It wasn’t the single-family happy to go out for a fancy
expensive Sunday brunch after church pancakes and mimosas and Bloody Marys with
an entire fried chicken as a garnish you remember from the popular TV shows and
social media.
It was a diner in a bad neighborhood that smelled like
greasy fried potatoes topped with chili and tomatoes, melted American cheese,
both crispy bacon AND ham. It was sitting close together in booths while other
people waited for a table and tired waitresses on their fourth double shift in
a week in the middle of the night after you’d been out to a smoky dance club
and you just needed that fat and carbs. It was laughing and thinking of how
tired you’d be in the morning at work but not caring because you were young. It
was a waitress who called you "hun" and frowned when you put in your
order. But who you tipped well anyway.
It was the middle of a Florida military tourist town chock
full of fifties-era beat up brick ranch houses in our run-down rental area and
it was needing a better landlord but not getting one. It was no central air
conditioner. It was sand fleas next door and a kitten that disappeared in the
middle of the day, probably stolen by a neighbor. Neighbors who stomped around
their upper floor aggressively.
It was a neighborhood of old Victorian houses gentrified and
wealthy right down the street from one of the most poverty stricken ones in
town. It was a landlord who tried to bully you at every chance he got, who lied
to get the police to come into your apartment when you weren't there.
It was potholed and tall pine tree lined streets, not like
the towns I saw on TV where everyone had a dad and a weekend family dinner
table with some kind of nice meal and family talking about their days, sharing
happy memories, family with a mom AND a dad, sisters AND brothers, and people
genuinely caring about the question “how was your day?”
It meant walking for hours with a sister in the middle of
the night because we didn't have a car. It meant doing all those things
together that we never did again, surviving the unspeakable. Until that day
when one of us didn't survive it.
And I'll be damned if I don't miss it in some ways. And
would never want it back again in others.
It was truly complicated.
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