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Passing It On or By
The burden I carry is me. I've moved several times but I haven't lost a thing, not a thing, and no part gets left behind, not one part. I tend to be judgemental and I'm hardest on myself.
Well, I learned from the best. I never did anything right growing up. I splashed when I did the dishes. It was just water, but sloppy is sloppy. I tended to drop food on myself and had to take off my nice clean dress and eat in my slip at holiday parties with all my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins there.
My father's favorite things to criticize about me was that I was too loud and too slow. He was always yelling "Be quiet!" "Turn your volume down!" "Come on Molasses!"
I wasn't home much, always out with friends, hanging out in the park reading, or staying after school. I'd make it home for dinner, but if the weather was nice, I'd be late. My mother used to ask me if the house had an odor because I was never there. It's just that I wanted to be invisible but couldn't.
I never thought about being the same way, I didn't even see it coming.
My son and daughter, like I did, always got an ear-full about everything from cleaning their rooms to wearing the wrong clothes. "You should be working harder at school." " I don't like your friends."and the list went on and on. I barked orders all day long too, ones that all my neighbors could hear. Unlike my parents I was an "equal opportunity" screamer. My brothers kept their party clothes on and never had to do dishes. That was girls' work.
I'm old now, at least by my granddaughter's standards, and change would be nice. I recently moved to Arizona and now when I visit Chicago my son's house is "fine" not a" pig sty". My daughter's boyfriend is a "really nice kid", not "so short and obese". It's hard keeping my parent's voices from getting back in my head. Come to think of it neither side of grandparents were a picnic. Either way, Arizona is warm and sunny.




© Jodi A