Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault

by Cathy Guisewite

  I finally get through the crowd to where she’s standing.

  I stop to catch my breath, so grateful to see her. All my love and longing, my pride and admiration, my eagerness to have a relaxed, happy visit this time . . . It all wells up, ready to pour out. I put my hands on her shoulders to pull her close.

  I listen, in sick disbelief, to the first words I say:

  “Did you brush your hair today, honey?”

  She stops smiling and glares. “MOM.”

  Incredibly, I continue. “It kind of looks like you just got out of bed.” Every single thing is working in my brain except the off switch.

  She takes a step back, leaving my loving hands poised in the air holding shoulders that aren’t there anymore. Says flatly, “I like my hair.”

  “But it’s kind of tangly and wadded up,” I say, using my midair hands to gesture toward her mop. I’m watching myself as if in an out-of-body experience, doing exactly what I wasn’t going to do. I hear myself make it even worse, if possible, by lifting my voice to a high, happy range so my words will sound light and loving and she won’t interpret my criticism as criticism. “Why not just pull your hair up in a ponytail?” I singsong. “I have a brush in my purse if you want to—”

  “You. Are. So. OCD.” She cuts me off, scowling, and digs more deeply in to her side of the invisible line that just got redrawn between us.

  “I was OCD enough to spend $145 on a salon appointment and special shampoo for you before you returned to school last time!” I scowl back. “Is it too much to ask you to spend five minutes brushing your hair before you leave the house?”

  “Five minutes? It does not take five minutes to brush hair, Mother!”

  Her luggage hasn’t even landed on the baggage carousel and we’ve already arrived home. Right back in our magical mom-daughter dungeon, where the deepest love on earth can instantly transform into a nit-picking free-for-all.

  She pulls her phone out of her back pocket to get far, far away while she stands right next to me. I watch her disappear into her world and stop to catch my breath again.

  I fell in love with her long before she was born. I had been pregnant for forty-one years with the dream of her the day I first touched the tummy of her birth mother, who was eight months pregnant with the reality of her. One day before, I’d been quietly filing something in my office when a phone call knocked me to my knees.

  “A birth mother came in today who’d like to meet you.”

  “What?” I choked back. I was single and terrified. I’d only signed up with an adoption facilitator a couple of months earlier and was still wrestling with whether I could or should really do this on my own.

  Suddenly there I was, twenty-four hours later, with my hand touching the rest of my life through the shirt of an equally scared, unbelievably trusting stranger. In one day I’d gone from the dream of having a daughter “someday” to being half of a miraculous meeting of two moms—one who was bringing a little girl into the world; one who would take her through it.

  I would say it isn’t possible to describe the bond that grew between my daughter’s birth mother and me in the four weeks that followed, except it felt to me, and I’m pretty sure to her too, that our bond was deep and immediate the minute we met. I will never be able to comprehend the selflessness of her love that made it possible for her to seek a life for her child she knew she couldn’t provide. I can still hardly breathe when I think of the faith she put in me to be the mom she couldn’t be. I drove my daughter’s birth mother to the hospital when she went into labor. The admitting nurse asked if we were sisters. So much more than that, I’ve thought a million times since that night. We are so very much more than that.

  I held her birth mother’s hand while our daughter was being born. I fed the baby that suddenly belonged to both of us tiny bottles in the hospital nursery day and night until she was ready to come home. I made sure our daughter and her birth mother had time alone together in the hospital, and that the three of us had a little time together, too. Then I drove our daughter home by myself, just the two of us. I was so overwhelmed by the impossibly complicated emotion of driving her away from her birth mother, the incomprehensible joy and responsibility of becoming her life mother, that I couldn’t stand to have anyone else in the car. I was on my own and thousands of miles away from any family. My daughter and I locked around each other deeply and completely, and have been each other’s world ever since.

