Not Just Heavy Stuff

Hi Ma,

I feel like because you're dead, and because I didn't talk to you for so long, that now that I am, it has to be all big and important things. But all the big important things happened in 2001, in September. Maybe not all on the 11th, but that week. And I feel like you know those. You know Nana died from the grief. Did you know she told us she was going to? I feel like you know the fire department is still keeping their word, that we'd always have a family with them. We do. Once a week Dani and Alex and I go to one of their houses for dinner. They rotate us, like joint custody within a fire department or something. They rotate who gets us birthday and Christmas presents. I feel like you know they give us each money for school supplies every September.

I have small little things to tell you though. If you were alive, you'd know them. I'd tell you late at night after I was supposed to be in bed, interrupting your me-time of watching a Lifetime movie or something. You used to get so angry at me for interrupting. You said that time was sacred, and you needed time without hearing little girl voices before going to bed. But you always let me stay on the couch with you, and I'd lay with my head in your lap so you could play with my hair and we'd talk in the commercials.

I taught Alex to do a back handspring and a front tuck. Now all three of us can do them. It looks really cool. I got a pair of Chucks. Remember my friend Serena who you always said was such a nice girl? Serena turned into a slut. Now everyone calls her Sleasena. I am reading the book Running With Scissors right now. It's good, and after I finish it I want to see the movie. Since you died, I've started liking chicken. I learned how to use a George Foreman Grill, and taught Dani too. I might make Honor Roll this quarter. A boy named Hector brought me a bouquet of lollipops tied with a ribbon last week. He stuck his hands in the front pockets of my jeans and pulled me close and I said thank you for the suckers and then kissed him. It was the first time I kissed a boy with a tongue ring, and I felt it through my whole body. It was the first time I moved in to kiss first. I'll let you know what happens with him.

Love,
Me