verb. To cheat in return. (OED)

My parents had an odd sense of parenting in a number of ways, but none more so than the utter randomness of their strictness.

Case in point: When I graduated from high school, I was three months from my eighteenth birthday. Although I had two full time jobs lined up for the summer and a place to stay with my best friend’s parents, who were cops, in order to make $1500 or so that I needed to augment my otherwise full scholarship to the college of my dreams, my parents decided that since I was still underage, I had to move with them. If I refused, they would report my friend’s parents for kidnapping or something. So, I went with them, didn’t make the $1500, and wasn’t able to go to my otherwise full scholarship dream school. Everything worked out OK in the end, but I already told that story.

Today’s story is about the randomness of their strictness (it’s actually about my experience in countercozing (countercozenness?), but the randomness is the prelude. After my junior year of high school, my parents moved from Oklahoma back to California and let me stay behind and live for the summer with a woman I barely knew from my job at Kentucky Fried Chicken in exchange for $150 a month in rent. I had enrolled in a concurrent high school/college program and was planning to take Chemistry at the local university (lecture and lab, 7am to noon, five days a week) for college credit. (I have no idea how, but I somehow got an A, even though my lab partner was my friend’s boyfriend, who I partied with almost every night, and could therefore barely drag myself into class). I also had a week-long trip to Washington DC scheduled for which I had been chosen to represent my state after numerous essays, speeches, and answering questions for panels of seriously looking people. Also, they ran my picture in the local newspaper.

Why did my parents make me move with them when I had graduated from high school and would only be a few hours away when they were content to let me stay behind in a different state a year earlier? It would drive a person crazy trying to find a reasonable explanation. My entire childhood was filled with contradictions such as this. They didn’t value a college education but perhaps having my picture in the paper convinced them my Washington trip was important? They didn’t really like my friend’s parents and had a misguided sense that Oklahomans were trustworthy sight unseen?

Reason really didn’t factor in much as a kid. My parents were strict mostly in the sense that once they said something, they stuck with it, no matter how idiotic it was.

But now to the story. I had a 1980 Mazda GLC hatchback (this was 1989). I had bought it at a local used car dealer, one of those places with signs that practically say “I will rip you off as much as I possibly can. Please come in!” When I bought it, the sales guy told me they had done an entire engine inspection and everything was great. As a 16 year old girl, even a smart one, I totally bought it. The line about the inspection and the car.

In August, after my Chemistry class had ended and I was back from representing my state in our nation’s capitol, my mom flew to Tulsa to drive to California with me in that old car. We didn’t even make it to Oklahoma City before the engine overheated, stranding us on the side of the road. We ended up getting towed in by a great guy who took a look and gave us the bad news: the engine block was cracked and likely had been for a long time. It didn’t cause me trouble since I mostly drove it in the winter, and I only drove it short distances in the summer. But there was no way I could drive it cross country in the summer. And fixing it would be more than I had paid for the car.

My naive and innocent heart was outraged. But the used car salesman told me the engine had completely checked out! Surely he didn’t lie to me! The mechanic smiled at my gullible youthfulness. And then we devised a plan. I called the used car salesman and used all of my girlish charm. My parents had left me all alone to fend for myself. I had to get to California and was too scared to drive all that way by myself, so I needed to sell my car so I could afford a plane ticket. Could he possibly buy the car back?

I could barely hear his reply, the condescension was so loud. Sure, he could buy the car back, but I understood that he couldn’t refund my money or anything. He could give me $800, less than half the price I’d pay less than a year before. Oh, I understood. He could barely contain his glee at his chance to sell the same car twice with little additional investment. I arranged a time to return the car with a sad voice. And then hung up as my mom, the tow truck driver, and I laughed and laughed at his agreement to buy a worthless car at any price.

Our sting went as follows: We towed the car back to Tulsa and parked two blocks from the car dealership. My mom stayed with the truck and I drove the car to the lot. The sales guy drove it around the corner to make sure I hadn’t burned through the clutch or anything during my short ownership stint. The car would drive just fine for a few blocks so all went well. He gave me the money. I walked away and met up with my cohorts and we drove on to the airport.

I still have fond memories of that tow truck driver. He completely went out of his way and beyond his job description to tow the car all that way. But he enjoyed countercozening with us.

