asked her what, exactly, motivated her to do this… she said that she couldn’t bear to lose the love of her new husband, and that she would do anything, including leaving her 3 year old, and her two other children with “a jerk”, in order to keep that love… because, she said, she’s never felt loved before.

Well, I’m not exactly an expert on love (the romantic kind anyway), but I can’t imagine love would require you to, not only abandon your children, but to deny their existence as well. I’m not sure that even resembles love all that much.