  I look at her now, engrossed in her iPhone with the two thousand Facebook friends she’d rather be with than me. I would do anything for my child. I would crawl across the earth on my hands and knees to help her. I would die for her. I would give her anything—my food, my blankets, my bed, my air, my home, my life. She is my life. I would do anything for her.

  Anything, it turns out, except keep my mouth shut.

  “Pull your shoulders back, honey. You’re all slumpy.” I’ve lost all ability to screen outgoing messages. I continue . . .

  “Pull your tank top up! The world doesn’t need to see your underwear. Suck your stomach in! You look . . .”

  Her head whips up from her phone. “What? Fat? I look FAT??”

  “No! Just . . . suck your stomach in!”

  I’ve not only ruined our reunion, but probably the rest of the day.

  Still, I keep going . . .

  “Don’t chew on your nail! The airport’s full of germs. Don’t leave your purse unzipped! You could get robbed. Don’t wipe your nose with your hand! Use a tissue.”

  I’m scanning her like a one-woman Homeland Security squad now. Scanning in reverse for all the unacceptable things she’s brought off the flight with her, seeing every possible infraction with my X-ray mom eyes. Her jeans are too ripped, her flip-flops are too flip-floppy, her sweat shirt’s dragging on the ground, disorganized papers are sticking out of her purse. And now, after months of my desperately missing her, she’s texting someone instead of talking to me.

  “Don’t text someone instead of talking to me!”

  “Duh . . . I was just letting my boyfriend know I got in okay.”

  “Don’t say ‘Duh’!”

  “God, Mom.”

  “Don’t say ‘God’!”

  “JEEZ.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

  She doesn’t have anything in her mouth. I’m simply on auto-attack. Too much is pent up, too little has sunken in. Also, I’m angry with myself for not instilling all the things I wanted to instill when I had some power over her. I had nineteen years to create a meticulously groomed, perfectly organized, impeccably mannered young woman, and I’m staring at . . . well, a nineteen-year-old. I’m angry with myself for ruining our reunion. Angry that I do this every single time I see her, even though every single time I see her, I promise I won’t do it again. Do I have any choice but to stand here and attack?

  Another big breath. Yes, it turns out. Yes, I do.

  From the deep reservoir of maternal instincts, I manage to pull out the one concept guaranteed to create new life from the rubble of this moment. I think of the one thing I could say that promises to take this bad day and parlay it into something else.

  Something much, much worse:

  “Let’s stop and get something to eat on the way home.”

  Ta-da.

  I will take this highly combustible mother-daughter moment and throw the highly combustible issue of food on top of it. Under the guise of “comfort” I’ll toss thousands of calories and carbohydrates and two hundred years of rejected rules of etiquette on top of the drama I’ve already created in our first five minutes together. I will go for explosion.

  “Don’t take such big bites!”

  “Put down the fork while you chew!”

  “Napkin goes on your lap!”

  “No more rolls!!”

  “Sit up straight!”

 
“That dressing just added five hundred calories to your salad!”

  “Dessert? Really?? You think you need dessert?”

  “Elbows off the table!”

  “NO TEXTING WHILE WE’RE EATING!!!”

  Attack Mom Smorgasbord. All she can eat, all I can critique.

  We’re not quite there yet, however. We’re still standing in baggage claim, still waiting for suitcase number one. I look away from the restaurant scene I’m imagining in my head long enough to look at my daughter, who’s apparently looked away from the screen on her iPhone long enough to read my mind.

  “Um . . . Maybe I should just Uber home next time instead of having you pick me up, Mom.”

  I, having just destroyed our reunion and our day, and having thought of an event that could wipe out the rest of our visit, smile at my beautiful girl and answer as only a loving mom can:

  “Don’t be silly, sweetie,” I say. “It might not be safe.”

  6.

  THE DAY I OUTGREW ALL MY SHOES

  No warning, no slow dissolve, no preparation whatsoever. In the middle of the night, the unthinkable happened:

  My feet outgrew all my shoes.

