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My grandmother had two children.  Sturdy Scandinavian daughters who produced a gaggle of offspring, which may or may not be surprising, considering the unhappy states of their respective marriages.  Each year my brothers and sisters and I would gather around my mother as she opened the hand-made Christmas card from her sister.  Those cards flaunted her limitless supplies of creative genius, and were usually filled with newspaper clippings of all the great accomplishments her children had made.  My aunt certainly could spin a tale, and how proud she was of her children.  When we visited our grandparents, we would hear all about these fine people and their accomplishments.  So and so is a national champion.  So and so is a fine actor, with all the leading roles.  So and so is the youngest all star ever to grace the state of Texas.  Did you know that so and so did this and that and that   Isn’t that just wonderful   And that one.  Isn’t she just beautiful   Obviously, Grandma was quite proud of those children.  How amazing and wonderful and wanted they were.  They could do no wrong.  They were the golden ones.  Not at all like the ragamuffin bunch of uncontrollable barbarians that we were.  We could do no right.  Grandma had to take valium when we came to visit.

We lived in a shambles of a home up to our ears in layers of laundry, dirty dishes, cats, dirt, more cats, and all manner of sundry items that one can find scattered about when one tries to keep eleven uncontrollable people under one small roof.  Their home was so much nicer than ours.  Clean.  Tidy.  Everything about them was superior to us.   

Granted, we were a wild tribe.  Strong souls, so defiant, trying to stake our claim in this world.  Wanting to matter.  Wanting to belong.  Wanting to be wanted.  

There were nine of us to their five.  Sometimes we felt as though they were the golden ones, literally, with their blonde locks and doe eyes.  There we were in our half-blood splendor. Dark hair, dark Korean eyes, creamy peanut butter skin.  We were beautiful!  We were brilliant!  We had talents.  We had abilities.  Yet narry a positive word.  My mother, bless her exhausted and exasperated heart, is an entirely different bird than her sister.  She’d share her life’s experiences and events with her mother and sister.  The reality spin.  The broken down, beat down mother of nine trying to make ends meet spin.  The good things were taken for granted.  They were good, so there was no need to go on about them.  The bad things, though.  They were bad.  They needed to be aired.  So and so got fined for this or that.  The police showed up for that or this.  That one wrecked the neighbor’s truck.  This one broke that.  That one spent the night in the pokey.  This one’s dropped out of school.   

Some young people can see through these things to grasp the reality and the truth, but I wasn’t able to until I became an adult.  I’m slow that way.  We were surrounded by continual reinforcement that, yes, we were indeed a band of inferior unwanted savages.  It was a miserable time for us, for me and my beautiful brothers and sisters.

Parents should edify their children.  Protect them.  Nurture them.  Bolster them so that they grow strong.  Help them develop and hold on to that precious, yet ever-so-elusive quality of self-esteem.  Encourage them so they are prepared to go forth and make it in the world, when the time comes. 

I don’t know if my aunt did as much of that edifying and bolstering as it appeared to us.  After all, she really could spin a tale.  She probably had her share of flip out days where she’d scream hysterically at her untoward children for not behaving or being mischievous.  Those kids had plenty of problems that we didn’t hear about, I’m sure. 

Now we’re all adults.  Some of us are doing well.  Some are doing great.  Some are just okay.  Some struggle.  One couldn’t find his way.  I think the cousins are in similar straights, except they’ve not lost one of theirs.

I’m not really going anywhere with this.  It all started with an overheard comment about weight that sparked a string of thoughts and memories.  That cousin, the one who is my age, was always the beautiful one, and she never had a weight problem.  Today she still looks like a Barbie doll, and her mother comments that she looks like she’s in her twenties.  She’s a bikini-clad beach babe.  All that I’ve never been able to achieve in life.

Isn’t it crazy   I’m as professionally successful as I want to be.  I’ve done well for myself.  I’m secure and confident in my professional life.  I have so many capabilities and strengths, yet this one thing, this body image thing, manifests itself beyond all reasonable proportion and overshadows every other shred of goodness that there is about me.  It shouts FAILURE!  It screams REPULSIVE!  It stomps on me, kicks me while I’m down, and leaves me cowering and quivering.

I wrote my mom a letter recently, and explained my miscarriage to her.  I generally don’t share much, because she just doesn’t get me.  Or us.  Any of us.  But I was reaching out.  I sort of hoped that she’d write me back and say she was sorry for what I went through, offer a little sympathy.  Not a word, though.  It’s not her way.  She doesn’t know how to deal with unpleasant things.  She just looks the other way and hopes they go away.

Not much nurturing, and it brings to the forefront of my mind all those feelings of childhood, and not being wanted.  These aren’t feelings I care to revisit, yet they rear their ugly head every now and then.  A 40-something year old woman on the outside, and an insecure, overweight, unwanted child on the inside.