My Mom's Job
Writing is thinking–my mother’s mantra. One I’ve found myself adopting throughout these years. I’ve adopted a lot from her. Including, but not limited to: a deep love for Lauryn Hill, a distaste for vulgarity for shock’s shake, an appreciation for baseball players’ asses, and being a writer.
But that idea: “writing is thinking,” is one I’ve found myself thinking about a lot lately, and as of right now, writing about.
I wasn’t always an over-thinker. I don’t believe. I have no real recollection of going over my thoughts obsessively, rolling my tongue over my teeth, as I think to myself “am I being weird?” As I so often do now.
Maybe because in elementary school, I was categorically, undeniably, weird.
I mean, Christ, I was a theater dork who idolized Rachel Berry. I didn’t believe in brushing my hair, and I thought spaghetti served with a cold glass of milk was fine dining.
And although I don’t remember the anxious ambling of my mind, I do remember living in a fantasy world.
I remember absolutely haranguing my friends to play pretend until the street lights turned on.
“I’ll be a mermaid, who’s being bullied at school because she has a secret superpower.”
Or:
“I’ll be a pop star, who stars on Broadway, but is also curing cancer.” (Um, ok #girlboss)
Once, I remember playing “movie,” with a friend, but instead of playing out the narrative of our film, I requested we started by miming the opening credits montage, performing mundane activities like folding laundry and throwing a football in our own version of slo-mo, eventually giving a plastered-on-smile to ‘camera.’
I wanted to be a Disney protege. Mostly because I truly believed I could perform Selena Gomez under the table.
Obviously, I’ve woken up from that dream. I mean, have you seen the Hulu original, “Only Murders in the Building?” Oh, it’s amazing, it’s her–she’s so cute–and those two funny, old guys? Steven Short and Martin Martin? I read a NYTimes article about it, I’ll send it to you.
Anyway, the point is, that I believed, deeply, that I was meant to be a prodigy. So much so, that a lot of the disordered behaviors that have turned me into a hand-wringer today, started as early as third grade.
I was destined to be an actress. So, in an effort to find my emotional depth, I’d sit on the floor of my family’s shared bathroom, and think about what I would say at my mother’s funeral.
“I will miss my mother for the rest of my life.” I’d murmur as I pulled off shreds of paint from the wall.
“Her favorite color was orange, her favorite team was the Mets. She loved animals and pistachio ice cream…” I found a dusty old headband below the sink, I’d thought I’d lost.
“But I know my mother wouldn’t want us to be sad…” A bang at the door, my brother, demanding to take a shower.
I had to be thin to be an actress. I started going on runs, and doing crunches in my bedroom at 12 because I thought my baby fat needed to be turned into a sexy six-pack.
I tried to write songs and novels, performing my acceptance speeches of prestigious awards to my stuffed animals.
Tearfully, clutching my 5th Grade “Advanced Reader” award to my chest, imagining it to be a Grammy, “Most of all, I’d like to thank my mother.”
I’d start to sob every time I said that.
I spent so much time “other-izing” myself from my peers.
I’d roll my eyes at their passion for sports, or scoff at their 7th Grade relationships, having decided that me spending hours in a community theater lobby, running lines with an 18 year old playing Danny Zuko, was a much worthier pursuit.
In hindsight, what a weirdo. Dua Lipa was right, sometimes bullying is deserved.
My mother was no help. She spent so much of her too-little time driving me to rehearsals, and dance classes. The precious dollars she made went right into vocal lessons and buying me every copy of every Shakespeare play, ever.
My mother helped me become weird.
Fun fact about the word “weird”: it’s derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “wyrd,” which was used in Shakespeare’s Macbeth to describe the Three Witches. In many texts, including the original script. The witches were known as the “wyrd,” or “wayward” sisters. Wyrd, meaning fortune telling, and “Wayward,” meaning odd or perverse. It’s believed that our modern “weird,” was derived from those two words being used interchangeably to describe the characters’ odd, indescribable attributes. Weird.
See, told you I was raised to be weird.
You have to understand, my Mother is the daughter of Irish immigrants. Like immigrant, immigrants. This isn’t white girl Jet being like “Oh yeah, my family came over from Italy, and then I’m 34% French and 2% Native Cherokee!”
No, my genetic pool is more likely made up of instances of Irish-accidental incest then it is the result of hush-hush colonialization.
Like, my family stayed in Ireland through the famine. Like, my great aunt just celebrated her 60th anniversary of being a nun at the Convent of Mallow, in County Cork, Ireland. Like, we cry every time we pass by Ellis Island when we’re on the Staten Island Ferry. Like, my Grandfather’s name was Seamus O’Corbain, and it was changed to James Corbett, because that shit was too aggressively Irish. Funnily enough, James Corbett was aggressively Irish, in that he was a violent drunk! (Great segue, Jet!)
Consequently, my Mother spent her childhood doing everything in her power to be out of her house. She signed up for every extracurricular, was part of every team, and the secretary of every club. (Being President would be too much responsibility, which she had no interest in.)