  I went to bed a size 7. Woke up a size 8.

  Went to bed Cinderella. Woke up Drizella, the big-footed stepsister.

  The one and only part of my body I could count on to not get bigger—grew. The only things in my closet that fit perfectly no matter what—don’t.

  My feet are too big for them all.

  I’m still reeling from the morning I woke up to the news. And it was supposed to be such a beautiful weekend . . .

  Saturday, 9:00 a.m.

  “We’re leaving for the gym in three minutes!” I call to my daughter as I run down the hall. “I just have to put on my shoes!”

  A sleepy groan comes from behind her door: “Mo-o-o-m . . .”

  “NO GROANING!” I cut her off. “You’ve been blobbing on the couch watching TV this whole visit home! Come on! I’m just getting some shoes!”

  “Why did you make me get up so early if you’re not even dressed yet?” she grumbles.

  “I’m just putting my shoes on!” I proclaim, shoving my foot into a workout shoe. “One sec!”

  The shoe doesn’t go on. It’s too tight.

  I loosen the laces, stick my hand inside to check for obstacles. Shake it out. Retry. Still too tight.

  I grab a pair of comfy non-workout sneakers. Too tight.

  I pull off my socks and try my happy run-around espadrilles. Too tight.

  “How long does it take to put on a pair of shoes?!” she yells.

  “CAN’T YOU GO BLOB ON THE COUCH AND WATCH TV LIKE A NORMAL TEENAGER??” I yell back, much more frustrated by the two great big new problems in front of me than I am by her.

  I hear her little victory whoop as her rear lands on the couch. The TV clicks on.

  The parenting books say a good mother always includes the child in challenging times so she can be a role model of how to cope with adversity. How true, I think.

  I run to my bedroom door, yank it shut, and lock it.

  I’m not a good mother. I’m a mother with big feet. There will be no modeling of roles in this happy house today. I march back to my closet. I reach in and cautiously lift one of my happiest go-everywhere, do-anything little slip-ons off the shoe shelf. I lower it to the floor and ever so gently slip it on and . . .

  I stare down at the cold, barefooted truth.

  It’s too tight.

  Saturday, 9:06 a.m.

  I start ripping shoes off the shelf.

  My feet are too big for the stunning red patent leather Valentine’s Night pumps that I never actually had a chance to wear on Valentine’s Night, but still could someday!

  Too big for the sparkly New Year’s Eve stilettos upon which I so hopefully perched.

  Too big for the gladiator sandals that helped me march away from three stupid relationships.

  Too big for the peep-toe wedges that strutted me right back into the arms of someone even worse!

  Drizella gone mad. I squeeze my eyes shut. Momentary solace in blackness. I open them. BROAD DAYLIGHT DISASTER IN BLACKNESS! My feet are too big for all my beloved black shoes! Black flats . . . Black boots . . . NOT THE BLACK HEELS!

  Yes! Too big for all eight pairs of virtually identical, yet completely unique, beloved black heels! Each one just distinct enough to make a totally different statement. Eight dialects of Black Shoe Speak, the language of Black Shoe Land—the minuscule inflection of heel height and strap placement and sole thickness . . . the meaning-specific amount of toe reveal . . . the precise degree of pointiness . . . The language handed down generation to generation, modified season to season . . . The complex subtleties of a thousand tongueless tongues that send a million powerful messages to the men who will never have any idea that anything’s being said!

  All that. All over. Every single pair too small for my giant Drizella size 8 boats.

  Saturday, 9:17 a.m.

  I pull a big open box from the back of the closet and hug it to me. A tear plops down on the magnificent all-weather fleece-lined riding boots inside the box, which never saw a stirrup, a horse, a barn, or a raindrop. I wipe it off. A flicker of pride that the tear didn’t leave a salt or water mark since I spent $12.99 on a can of All Weather Leather & Suede Protector when I bought the boots, even though I had no intention of ever letting them touch the ground if it was wet or dirty out.

