truth – My Time to Bloom

We haven’t had rain in what seems like an eternity, but of course this past weekend, when my husband was smoking ribs and grilling chicken for dinner with the kids, we suddenly had torrential downpours that snuffed out the grill and forced him to move the cooking to the kitchen, amid much vigorous cursing. As soon as the oven was fired up to finish dinner, the rain stopped, and the sun peeked back out, like it was laughing.

Despite the weather’s contrariness, dinner turned out great, and we had a lot of fun. There was so much going on, I couldn’t even keep up: multiple stories being told at the same time, impromptu wrestling in the kitchen (always with my husband in the middle of it), and a lot of laughing, all while keeping an eye on our 3-year-old grandson and trying to convince my cat to at least let the boy look at him (he wasn’t going for it yet).

After dinner, one of the kids was holding our grandson to look at photographs on our mantel. One of the pictures is a framed photo of my mother, in her 70s, with short, white hair and glasses. Our grandson scanned the pictures, stopped at the one of my mother, and said, “Gigi”, the name he calls Psycho.

At first, everyone chuckled, because of course there is no photograph of Psycho on our mantel. One of the kids said, “No, not Gigi,” then corrected him and tried to pretend he was looking at a photo of one of my stepdaughters instead. He glanced at that picture, way at the other end of the mantel, turned back to the photo of my mother, and repeated insistently, “Gigi.”

I bit my tongue. Truth be told, it was kind of sad. To him, he was just innocently looking at some pictures, saw a photo of an older woman wearing glasses, and thought it was his other grandmother. He wasn’t being insulting, simply honest.

Because the truth is, Psycho does look considerably older than she actually is. Everyone ages, sure, but some things speed the process up considerably. Bitterness. Frowning. Jealousy. Always, perpetually, eternally pissy. How can being miserable 24/7 not take its toll?

Time will eventually leave its stamp on all of us. There’s no escaping that, and it’s just a part of life. But when happiness and love shine in your eyes and heart, it will show on your face. It makes a difference. And when bitterness and hate seep through instead, it’s far more than aging. It’s decay, withering, spoiling like garbage.

We can’t stop the hands of time. But we can control what we feed on the inside, what is held in our hearts, what ends up revealing itself on the outside, even to an innocent and very honest 3-year-old.

I wonder: if someone could time-travel and approach Psycho when she was still young, and describe to her how she would be in her mid-50s, what steps would she take to avoid the atomic fumbles that led to such a monstrous downward spiral?

Let’s take an inventory. As of today, Psycho:

Was sacked from her last menial job.
Has been sued by multiple credit card companies for not paying her bills.
Has a suspended driver’s license.
Now “works” where she is outranked by her son’s teenaged girlfriend and is esteemed just slightly above the rubbish can.
Was out-adulted by all four children the instant they first paid their own bill or handled any basic task on their own.
Owns nothing of any worth in her own name.
Still squats in a run-down shack paid for by her stepmother, who just wanted her lazy, freeloading ass out of her house.
Has an ex-stepson who describes her as a “raggedy ho”, among other affectionate epithets.
Has no hobbies or interests beyond writing bad checks, stealing license plates, robbing her own children, posing for mug shots, and opening credit cards under other people’s names.
Has been twice married and twice divorced. Disastrously.
Has not landed a viable relationship in years, no matter how many saggy tit pics she sends to equally desperate men online.
Accuses every man who comes within 100 feet of her of beating her and raping her.
Is hopelessly infatuated with her first ex-husband and his current wife, who have a relationship she can only dreamily admire from a stalking distance.
Resembles a geriatric shar pai with far more skin corrugations than common sense, usefulness, or stable relationship options.
Looks at least 10 years older than she is, and getting worse each day, like a rotting pumpkin in Florida heat.
Is, in a nutshell, horrifically yet satisfyingly pathetic. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving or more homely bitch.

I suspect that, even faced with such an unpalatable future, Psycho would simply continue marching on the exact same path, making the exact same cataclysmic choices. Her insufferable ego would not allow her to accept truth back then any more than she does now. Improving herself is not even on the table. Why bother, when she can simply lie outlandishly about everything, throw raging tantrums if someone refuses to swallow her fairy tales, and pout if Daddy doesn’t bail her out when she inevitably fucks up again?

The saddest part to me is her obstinate refusal to make any attempt, of any kind, to elevate herself. Lack of growth, evolution, or progress is far worse than stagnation– it is demise. It’s unnatural. Life, at heart, consists of change and learning and adapting. Rooting herself in the same bitter, sour spot, year after year, dry-rotting in place, has entombed her in her own toxic futility and musty worthlessness.

If Psycho can be anything positive, then let it be an example and a warning to us: to move on, to learn, to be self-aware, to commit to self-improvement and truth. Because one thing she has demonstrated, beyond any doubt, is that jealously fixating on the lives of others will siphon the meaning, joy, and growth out of your own, until you are left with no life at all.

But don’t worry, Psycho. Just keep on lying. Keep shamelessly riding the coattails of the kids’ accomplishments because you don’t have any of your own. Keep editing your pictures into comedic, ridiculous oblivion. Keep hijacking the kids’ accounts to pore over my Facebook page and fantasize your way into a life you can never have. Keep slobbering over me online, every single day, because we both know why you are infatuated with me. Keep on failing like it’s your job. Keep pretending your entire hick town isn’t laughing at you. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing for decades.

Delusion is all you have left, so cling like hell to it. I mean, at this point, your life surely can’t get much more pitiful…can it?