Her natural curiosity, and her exploration of many passions, made her a deep lover of dreams. She wanted to be a gymnast, an ice skater, a dancer, an actress, a lawyer, and finally, she settled on journalist. Inspired by her own upbringing, her heart was set on righting the world’s wrongs.
If you want a catalog of my mother’s career, and in general her many adventures, you’ll have to come back, because this will quickly become a memoir for her. She is my favorite subject.
That being said, her life’s experiences led her to be a fantastic mother to a misfit, with really big dreams.
A combination of the bullying I faced at school, and my mother’s fierce dedication to giving me every advantage in life possible, resulted in her becoming my best friend. Which only furthered the weirdo narrative.
If it’s not obvious yet, I don’t resent my mother. I absolutely idolize her. (I can hear her eyes roll now.)
But really, growing up, I’d spend the majority of my time lying on the floor of her home office, counting the loose threads on the carpet, or flipping through the pages of a book.
Just wanting to be near her. Sighing, because she was too busy to give me the entirety of her attention.
The sounds of her keyboard tapping away, eventually lulling me to sleep, usually stretched out in the sunny spot, atop the faded fainting couch.
I’d wake up to find her missing. Sleep stuck in my eye, and the pattern of the pillow plastered on my cheek.
My heart would skip in fear.
“Where had she gone?”
“When had the sun set?”
Quickly though, the sounds of cooking, and her singing along to The Chicks, would float into the air. Assuring me, she hadn’t disappeared into the night, as I was so afraid of.
I’d pad into the kitchen. Her back to me, as she washed vegetables in the sink. She’d swiftly turn around, theatrically stomping her foot, and fanning out her fingers, dripping wet jazz hands.
She’d gasp, “there she is!”
And envelope me in a big hug, as though I were returning from a long journey. And we’d sway a moment, lost in the music.
I’d breathe in the smell of her perfume, and laundry detergent, and cherish being able to press my face into her belly. I more than once had the trepidatious thought, “hold her tight now, before she’s gone.”
I was so afraid of her leaving me. As if having her as my mother was too good to be true.
She’s kept many voicemails from me throughout the years, where I’ve called her while she’s been out, just to check-in, just to hear her voice, just to make sure that the car wreck I saw on the news wasn’t her.
Fuck, maybe I always have been an overthinker.
And now I use that trait to write. To think through all the possible scenarios and twists and turns life could take. Almost so I can be prepared for any outcome.
I read my own writing with a clenched fist.
In every way imaginable other than being paid to do it regularly, I am a writer.
And, I hate it. I would much rather be anything else. I hate that in being a writer, I continue to otherize myself. Like Nick Carraway, I surround myself with beautiful, shiny people, who become the subjects of my writing.
I can only hope none of them will end up face down in a pool, as a result of their pining after Daisy Buchanan!
I hate that I make mythology out of my own, average life.
I hate that people think they can tell me secrets. (Hot Tip: I can’t keep ‘em.)
I hate that I lay awake at night. Much like my Mother. Did you know that insomnia is hereditary? ‘Keep a pen and paper next to the bed. Nothing escapes faster than a poem in the night.” (And your sanity.)
I hate that I will always make muses out of people. Writing imperfections perfect. Immortalizing people, despite not knowing if they wish for immortality.
And all this came to fruition despite my best efforts. For years, I asserted that I’d never be a writer. Sure, half of my college degree was writing-focused, but I wasn’t a writer.
I had definitely excelled in all my writing classes throughout school, but again, not a writer.
With every break-up and season change and major pain in my life, I found solace in a leather-bound notebook and bic pen, but I wasn’t a writer.
My mom was a writer. And I was not my mother. Following in footsteps was way too cliche for me.
Turns out cliches are cliche for a reason.
I don’t know what happened. But I woke up in the middle of the night on January 1st of this year, with a stomach ache, and to force myself to sleep, I wrote out an idea I had. And I’ve been writing every day since. I sort of fell into it.
And this is me forcing myself further down the rabbit hole.
And as I intend to start doing this more often, I guess, welcome. To this little corner of the internet that I’ll put my art on. Though part of me understands and despises that my writing is being immortalized through a line of 0s and 1s that will cease to exist when the apocalypse reaches its apex.
“So, don’t do it Jet! Why are you spending a solid two paragraphs complaining, you privileged schmuck!”
Ah, good point, Me, pretending to be the Reader!
Catastrophizing aside. I’m glad you’re reading this, whoever you may be. I love you for it.
Even if the You you are is my middle-school bully reading this ironically. (Feel free to poke fun! This is silly! And if it makes you happy to make fun of me, if that brings a smile onto your face, I genuinely want you to experience that. This isn’t sarcasm)
In summary, these ramblings: I love my mom. I love to live in a fantasy world. I love the people in my life. I love to write, despite hating it.
I’m 23 now, so I fear I’ve passed the wunderkind years. But I’m gonna live this life, I’m destined to live. And I’m going to like it, goddamn it! Or I will turn this car around!
Ok, thanks for reading this. I don’t believe in formal endings. Because life has no neat bows.
Except for the ones that my mom ties on Christmas gifts. Those bows are always neat.
