To illustrate a point (and just in case you think that I think that I’m made of solid gold), here are ten things I’ve done in the past 24.5 years that I’m really not proud of.
1. When I was six or so, I threw my only public tantrum in a Macy’s in New Jersey, because I was desperate for their Christmas Snoopy. The problem was, my mother had already bought it for me and put it under the tree, so she had to say no. I sat down and cried. My mother, as I recall, used the “start to walk away” tactic, which worked suprisingly well.
2. Every couple of years, we got a new dog. Every couple of years later, the dog passed away. Every time we got a NEW one for me, the deal was I’d take care of it. I’d feed it, I’d wash it, I’d walk it, I’d be its owner. And every time, my parents found themselves taking care of a dog because all I ever wanted to do with it was play. I now know that my parents aren’t even really dog people, and they only got them time after time because I loved dogs so much.
3. My brother Luiz, to my memory, has shown displeasure with me exactly one time in the history of ever. I must have been about 10 or 12, during one of our summer visits, and I was bugging him to take me to McDonald’s on our way to something important. He turned and said, “CHRISTINA. Stop it. We’ll go later.” He doesn’t even remember it, that’s how tiny the moment was. And the only reason it sticks in MY memory is because that was it. Just that once. If that doesn’t deserve sainthood, I don’t know what does.
4. In the eighth grade, I lost my english textbook. Later that day, I found another one underneath a lunch table, so, knowing that Mrs. Lacy was going to check books that afternoon, I took it and wrote both my and her names on the front inside cover. That was construed as forgery. I was sentenced to two days in In-House Detention (CDC, they called it in Texas) among the common class-skipping dope-smoking car-scratching criminals of my middle school. I was terrified when my dad found out from the principal. He reacted with surprising cool and even took me a long soul-searching walk along the bayou, trying to figure out why I’d done it instead of just telling them I’d lost the book and asking for the money for a replacement. My only explanation was that I didn’t want to get in trouble, which seemed ironic in retrospect.
5. My main chores, when we lived in the US, were to clean the surface of the pool, feed and pick up after the dog, keep my room clean, and empty the dishwasher. I complained incessantly about every single one of these tasks, and could frequently be found hiding in my room reading a book instead of doing them. I don’t know how my parents put up with me as a teenager, actually. All I ever did was flirt with boys, read, and complain.
6. My parents were constantly bargaining with me for the good grades they knew me capable of. One weekend at the boy-crazed age of sixteen, I was under our family’s version of “academic probation”… I would only be allowed to see my boyfriend if my math teacher signed a note saying I’d done well that week. So on Friday, knowing that Mr. Wilson would do no such thing, my friend Marnix forged the note. On the following MONDAY morning, my mother handed me the note over breakfast, correctly pointing out that Marnix had forged that, and that while she’d let it slide for my free weekend because, “clearly you were SO desperate that you’d do something this obvious,” but that I’d have to tell my father all on my own and face the consequences. Faced with a trembling confession from his daughter, my dad went surprisingly light on me and told me not to lie again. Unfortunately, I’m sure I didn’t learn. Yet.
7. In college, I ran out of my semester’s allowance two months early, and had to ask for a loan. I paid it back with the money I earned from being a mother’s helper that summer, and I think it was the first instance of me actually paying BACK the money I had to ask for to cover yet another fiscal irresponsibility.
8. I got a speeding ticket in Virginia in 2000, and didn’t want to tell my parents because then I’d have to pay it and our insurance would go up. A year later, my father found the ticket shoved in the back of the Honda’s glove compartment. Boy, THAT was a fun conversation. Y’know, to match all the other phone calls that started with, “Krissa? We just got another Bronxville PARKING TICKET NOTICE IN THE MAIL.” Feigning innocence wasn’t even an option anymore.
9. While at a friend’s house in Providence, before my parents moved there, I found out I had a function to attend and needed a formal dress. I had about 200 bucks in cash on me for the entirety of my visit, on a Friday, and Mom told me to run to the mall, open a charge account, and buy something inexpensive. Well, after three hours of feeling ugly in absolutely everything I tried on, I found a chiffon black cocktail dress at Bebe that looked stunning. I didn’t even care about the 178 dollar price tag. I didn’t care that they didn’t have charge accounts. I was so desperate to not hate myself in the mirror anymore that I bought it. And it meant that my mother spent three hours on a Friday, frantically running around Houston, trying to get that huge sum of money back into my hands so that I wouldn’t be broke for the rest of the trip, on a dress she hadn’t approved and would NEVER have spent as much on for some stranger’s graduation. When I was stable enough to accept the criticism, she LIT INTO ME for that little stunt. The good news is, I got about three years’ worth of mileage out of that beautiful dress.
10. I maxed out a credit card by 2002 and when the collectors came around a full year later, I was ready to strike a payment deal with them for the full amount – just over a thousand dollars. My mother knew about it because they’d called Rhode Island looking for me, and when I crafted the deal, I consulted her, asking that she not tell Dad because “he’ll just get mad” and I knew I had to handle this myself. That evening, my father called and said, “I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” She’d told him, and he offered to pay it off and then take checks-in-advance from me, to be cashed every month on a specific day until the debt was paid. I humbly accepted, and just finished paying him off in September.
The interesting thing I’ve gathered by writing these stories down is, my parents were both incredibly patient and incredibly fair to me, no matter what I did, which was considerable. These are just the surface sins, the petty annoyances, the stories I can remember, the stories we all laugh about now. I also spent a large chunk of the past decade being snarky, snappy, unavailable, and ungrateful. But if you ask them, and even if you DON’T, I’m the greatest person in the history of civilization. I’m their baby, the apple of their eye, and I’m not even sure I deserve their love half the time. And that’s the thing about parents and love.
It’s often how much they love you at your absolute worst, at your absolute most mistaken, misjudged, misbehaved. How much they repeat the same valuable lessons over and over again, and how much they don’t go crazy when it takes you ten years to start exhibiting signs of having been listening.
The past few years, I think I’ve finally started to understand and appreciate the enormity of my family’s love for me. I’ve started thinking of the right way to give it back, starting thanking them for their help, started accepting my share of the chores, started to participate as an adult in my family. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can start making up for all the time I spent being stupid and making mistakes that broke their hearts and drove them nuts.
But the cool thing about family is, it’s not really about those things. The amazing thing about family is, they really mean it when they say “I love you no matter what.”
Even if the “what” in question is all the dogs, the speeding tickets, the laundry I never did, the dishwasher I never emptied, the phone calls I never returned and the chores I willfully ignored, the bounced checks and maxed-out cards, and who could forget the FORGERY?