Looking back, I see that most of my outrage came from my lack of experience with the world and not so much that I had been dealt great injustice. Sure, the sales guy lied about the engine checking out, but I was buying a cheap used car. And sure, I cheated him back by selling him a knowingly defective car, smug in the deception because had he really checked out the car like he said, he would have already known about the cracked engine block. But did I really cause him any pain or did he just resell the car to another gullible high school student at a tidy profit? I can only hope the car overheated at the next test drive, but that’s just how I like to imagine it, not how it likely went.

But even so. Every time I see one of those heist movies where the good guys make a plan to swindle the bad guys in retaliation for some bad guy thing (sometimes, the good guys are actually likeable bad guys, played by characters such as George Clooney, so it’s OK that they’re not strictly speaking “good” guys), I can say, yep, I’ve done that. And it’s every bit as satisfying as you imagine.

“I don’t know if you’ll like what I got you for Christmas. Not knowing your tastes or anything.”

(Translation: I’m your mother and yet you never tell me ANYTHING.)

My mom has an interesting sense of privacy. Which is to say she has no sense of privacy at all. She’s come over to my house, poked around, and then wandered over to me with my paper journal in her hand to say she can’t read some of my writing so can I tell her what this or that word is. When my sister first moved out, some of her mail still ended up at my mom’s, who would open every last piece and read through it, ostensibly in the name of “helping”. “No really, mom,” my sister would say. “Just put it all in an envelope, UNOPENED, and send it to me.” But that made no sense to my mother whatsoever. And she just ignores what she doesn’t agree with.

When I went to counseling during my divorce, she was perplexed. Why do you need to pay to see a counselor when you could just talk to me? she asked.

My sister recently ordered some sexy lingerie online. “Just in case!” she told me. I told her that was wise. When you encounter a moment when sexy lingerie would come in handy, it kills the mood a bit to say, hey, so sexy lingerie sounds awesome. Let me just order some and we can wait a few days for it to get here. I’ll get back to you.

My mom was in the car when my sister stopped at the post office to pick the package up. “Ooh, a package. Who’s it from? Open it!” My sister declined. My mom badgered her all the way home and left pouting. Because clearly it was her God-given right as a human on this earth to see absolutely every parcel of mail she chose.

You might try to see things from my mom’s point of view. She’s only trying to take an interest in her daughters’ lives. She’s interested in knowing more about them and how they’re doing. If you thought this, you’d be wrong.

My mom’s compelling need to know everything about everyone comes from her starring role in the movie of Life, supporting cast: everyone else. Everything, everywhere, has to be all about her. Otherwise, why would it exist? Movie storylines don’t have subplots that are irrelevant to the main character.

But as with all good movies, you don’t want to get bogged down in the details of the supporting characters. Case in point:

“I always brag about my daughters. Everyone always asks how you’re doing and what you’re doing now. I really have no idea what you’re doing, so I just tell them to Google you.”

(I am, in fact, very Googleable.)

This comment is a two-for-one special. She gets to play the part of the proud and loving mother, while at the same time the slighted and shut out one.

I ask if she has Googled me, since she has no idea about me and clearly thinks this is a good way to learn more. No, she has not. I point out that as it turns out, in a twist even better than reading the internet, I am standing right here and could fill her in on what it is I’m doing now. She laughs and changes the subject. No need to introduce a lull in the movie with details like that.

She has mastered the art of listening. And by that, of course, I mean she pays just enough attention to the conversation to find an opening to talk about herself. We were out at dinner and I mentioned that one of my cats had cancer, had just had surgery, and was about to start chemotherapy. Her response?

“Well, my cats don’t seem to be sick at all. I don’t ever bring them to the vet of course since I don’t have any money, but….”

And then she went on with story after story about her three healthy cats. While working in her surely sympathy-inducing lack of money. This, her reaction to my sick cat.

“You’ve always had thick legs.”

This is a favorite topic with her. I’m so used to it, I barely even notice. My sister was apalled.

“I can’t believe you just called her fat.”

“I didn’t say she was fat. I said she was muscular.”

My muscular or perhaps thick legs and I just drank more wine.

We all have pictures in our minds of who we want to be. And some days I’m just not that person. Some days I’m sad and useless and I have nothing creative or witty or interesting or smart to say. I don’t know how to feel so I feel helpless and lonely even though I could call a million friends and go a million places. I just feel lonely in the world. I’m that person I don’t want to be.