  I stare at what’s left in the closet. Grief stares back. My happy shoe shelves, now a footwear cemetery. All the other things in the closet that are too small—even the miniature jeans, even the insane plum-colored stretch-velvet holiday tube skirt—they all could be given new life with a little two-to-five-year commitment to the gym. Outgrown shoes are just dead. Shoes that don’t fit anymore are never, ever going to fit again.

  How poignant, suddenly, that so many are in funeral black.

  “What are you doing in there??” My daughter rattles the locked doorknob.

  Drizella on turbocharge. I speed-crawl to the bedroom door, lunge at the lock above the doorknob, and turn it. Click!

  “Did you just do the dead bolt, Mom??”

  “GO BACK TO YOUR FROOT LOOPS AND TV!”

  “What are you doing??”

  Well, she doesn’t need to know, does she? Also, she doesn’t need to see the spectacle of what could appear to be complete hypocrisy: feminist mom kissing her hooker heels goodbye. I’ve spent almost two decades lecturing my daughter on how a person’s value has nothing to do with what she wears. I don’t have the energy to explain it’s only because I’m a fully realized, triumphantly whole woman—who does not buy into the superficiality of footwear—that I can be so sad about . . .

  “Mom?”

  “GO AWAY. I DON’T NEED OR WANT MOTHER-DAUGHTER TIME RIGHT NOW!”

  I hear her stomp off.

  I crawl back to the shoe cemetery, pull out my phone, autodial my mother, and dump the whole morning on her.

  “Oh, yes,” Mom says with a knowing chuckle, “I remember when my feet suddenly got too big for all my shoes.”

  “What?” I say. “This happened to you?”

  “I went to bed a size 7, woke up a size 8. It happens to all of us! I thought you knew!”

  “How would I know that, Mom??”

  “I thought they’d have a film or something about it in school.”

  I say goodbye to my mother and shake my head at her generation’s trust in the public school system to teach girls the facts of life with cheerful films.

  Saturday, 9:25 a.m.

  I silently recommit to a life of open, loving heart-to-heart disclosure with my daughter—the one I’ve dead-bolted out of the room. I flash back to our first beautiful, emotionally honest facts-of-life session.

  It was nine years
ago. “You look all weird, Mom,” my preteen daughter said.

  I was sitting on my bed. My bedside table was preloaded with supplies: a single long-stemmed red rose, a stack of liberated-librarian-recommended Change of Life books, a box of tissues, a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream, two spoons, and a DVD of The Sound of Music.

  I patted the bed next to me. My daughter sat. “Yes, well—” I choked while ceremoniously laying the rose across her lap.

  “OUCH!” she yelped after grabbing it and getting stabbed by a thorn.

  “This is a special evening . . . ” I continued as she wrapped her injured finger in one of my conveniently located tissues, “and I want to share some special books with you.”

  Anticipating how emotional the ceremony might get, I had previewed all the books, highlighted some passages, and stuck colorful sticky notes on the many pages that had illustrations I wanted to thoughtfully explain. I lifted the stack of books tied together with a pretty pink ribbon and placed it between us. “The pink ribbon is for the childhood you’ll soon be leaving behind, and the red rose is for the woman you’ll soon become,” I began.

  My daughter skipped right over the symbolism and stared at the sticky notes sticking out from all sides of each book.

  “Seriously, Mom?” She looked at me with totally-over-it preteen eyes. “Another one of your sticky-note talks?”

  I lovingly ignored her lack of gratitude, untied the pink ribbon, put my arm around her shoulder, and bravely read The “What’s Happening to My Body?” Book for Girls aloud.

  “I want you to know you can ask me anything, honey,” I said, closing the book, fighting back tears. “Anything. Do you have any questions right now?”

  There was a long silence. And then . . . “Why all the books, Mom?” she asked. “They had a film about all this in school. Can I go watch TV now?”