Laughs and Lobotomies

Until I was 5 my mother stayed at home.

I wanted to be a mother then.

She didn’t play with me much – I don’t really remember her playing with me at all.

I remember her taking me to her friend’s house, whose daughter was my age, and we played.

But I don’t remember my mother ever playing with me.

My father did – he would tuck me in, he used to sing “my girl” by the temptations.  I used to ride on his shoulders and see the whole world.  I’d wake my parents up before dawn and my father was the one to awaken.

I remember jumping in puddles on the beach as the sun rose before it had been combed.

While it was just me and my father.

It is a beautiful memory.

But still, I wanted to be like my mother.

When we moved back and my mother started working I wanted to work when I grew up.

No longer did I want children.

She told me she stayed with my father twice because she was pregnant with me, then my brother.  She told me 2 years before she filed for divorce that she wanted one.

I was less than 10 years old.

Still, I wanted to be my mother.

I blamed myself for her unhappiness.

She could have kept rowing had I not been born.

I rowed, I went to the same university as my mother.

I wanted to conquer the world.

At 13 she gave me a bracelet.  It said “Kelsey” and “Love, Mom”.

I think she thought I’d pawn it.

But I still have it.

I just wish its words were true.