Lisick - Everybody into the Pool

A few months ago, I was at my parents house having dinner, and my mom was talking about someone she recently met. I felt just awful for him, she said, dipping her knife into the I Cant Believe Its Not Butter. Hes the first person Ive ever met in my life who was actually emotionally scarred by his childhood. I tried really hard not to laugh, but did anyway because I can be a jerk sometimes. Whats so funny? she said, looking around the table at everybody, slightly bewildered. There was no reaction from my dad who, still in Phase I of the South Beach Diet, was busy searching underneath his skinless chicken breast for a carb. When my mom saw how my older brother Chris fake-coughed and grinned into his lap, she knew something was up. What? she pleaded. Im not getting the joke. She then looked to Paul, my oldest brother, who is oblivious in most social situations and hadnt heard a word shed said.

I searched for a gentle way of breaking the news to her: Mom, practically everybody is traumatized by their childhoods. I felt guilty for springing this on her and corrupting her innocence, but I couldnt help myself. I was experiencing a wave of that same juvenile instinct I had in the early nineties, when I felt compelled to tell her which of her favorite celebrities were gay. Then she got a panicky look on her face, carefully set down her fork with a cherry tomato still speared on it, and said with so much sincerity it nearly broke my heart, Honey, were you traumatized by your childhood?

Now, the archetype of the emotionally charged familial dinner is one all of us know well. This question would normally mark the trigger point where the kid blows up and unleashes a laundry list of past trespasses, flying off the handle about Lake Tahoe 1978 or Repressed Body Memories, or I never wanted to play the flute you wanted to play the flute, Dad! Or else the kid summons up steely resolve and says quietly, No, Mother, of course not. I was perfectly happy. And then everybody eats the rest of their meal in a silence that would best be described by a foley artist as independent film, suburban ennui dinner table silence. However, neither of these things happened that night because I lucked out.

I think I was raised in what used to be referred to as a normal family back before everybody discovered that most normal families were messed up. We didnt have a dark side. (But for the record, I am a huge fan of anything involving screwed-up, suburban people popping pills and unintenionally harming others with their self-absorption.) I went to church every Sunday, had happily married parents, and walked down the street to my public school. I was an honor student, a track star, and a homecoming princess. It seemed as if I was on my way to becoming a highly functioning member of society or at least someone who wouldnt end up living the way I did. Im talking about the illegal warehouse spaces, the ten-year lapse without seeing a doctor or dentist, driving cars held together by Bondo, crashing on floors across the United States and Europe while touring with my poetry. Now, at age thirty-five, my yearly income hovers right near the poverty line.

The weird thing is that Im pretty sure it was my normal upbringing that did this to me, but not because I was ever rebelling, slumming, or trying to escape the Stepford-pod people. I loved my normal upbringing. I just think the fact that I had a stable childhood was precisely what let me stray pretty far away from it without ever landing in therapy, rehab, or jail or having an identity crisis, eating disorder, drug problem, or prescription for antidepressants. I inherited my parents sensible, traditional approach to living, which kept me grounded when their Midwestern openmindedness and acceptance got me into a lot of nontraditional situations.

So the stories in this book are about turning out too weird to fit into the mainstream world, the one I came from, but being too normal for the fringe world I found later. I drive a station wagon, just like my mom did, but I live on a block that has two drug dealers wholike neighbors shouldknow me by name. I like to bake, I make my own chicken stock, and I have slept on the same ratty pillow for twelve years. Im married, but I dont wear a ring. My wedding ceremony was performed by my gay father-in-law whos married to my lesbian mother-in-law who lives with her female lover. I still hold the long jump record at my high school. I toured with Lollapalooza in exchange for a few sandwiches. Ive never borrowed a dime from my parents. I dont have any tattoos. My husbands middle name is Hamburger Hot Dog. The material possession I most desire is a dishwasher. I still perform for beer sometimes. When Im alone, I sometimes shout, Okay, people and porpoises! for no reason. One of my favorite things in the world is toast. I never made out with my girlfriends, but I once had strap-on sex with a lady construction worker named Trouble. Im not a cat person, a dog person, or even a baby person, but Im a parent.

So thats me. Probably not too different from you, except with varying haircuts or health care providers or food allergies. I think all of us feel normal and yet not normal. When its so easy to think of yourself as a big mess in this world, it helps to convince yourself that at least youre a well-adjusted one.