When we got in the car today, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was playing on the radio. When I was in second grade she bought me the coolest 80s tape player there was and one single tape- Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. I played that jam over and over. I don’t recall her ever telling me to stop or that it was annoying. She just let me go to town in my room dancing around like I was in an MTV video and pretending I was “so unusual.” I also have very sweet memories of my mom and all her sisters dancing together to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun at cousin weddings. My kids know I can’t sing the lines “I wanna be the one to walk in the sun” or “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me” without crying. I sing them anyway, loudly, in tears.
And as if that song wasn’t enough, the song right after was Tom Petty’s American Girl. Another solid hit that makes me think of my mom. I listened to this song a lot when I first traveled abroad. “Well she was an American girl. Raised on promises. She couldn’t help thinkin’ that there was a little more to life. Somewhere else. After all, it was a great big world.”
Do people make grief playlists? I feel like I need something like that.
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We have so many great photos of Barb. All of these great photos are action shots- she’s doing art, playing with kids, hiking a trail. Most of her posed shots are less than great. Her eyes are half closed and she would say she looks terrible. She was not made to model. She hated her teeth and frequently told me when I was young and had a cracked front tooth that she promised to fix it for me and that I would have a smile like a model. I did get it fixed and I like my smile. It doesn’t look like hers but I know my TMJ issues are absolutely inherited (temporomandibular jaw joint disorder). I’ve clenched my jaw unconsciously since I was a teen, mostly when I’m sleeping, concentrating deeply, angry or stressed. Barb did the same thing. We hold our stress the same way. Is it messed up that it gives me comfort knowing that this persistent and painful ailment connects me to her? Probably. I don’t care. I like having things about me that are like her. (except NO cancer please. Cancer can go to hell and never come back.)
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I didn’t see myself in my mom growing up. I was very girlie and she was not. I was musically inclined and good at performing. She was not. I loved swimming. She did not. Physically we didn’t really look alike either. But we are both cancers. Our birthdays are a week apart and summertime is definitely our season. Whenever I read about cancers I think about how our core is very much alike:
“Cancers exist in both emotional and material realms. Cancers can effortlessly pick up the energies in a room and are highly sensitive to their environments. Cancers tend to be domestically oriented. They love to create cozy, safe spaces that serve as their personal sanctuaries, then spend lots of time in them. Cancers care deeply about their families and are quick to adopt caregiver roles. Cancers attract friends and lovers through their loyalty, commitment, and emotional depth. They make excellent hosts and enjoy entertaining with comfort food and free-flowing libations. They avoid direct conflict by walking at an angle, they can inflict a harsh pinch with their distinctive brand of passive-aggressiveness.”
Isn’t that so Barb? Well, that’s me too.
I hope you’ll take a moment to have some free-flowing libations and raise a glass to Barb on her birthday. I am so thankful for everything she passed on to me- the intentional and the inherited.
Be Like Barb 