I wrote once that I try not to believe in hope. I write all the time about how I’ve built my life around focusing on the steps I’m taking and not where I’m going. I find refuge in that. I find freedom and joy and my moments are worth something. But there’s a flipside. You can say, I am going to take a step, any step, no matter where it takes me, no matter the destination. The steps are what counts. But then it can’t also be that the destination counts. You have to choose. And there are moments, there will always be moments when all we want is to know that we will get past them. And if we could focus on the destination, on the place we will one day be, then we can get through these moments now.

But.

You can’t have it both ways. There’s a choice, then, in that kind of life. I can’t focus on the destination; I’m focusing on the moments. And the question is valid, it’s important, it matters: where do you want to be next year, the year after, what’s your five year plan?

And I think, but I don’t have a five year plan. I don’t believe in five year plans. Every five year plan I’ve ever had has been planning and working and building the pyramids brick by brick and ending up in an entirely different life. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I know that everything I just wrote isn’t true. I am being simplistic and difficult and obtuse for no good reason. But the unreasonableness is camouflage for something that’s real. I don’t believe in plans because I can’t believe in hope. But I can believe in moments. And except for days like today, moments are enough. Even the best of us can’t have everything.

Last night, I was sitting at a bar drinking gin, talking to a couple of strangers about death. Somehow we had gotten onto the subject of plane crashes and I said I had recently talked to someone who had been in one and had to open the emergency exit door and he had said that he wasn’t scared during the fall, only after. And this guy at the bar said that he had been on a plane that got struck by lightning that then fell 10,000 feet and that he too didn’t feel scared during the drop. In fact, he felt an eerie sense of calm, and only panicked once it was over and they had leveled off.

He said it was odd, but that no one talked about it. The pilots, the flight attendants, even the passengers. No one said a word. But that as the plane was going down, people started screaming, and just as many of them lit up cigarettes. Imagine, you think you are plummeting to your death, and your first impulse is to smoke.

And then he told us another story. He was flying back from a custody hearing. His marriage had fallen apart, the judge had just given custody of his kids to his ex-wife and he felt like his entire life that he had spent so long building had crumbled and he was left with nothing. Sitting on that plane, it hit him that he had nothing to live for, and he decided to kill himself.

Only then, then. The plane hit horrible turbulence. And in only seconds, his entire outlook changed. Faced with the sudden real possibility of death, he thought only one thing: that he didn’t want to die. Maybe he would find love again. Maybe he could build a new life. No matter what happened, he wanted to live.

Later, I performed a dramatic reading of one of my favorite poems (To His Coy Mistress) to yet another set of strangers (”but at my back I always hear, time’s winged chariot hurrying near…”).

Later still, I went with some friends to see an exhibit of preserved dead bodies. One of them (a body, not one of my friends) was holding a tennis racket, stretching up towards an invisible tennis ball. I said to one of the docents, “I bet he never even played tennis when he was alive.”
This all seems like I was facing my death fears, but really I was cheating. It all seemed theoretical. I was discussing things academically, but not really considering that I, one day, would be nothing but one of those dried pieces of muscle and tissue.

I don’t think today is the day I’ll ponder that reality either.

Yesterday, between finishing overdue work for clients, attending a university board lunch, meeting with a potential client, having coffee with someone to talk about organizing an upcoming conference, and answering questions from my editor about my book, I managed to wedge in time to meet with the surgeon about permanent sterilization. The juxtaposition of rushing and rushing and rushing to meet work obligations while at the same time stopping long enough to think about LIFE CHOICES in a thoughtful and ponderous way struck me as being a bit ridiculous and surreal.

This isn’t about woe is me, I’ll never have children and a family. In fact, if anything, I feel a sense of relief, And that, really, is the crux of the angst, all tangled up in a melodramatic questioning of the blackness of my soul.

What reflection is it on a woman who never felt the maternalistic ticking of the biological clock? What does it say about me that I’m happy with my life exactly the way it is, so devoid of the traditional surroundings of happiness? Is my soul constructed with a fundamental design flaw?

I feel like an orphan and I build my family from non-standard parts. But I don’t feel sad and lonely and wistful of a life I don’t have. I feel free and hopeful and like I belong in the world.

