Unfortunately, I cared about being cool. Calvin Klein and Doc Martens swaggered their denims and waffle-shaped soles across the maroon-and-yellow-speckled floors of my high school, and I drooled. I studied the Rogers sisters, the home football games at Pete Pool, searching for clues. Wear your hair in a side part. Go to the tanning salon, then talk about the tanning salon. Book an appointment at Gene Juarez for blonde highlights.
Also unfortunate was not having an older sibling—someone a year or two ahead who could hand down intel like sacred scrolls. Without that insider knowledge, I had to fake it. Pretend I knew things I didn’t. Having sex was cool. Having no sex was not cool. Having too much sex was also not cool.
I’m not sure why my mind wandered back here—to the endlessly shifting rules, the desperate desire to please, to be pleasing. However much I liked myself, however much I thought I “knew who I was,” it was hard. Often impossible.
Stepping into the cedar-scented greenhouse next door at my sister-in-law’s—the eight sliding, black-trimmed windows on each side, the fan that whirs on when the inside reaches a certain temperature, and the four eight-foot-long tables with shelves below—got my juices flowing. I wanted something big too. Within the hour, I was researching telescopes in the thousands.
I don’t want to see Saturn blurry; I want to see it like it’s the moon, with all of its moons.
I hate talking about money and how much things cost. Seated cross-legged in the middle of the yard, picking acorns and dropping them into a five-gallon bucket, Evelyn sat nearby, dragging a stick through the dirt. She asked me how much money we had. I told her, and she said, “That’s a lot.” I agreed, then thought about being five—when a thousand dollars might as well have been a billion.
But anyway, I told her not to talk about it with other people. Then struggled to tell her why. Something about how we all have different amounts, and that it’s okay, but it’s only something we talk about in our family. And then, right there in the dirt, I wondered—am I a bad mom?
That question—am I a bad mom, or how can I do better—meets me around every corner. But I’ll just do what I do. And that’ll be enough.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 