It's easy to allow the mind to wander while spending hours researching government agencies for an internship that I'm not taking that seriously right now. It's another thing to open this tiny window in the very corner of my screen and begin pouring my thoughts into it but what the hell. I'm already slacking anyway.
Lately, I've been alot less self-centered and I have actually been giving some thought on how I'm perceived by others rather than taking the stance that I really don't give a shit. I've come to one solid conclusion and that is- I seem to confuse people.
This is understandable. The entirety of my existance is rather confusing. I came into this world because of a stream of seemingly random events.
Go back a couple of decades to when my grandmother was my grandfather's secretary and you'll see what I mean. My grandmother, German, and my grandfather, Italian, had quite a few wild nights together. She lied to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company about being on birth control and the consequence of that decision was my father. My grandmother incorrectly assumed that my grandfather would leave his wife for her. She proceeded to spend the rest her life blaming my grandfather's decision on my father and punishing him accordingly. Somewhere between the determination (from the German relatives) and the intellectual capacity to succeed (from the Italian CEO) is the explanation of why he wound up in the Marine Corps where he met my mother.
My mother was conceived much further south where the rednecks play. My grandfather, French, married my grandmother, Question Mark. Their first born was a child that would grow up to be my strange Aunt that sends me sparkly pink crocheted creations for Christmas, and their second born is my mother. The older one failed out her first year of college which cost my mother her tuition because my grandmother refused to pay after the first heartbreak. My mother decided that regardless of what she did, she absolutely HAD to leave home because she couldn't stand the thought of spending her entire life standing still the way so many of her friends did. She couldn't afford college so she opted for the Marines.
My father claims that he knew he was going to marry my mother from the moment he laid eyes on her but I don't believe him. I think it's far more likely that he fell for her later on as he started to gain an understanding of her warm and loving nature. They met in a taxi on the way to a pawn shop near base. My mom was planning on selling her watch, and my dad tagged along with a friend that knew my mother. As corny stories go, my father fought to get the most money out of the watch for my mother. She was easily impressed by my father with the New York accent and the badass persona. "He reminded me of the Karate Kid" she would later tell me, her eldest daughter.
My father purchased an engagement ring at the pawn shop that day when my mother wasn't looking. He surprised her with it a few months later one night when they were out at a bar and every guy there had their eyes on her. "I wasn't letting her get away," he explained while stuffing his face with a massive burrito one day.
They got married shortly afterwards and then they had me. I was the baby with colic that caused massive amount of stress for new parents. Unlike my siblings, I was there for all of their beginning struggles. I remember the times when we couldn't afford clothes, couldn't afford the big house, and had to opt for daycare because both of my parents needed to work to support a family.
So sure, I'm German, Italian, French, Question Mark but more than that I'm the representation of my family's history. I'm the comedic relief to put all of our idiotic fuck-ups into perspective. I'm the person my younger siblings look towards when their wondering what to make of all this confusion. My answer has always been to just laugh.
Just laugh when the grandfather that's never been there decides to be a part of our lives because the son he never acknowledged before went on to make something of himself. Just laugh when my redneck grandmother tries to depart wisdom on us. Just laugh when you open that hideous homemade gift from our Aunt on Christmas morning. Stop thinking. Just laugh.
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