This Will Only Hurt a Little(11)

Okay. I guess? But maybe I don’t? Because I’ve been jokingly told since I was a child that I wasn’t the smart one.

My aunt is an artist, and part of the rift between them, at least as far as my mom was concerned, came down to that very thing. Now I am going to tell you something that should not shock you: My mother wanted to be an actress. IT’S TRUE, GUYS. She was the star of the theater department at Oak Park High and after school was accepted to the Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York. But her parents didn’t think it was wise for her to go. So, instead, she went to college in the same town she grew up in, majored in English, married my dad, and eventually became a Realtor. Her sister, on the other hand, wanted to be a visual artist and ended up going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which for some reason was fine with my grandparents. I don’t think I can overstate the importance of this imbalance to my mother.

Now look, of course we can say, “Well, fuck it, Barb, why didn’t you tell your parents where to put it and go to New York and follow your damn dream? Or do theater in Chicago? Or any number of things!”

But she didn’t. It was a different time. My mom graduated high school in 1961, which was basically still the ’50s. And I think that kids—especially “good” Catholic daughters—from that era kind of just did what their parents told them to do, no questions asked.

So when my sister and I came along, we were always encouraged to be and do whatever we wanted. But the irony isn’t lost on me that even though Leigh Ann and I were both very involved in theater, I was the only one who pursued it.

I look at my own girls now and it seems so clear to me. Birdie is my older daughter. Full of her own anxieties, she is constantly pushing, pushing, pushing to be smarter, funnier, better. Our little one, Cricket, just exists. I don’t know if maybe parents are in so over their heads with their first children that they project all this stuff onto them. I always thought a good book would be How to Raise Your Second Child First. Of course, I have no idea how one would actually do that.

I remember my mother saying to me once, “You know, Biz, I think you’re here to help me heal my relationship with my own sister.” Which for years I thought was really narcissistic. But weirdly, when Birdie was born, I kind of understood.

When I was in my early twenties, my sister wrote me a letter apologizing for our childhood and how she had treated me. I had very little interest in her at that point, to be honest. She wasn’t there for my teen years, which were really painful, and she was an asshole to me when we were kids. I had no idea what kind of relationship we were supposed to have as adults. And here was this letter and my feeling was, Okay. Whatever. It’s fine.

But then the strangest thing happened. I had Birdie. My sister was in L.A. at the time, living on the west side, working for a production company (which, truthfully, she should have stayed at, ’cause I think she’d be running it by now). She’d been living in L.A. for about a year at this point, and we would see each other every few weeks and honestly, I always looked at meeting up with her as a chore, like I HAVE to invite my sister to that, right??

She showed up at the hospital while I was in labor and sat in the waiting room for seven hours waiting for Birdie to be born. I didn’t want her in the delivery room with me. I remember I was actually annoyed at the time that she had come.

“Why is she even here?” I asked Marc. “Why did she leave work?”

“Because, babe,” he said, “I think she’s excited and wants to be supportive of you.”

She brought Birdie a baby blanket—she had found one identical to the one she’d brought for me when I was born. And she cried when she saw Birdie. Then, for those next few months, those long new-baby months where I was a mess, she would drive an hour three times a week—most days after working a full day at her assistant job—to come see Birdie and sing to her and hold her and love her. And it cracked me open. Leigh Ann’s love for my daughter, who reminds me so much of my sister every day, allowed me to really love her too.

I cried for weeks when I found out I was pregnant with another girl.

“I can’t do it, Marc. Birdie is Leigh Ann and now we’re gonna have a me and I’m just gonna do the same shit my parents did and it’s the same thing over and over and over and I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can,” he said patiently. “Birdie isn’t Leigh Ann. This baby isn’t you. You’re not your mom. Or your aunt or your grandmother. You’re you. And I’m me. I promise.”

The truth is, Birdie is very similar to my sister. She is smart and funny and weird and creative and so sweet to her little sister. She also has the rage. And if we’re being honest, Cricket is so much of me. But Marc is right. We’re not my parents.

I called my mom the other night, sobbing because Birdie tore everything off her bed, including her mattress and box springs, and was screaming at me and I couldn’t get her under control. She was hitting me and throwing things at me and I went into my bathroom and sat on the floor and cried and cried and cried. I told my mom that I didn’t know how to help her.

“What am I going to do?” I sobbed.

“You’re going to breathe, honey. And then go hug her. And you’re going to do better than we did.”





LIVE THROUGH THIS


(Hole)