remember, she's not your mom. carry on!

Since April

April Promised $7k/mo

May Delivered $5k wo notice 

June Delivered $2k wo notice

July Delivered $1600 wo notice 

August 15th $1000

Max out the cards on rent and utilities

default

No credit for 7 years.

Sound familiar?  She tried it on dad, his first year in The States.

April, I begin to look for new places.  The deadly mistake I made was saying I don't need her or her husband to cosign.  I ask for proof of income.

End of June, asks if I want to renew, yes

Mid July - Steph says no lease renewal bc of mess; I know of zero inspection since Oct; Steph says she knows nothing of inspection.

End of July, I approach management, seeking constructive criticism bc I tried really hard and thought I was successful.  I am informed by management, Steph said she is not renewing the lease bc I must move home.

End of July, proof of income provided

Aug 15 - inflammation is kicking my butt.  Last time I took Advil everyday, I ended up in the hospital.  Difference is, this time, all of the emails calling me crazy and dumb and crazy, all of the f.o.g., no longer darts to the heart.  This individual is not my mother, she is an employee.  She needs me living at the house, bc she wants to move and blame it on me.

This is how homeless happens.  I can't be defined to my options.

P.S. saved browser passwords (Chrome, Firefox) are not encrypted.  Anyone who has access to your email has access to each password for each account on each site.

Saturday Mornings at Ponderosa

One of my favorite memories is when I got to go out Saturday AM, with Jen and Steph.  I had never been to a restaurant.  I had been to a few banquets but that was hours long, buffet, open bar, tables so large, several kids fell asleep beneath one table - not at all like table-service in the morning 

I didn't know we order drinks first.  I tried to order a plain hamburger when Jen interrupted me and said to the server, "we'll both have a hot chocolate with whipped cream".

When they arrived, I thought they were ice cream sundaes.  Jen said she wanted more, so the waitress squirted whipped cream so high, right there at the table.  I had never seen a sundae irl, I had never seen whipped cream before.

I still love it when she requests whipped cream on her virgin strawberry daiquiri.  Each time Jen orders, Steph gives her a look of, "better be careful with all that dairy".

context not excuses

When I reveal my my Shakespearean origin story, it’s not to pass blame or punish through shame. Two things you should know up front:

1. I will never punish anyone for anything. This is a problem, but not one I care to fix.

2. They’re my parents. At the end of the day, no one loves me more than they do - and I can’t love anything more than I love them. You should have seen my occlusion, posture, and strong feet when I lived with my mom.

Here’s the truth: my parents’ culture could have easily committed infanticide. They let me live. They fed me. They housed me. Not because it was easy, but because they’re softies - the kind who still dream and hope and wish and believe in the unknown. If I had an autistic kid, completely deaf in one ear and halfway to legally blind by age five, I’d do a better job at inclusion and accommodation. But I also have no social capital at risk.

My autism has decreed that shame is a scourge.  It's not bc I haven't lived much life, it's quantum thinking.  Shame warps natural selection, tilting it toward the sneaky. Not clever, not cunning - sneaky. The kind of people who’ve already decided they’re destined for the middle, and that their only way forward is by staying two steps hidden. I’ll participate in shame after someone teaches me how to avoid it and I choose it anyway - because I want shame. Until then? Pass.

And here’s the hinge - my parents’ big life change started with about three drunken seconds. That’s it. Three seconds that shame then stretched into a lifelong, life-rearranging saga for six very important stupid-beautiful adults and their teenaged kids with plans of their own.

Immigration? Straight-up hellish. Designed to traumatize. America greets immigrants with fear and hostility when those who emigrate are the most hippy dippy, starry-eyed dreamers.  Employers sell the American Dream — rugged, resilient, rebellious — but the arrival is a slap: designated scabby kung fu geisha, eyeing the dulcet Audrey Hepburn. Imagine the whiplash.

American legacy maxes out at four generations. I hate moving after two years; I resent having to learn a new grocery store. The soft-handed Ahns had lived in the same golmok for four thousand years before landing in 1984 New York. Try raising a fussy baby in that.

can I wake up now?

My life isn't real. It's one of those life lesson dreams.  In my real life, I'm the stepmom, and I'm horrific, afraid of a 3yo for staring at me when I crash out.

I promise I've learned my lesson.  I'll be a good stepmom. Please, enough of this.  I'll give her back!  I promise, when I wake up I'll detox the child of sugar and send her back to her real mother.

Please no more.

why are you here? go away.

I'm sorry I didn't get the hint.  You were patient, tactful, kind.  The more you frowned, furrowed, persed, ignored - the more I stayed.  I see how you could believe me rude and disrespectful.

I'd received that look always, since birth.  When i started school and teachers smiled with soft eyes bc I walk into a room, I came home and asked Steph what their faces meant, bc she made me repeat for hours "no one loves me like my mother".   Steph said they were making fun of me for being fat and weird.

When I saw Bok once a year, I thought my aunt was making fun of me for being fat and weird. 

Every giant party I was forced to attend in scratchy clothes around touchy strangers, when I found Dad's face he turned perpendicular to me. If I shifted into his view, he interrupted his own conversation to roll his eyes and gesture to have one of my cousins take me on a drive until I fell asleep.

My point of reference was fucked.  Now, I've got flip books and posters I stare at on the toilet.

I'm very sorry.