Life’s a blur speeding past the window
We’d love to stop but who has the time
So much to do - we’re so far behind
And we stay that way no matter how fast we go
I wonder what’s the point at which we break
When will we realize just what’s at stake
We dance at weddings and we cry at wakes
And then we rush to make the next appointment

-Life and Death, Carolyn Arends

When I was just out of college, I lived in this kind of scary part of Costa Mesa in Orange Country, California. (One night, I was driving home late from the gym and while stopped at a light, four guys got out of the car next to me and started surrounding my car. I punched the gas right through the red light.) I made $23,900 a year at my corporate job in Irvine. I had two roommates, both of whom were crazy. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, who I had been living with in yet another scary part of Costa Mesa. I had cause for a lot of early twenties angst, but one moment every morning made me so happy my heart felt like it might burst.

On my drive to work, I would crest a hill and the Pacific ocean would appear out of nowhere, startling blue and stretch to the edge of the world. It didn’t matter what I was worried about facing at work that day or how angry I was at my roommates or how anxious I was about being able to pay all of my bills. Just seeing the water gave me a moment of peace. I took the long way around just so I could see it.

When I made the (foolish) decision to leave California (foolish, but had I not gone down that path then, I wouldn’t be here now, so I can’t regret it), I knew that moment of seeing the water come in view was what I would miss the most.

I love lots of things about where I live now, but my favorite time is early morning. There’s something about the light and the water and the sky and every morning before I leave for my office, I stand in my living room and just take it all in. And as I drive, I follow the water and no matter how stressed I am about all the work I have to do or whether I’m going to make it to the airport on time or why I’m not the kind of person who thinks to send out Christmas cards with heartfelt holiday sentiments, I have a moment of peace.

How does one explain the following: when looking at the start menu of a computer, the icon for Firefox says “Internet” beside it and “Mozilla Firefox” below it and the icon for Internet Explorer says “Internet” beside it and “Internet Explorer” below it.

Are they two separate internets? Do they lead to different destinations? Clearly, the answer is yes.

Proof? When you open one and click the down arrow on the address bar, the list of sites available to you is completely different than when you do the same with the other. The list of bookmarks is also entirely different. Obviously, you can go to different places in each.

Add to this the following story:

Say someone purchases data (possibly this data is a list of so-called “leads” for a shady, commission-only mortgage broker “job”, and possibly this “someone” can’t waste her time with jobs that pay actual “salaries” because they don’t get you rich quick enough, but I digress) in spreadsheet format. And say that when opening that data in Excel, the columns are too narrow so that the information is cut off and only the first few letters of each word are visible. What can one do except purchase more data in hopes that it contains all the words and not just parts of them?

Honestly, what other choice does one have?

Now tell me, dear reader, what would you do if this person, facing such conundrums of multiple internets and partial words, if this person caught in such overwhelming adversity were your mother?

Exactly right. You would do the only thing there really is to do in such a situation. Nod sympathetically at the trouble and toil she is up against and wish her the very best of luck in her pursuit of internets and spreadsheets. And sleep like a baby all night long.

It is so incredibly easy to slip into this place of letting the flaws of others — issues that have nothing to do with us — influence how we feel about ourselves. I don’t know why it’s such a comfortable place. But we think that if only we were something enough, we could cause that person to overcome that flaw, that inclination, that tendency to be rude, shallow, emotionally unavailable, ungrateful, uncaring, unappreciative, whatever, and they would treat us differently. And if they don’t, it’s not because they’re rude or shallow or any of those things, it’s because something is the matter with us.

However. I have realized that is insane.

Recently, I had this moment that almost dealt a serious blow to my self esteem. I found myself questioning my own value and then I stopped myself and realized. That the problem wasn’t that I wasn’t whatever enough. The problem was with someone else. It had nothing to do with me. We can be there for people and we can care about doing what we can to make them happy, but ultimately, our presence doesn’t change who someone is. Being nice to a mean person doesn’t suddenly turn them into a humanitarian. Being wonderful doesn’t cause a self-absorbed person to see what we’ve done for them.

Once again, there is freedom in not being responsible for everyone else. And there’s a balance that keeps us from becoming the uncaring and ungrateful ones. And my self esteem is just fine.