There is a movement now to #Unmask #TearOffTheMasks. And why not? Why should anyone have to try to be what they aren't, just to feel acceptance?
“What happened?!” I say to my kids, alarmed. “There’s no dial tone. The phone’s dead!” The kids laugh. I switch the landline receiver to my good ear. It was my bad ear that was dead...
Jack was trying to smile around his face mask. A lawyer was introduced by a social worker. He rose and gave a speech on what to do with your assets in the event of your demise.
You could not miss the things that communication impairment takes away if you have never had them, and such was my way. My children would not blink twice if I danced with the family cat Sweet Pea or snipped fringe from our sofa set (named Giddy Moonbeam) to sew an elf...
You sent me to go with Betty to watch her square dances, and you brought me to PTA meetings with you and even became the lunch lady at my school. You did all you could to 'socialize' me, and it hasn't failed. I'm just differently made-up. But it's normal, for me”.
I probably wore my sweater all year, every day. Tiny buttons and feathery to the touch. I craved routine and structure, not informality and spontaneity. The sameness of the sweater kept me from disappearing completely.
I couldn't step on the floor where the grey swirls in the linoleum ended and turned to black. That was the bad territory. I’d probably get a disease and have to squeeze my fingers a hundred times then run outside till my breath came in hitches to erase the black and that wasn't a surefire cure...
Your serious, all-out desperate meltdowns leave you sleepy, red-faced, and even ashamed, but also you feel somehow better afterwards and you should not feel guilty about that. The meltdowns leave your mother weary and that is hard for you to see but know that she is weary faced because she cares...