Chickie
I have a cousin named Chickie.
Don’t judge.
When you have Irish and Italian families, everyone is named Mary or Maria and at some point, to disambiguate, you need to get funky with the names.
Anyhoo, I spent a lot of years really mad at Chickie.
Like almost 20.
I spent almost 20 years angry with a woman who was part of my closest family circle. A woman who held me when I was born and who watched me grow. I intentionally distanced myself, and even acted like a dismissive jerk, and man was I righteous about it.
She totally deserved it.
She did. Well, um…
“Because she was so judgy, and her views were so narrow. It was as if she thought there was only one right way to do things. And I got a pretty clear message that my way was not the right way.”
At least that’s what I thought when I was 28 years-old, pregnant, and, having recently been through a break-up, very single.
I was scared and fucking fiercely protective of the baby I carried.
The chip on my shoulder about being criticized for anything was growing, along with my belly.
And then, at my baby shower – my freaking baby shower – Chickie utters the ultimate mean comment I was certain I would never forgive her for:
“It is good to see you. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”
“What the fuck Chickie?!! No one died.”
“I am here in my cute little maternity dress with a little person kicking me from the inside out. I am a fucking miracle!”
“I am making a human and all you can say is you wish for a different reality than the one I have? A married reality? A sweet house in the suburbs reality?”
“This is the only reality I have Chickie!”
“How dare you hate on me and my unborn child??! What kind of a monster are you?”
Oh yeah, I told her off big time.
Right inside my head.
In reality, I think I smiled and pretended I needed to pee.
But man, was I fuming. Like, that one comment embodied all the judgment I regularly felt on the daily. That one comment was everything I knew everyone was thinking when they looked at me. That I was too wild and unsettled to have a baby. That I had no idea what I was doing. That I really wished I had a partner in this and that I was scared. Everyone looked at me with sympathy in their eyes because I was pathetic and alone.
Whoosh. That is a lot to carry around when you are trying to create new cells to form a humanoid.
I think it is clear to everyone, even to me at this point, that the only one who thought all those things when they looked at me…
was me.
I was pregnant and moving forward with brute force and determination, but everyone around me was just so… married.
It wasn’t really Chickie who thought there was only one way to do things.
It was me.
I had the baggage of feeling like my single status made me less than the people around me lucky enough to partner in two-adult families. I didn’t need anyone to put new baggage on me, I put it on myself and pretended it Chickie did it. I was particularly sensitive about it because it was my baby shower, and my sisters and mom were going through this big effort to celebrate and was I really worth it?
Was this baby still valid enough to have a shower if I remained uncoupled?
So, yes, I threw Chickie under the bus to protect my own deep insecurities and then completely failed to connect with her for 20 years.
Not feeling super good about that, kids.
Not my best self. Not even close.
…
Cut to almost 20 years later and I am still bitching about that one comment at that one baby shower and my sister says:
“You know, I don’t think Chickie meant that like you thought she meant it.”
Uh oh.
I looked at my sister… as the tiniest crack started to form across my previously rock-solid Chickie belief system.
Immediately defensive, I started to say: “You have no idea – you weren’t there!”
But I knew better.
My sister was right.
I didn’t give the conversation with Chickie a chance to play out. Chances of miscommunication were high. At the shower I had escaped in silent rage, and allowed it to fester.
For twenty fucking years.
Fuuuuuuck.
I summoned the courage to ask my sister with a cracked voice: “What do you mean?”
“I think Chickie was just saying she felt sorry about your recent break up, that the break up was difficult timing.”
Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
She right.
She soooo right.
There are few times in life when you have a moment in full clarity about what a complete and total, self absorbed, bitter douchenozzle you may have been.
That was me.
I was the douchenozzle.
So, I guess I feel lucky for that moment.
But also, it is the worst. Really the worst.
…
So, update:
I am much less of a douchenozzle these days.
I now know that what others think only matters if I want it to.
The baby in my belly has grown up to be a fine young man.
And I sincerely apologized to Chickie.
We cool.
But honestly, if someone says something that hurts your feelings, or doesn’t seem right to you in the moment, or maybe just feels like something unresolved – for the love of all that is good in this world – ask about it.
And if you didn’t in the moment, make it a point to in the future.
Because telling yourself a negative story about someone without ever consulting that person is the motherfucking bullshit.
It is hard, but do it.
Twenty years of a peaceful & beautiful relationship may depend on it.
