Phases
A four-staged approach to life.
Stage One: Mess Ups
In moments of panic and imminent catastrophe, the seconds between realizing something is wrong and enduring the consequences move painstakingly slowly. Your mind knows it before your body reacts. Then you’re catapulted.
I was just shy of seventeen when I failed my first driving test and cried in front of the instructor. The next day, I stomped back to DMV, didn’t roll through the stop sign, and traded in my permit. That December, I was cocky and convinced myself that my tires could handle snowy roads, but as I looped around a corner on the way home, a minivan spun towards me without signs of stopping. For seconds, time froze. I could not drive up on the curb — I did not think to drive up the curb — and the minivan was spinning! — fuck, it’s going to hit me — and was I supposed to sit up straight? — and where was my seatbelt even? — and did I have my seat belt on? — and am I going to die? —
$8000 worth of damage and some mild whiplash later, I was so jostled that when I tried to hang up with the LZPD, I asked for permission to call my mom and cried when she picked me up.
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Every Barbie doll I ever owned was never good enough, so I treated them all to haircuts (free of charge!) over my luxurious toilet seat. I could never cut evenly, and their hair became shorter and shorter, and then they were hairless. Eventually, all I owned were bald Barbies, and then I wanted more because what eight year old wants bald Barbies?
We left Toys-R-Us with a My Scene It girl — the second-best Barbie — and at the intersection of Long Grove Road and Route 12, Grandma pulled into the right turn lane. In the backseat, I was preoccupied and figured we were on our way to Denny’s, but when we drove right past it, I knew something was wrong. Was I confused? “Grandma, home is this way, not that way.” She hushed me. I insisted. She resisted. Back and forth bantering led to screaming led to crying, and she eventually turned around. When we passed that same intersection going the right direction, she stuttered — embarrassed — “I… I just got confused.”
Stage Two: Growth
I knew it was inevitable. But in this moment, it was entirely unexpected. In the middle of my usual goodnight, my mom interrupted me: “I just have to ask. Are you having sex?” First I laughed — that sort of awkward, undeniable half-laugh that escapes you only when you’re desperately wanting to flee and have no other readily available reaction. Then I squinted and scoffed, “Seriously?” but I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t once an overly curious third-grader who marched into her room and demanded to know what sex really was (and I learned it was as horrifying — and awkward — as any kid would think).
My non-answer, in my what do you think eye eye roll, was enough, and I retreated to my room. After she spent my entire childhood trying to convince me that she waited until marriage, at least I hinted at the truth.
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It was 4 pm, and my grandmother still hadn’t answered the phone. My mom, frantically scattering old receipts and loose change from her purse, couldn’t find the keys to her apartment: “We have to go check on her — something’s up.” I was twelve — nowhere close to being able to drive — and I so desperately wanted was to take the steering wheel and plant it on passenger side so we’d stop speeding so fast. When we got there, a neighbor leaving the complex let me in the main entrance, and I sprinted to her floor, banged against the door and pressed my ear against it. I heard the t.v.!
“Open up, Grandma! It’s me!”
Nothing. I tried again and again and again.
Minutes later, four men in thick Bunker gear retreated from their elaborate red throne and broke down her apartment door. Grandma, leaning against the wall of soup cans and pasta boxes that broke her fall, had been trapped in the closet for four hours with a broken hip. The doctors said she’d need surgery and a steel bolt and lots of bed rest.
I didn’t expect her to grow old that fast.
Stage Three: Loss
The radiator hums for the first time this season. Why in the world do we still have radiators? It is October, and I still leave my bedroom windows open. But so does the girl whose apartment is across mine and I hear her every time she sings to Fleetwood Mac. I am on the phone with my dad who, despite reassuring me that he would have this afternoon free, cancels. I silently chip at my nail polish — old habits die hard — and eventually add — “Well it’ll be nice to see you soon for my birthday.” He stammers, “Yeah, well — we’ll see.” I pull the phone from my ear: We’ve been talking for a grand total of 2 minutes and 36 seconds (a long conversation for us) and after a few seconds of silence, I mumble, “ok,” and hang up before he can skillfully craft another “How about another time?” I have never spent a birthday with my dad.
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The same afternoon, I talk myself into going. But I don’t want to visit her if she won’t recognize me.
In April, I walked into her dining hall to see her staring blankly at chicken nuggets and apple sauce. When I tapped her shoulder, she looked up at me with that same blank expression, assuming I was her nurse. I sighed, forced the lousiest of smiles, and mumbled, “No Lee, I’m not your nurse” as an impending shitstorm of uncontrollable tears welled up. I sprinted to the hallway so she wouldn’t see me sobbing: I mean, I wouldn’t blame her questioning why a nurse she’d just met started sobbing after she said hey.
Today, I ask for her room and a nurse points me around the corner to the end of the hallway. When I turn, I see her at the end of the corridor, and she looks up, sees me, and beams: “My baby! My baby is here!” We reach our hands out towards each other, and I clasp hers so tightly in hopes that she’ll remember me just for this hour.
I spend the next hour sobbing as I sit at the foot of her bed. I want to ask her everything and anything because in this moment, she knows the answers. There is so much wisdom I crave. I don’t even know what I want to know. But I don’t know my questions. When I start thinking, I start sobbing, and she reaches for my hand: “My baby, why are you crying?” and I can’t think of a better way to say, “Because you’re old.”
“But that’s life.”
Stage Four: Circles
In third grade, I wrote a story about chickens and cows that was published in the Young Authors Contest.
In fifth grade for Mrs. Littel’s Halloween party, we had to select a Halloween-themed poem to read aloud, but I wrote my own.
As a senior in college, cyclical doubt plagues me, convincing me that my words lack substance.
In third grade, my mom and grandma watched me accept my writing award as my dad stepped outside to smoke a cigarette.
In fifth grade, my grandma was the first person to listen to my draft.
In my third year of college, my grandma repeats the same questions five times over, asking me if I have a boyfriend, when I’ll get married, and “why don’t you wear a little bit of lipstick?”
In the many of life’s unexpected expectations and disappointments, in the midst of my growth and through the journey of my grandmother’s aging, I find myself circling back to her, even when we both lose sight of ourselves.
