He stood, watching his wife make up the bed. In their minds they had practically discovered this quaint island getaway. When they found that beach homes could be rented, this place had become their annual escape. In twenty years Everclear would suggest swimming out past the breakers in just such a spot. But on this day there was no Everclear. No outside world. Just the man, his wife, and a barely made bed.
Unable to resist the opportunity laid before them, the couple made use of the space and time this moment afforded them. They didn't know it, but in that stolen act they had created the first of their progeny, a blonde girl who one day would run the very sands outside that bedroom, who would sing along to that Everclear song at the top of her lungs.
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| Not another word. Do not say another word! |
No, I have not branched out into romance. This is the story of how I was conceived. It is a story I have known most of my adult life. I did not stumble across this story accidentally. I have not violated a secret confession. This story has been told to me, by my mother, several times. No detail spared, no moment too sacred to say aloud. If you ask, she will gladly share this story in it's entirety with you.
No one, really, should ever know the story of their conception, particularly when the story revolves around your parents getting so hot for each other they don't even have the decency to wait for your mom to finish making the damn bed.
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| Please don't be a picture of the wedding night... |
On the whole, I don't consider oversharing a flaw of my mom's personality. It is part of her charm. To be sure, it does get her in trouble from time to time. But the minimal filter on my mom's verbal flow adds color to her already lively persona.
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| Get a room... |
Trash. This is not my mom's rallying cry to get a chore completed. It is not how she describes a poorly executed film. When my future mother-in-law asked my mom about my dating history, "trash" was my mom's response. My mom assured this kind, wonderful woman that every guy I had brought home prior to Husband was absolute and total trash. This woman was hoping I would bear her the grandchildren she desperately wanted. This woman was trusting me with the happiness of her only son. My mom volunteers that I had a penchant for boys with bad tattoos and no future?
Yes. That would be a time my mom's oversharing got her in trouble.
No one is immune from the verbiage that flows from my mom's mouth. It's like water from a garden hose. When narcotics are added to the mix - as they were after her hip replacements - the garden hose goes full blast. It was the cocktail of painkillers and habitual oversharing that spurred my mom into a conversation with Husband that was so unsuitable I can't repeat it here.
I think we can agree that's saying something.
Once, after she had a lumpectomy to treat breast cancer, my mom was lamenting to me the sad state of her bosom. She was thankful that my father loved her so. Her mammaries, though never large, had always gotten the job done where my father was concerned.
I mean, I guess it's good to know your parents have a solid marriage. No matter how the information comes to you. Right?
But now - now - her um, Almond Joys, were in even worse shape. The lumpectomy had left her quite disfigured. Fortunately, she pointed out, my dad didn't seem to mind. And as if that weren't bad enough, she then whipped out the body parts in question to cement her point.
I guess that was OK. No one else was home.
And because I'm more like my mother than I will ever admit, I sympathized by demonstrating - in full living color - that my once adequate B cups were now a decent facsimile of balloons the morning after the party, thanks to all the breastfeeding I had so ardently embraced.
My mom only paused to point out that this conversation would never have happened with my sister, who bears nothing of my mom's persona and is frequently horrified by her, me, and this blog.
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| I'm going to need to see everyone's hands. |
Recently, my mom and Mom2 attended one of my children's sporting events. In the very crowded spectator section, my mom gave Mom2 a very detailed story involving a family member who has behaved in a quite unsavory manner. She went on for so long, and so loudly - quietude is not a forte of hers - that other spectators turned to see who it was telling such an appalling story at such an intense decibel.
Fortunately, I live in a small town where everybody pretty much knows everybody else. Now I don't have to go to the trouble of telling my neighbors about Unsavory Family Member.
Check that task off the list.
My mother has said things to me like "I know when you started having sex" and "You don't get a period anymore, right?" These things are rarely said during confidential mother-daughter talks in my bedroom. It's usually the hallway at church. Aunt's living room during a party. Brunches with my dad. And because I never object, such conversations don't get curbed for more appropriate times.
Once, at a family luncheon, my mom was telling the story of her aunt. Aunt P, God rest her soul, had had no daughters. But one day, Aunt P gave my mother the wedding dress she had worn when she married Uncle P. My mother, still a child at the time, had been thrilled. Although Aunt P had gotten married during the Depression, she had been the only girl in her house to have a wedding dress. My grandmother had had no formal wedding dress to pass on to my mother.
So my mother loved that dress. It became her Velveteen Rabbit. She wore the dress to bed and rode down the basement steps on it. She did so much with Aunt P's dress, she told us during that lunch, that it eventually became dingy and torn.
Aunt P's sister, Aunt S, had been sitting next to me during that lunch. When my mother said that, by the time of it's demise Aunt P's wedding dress had no longer been white, Aunt S muttered in my ear that it shouldn't have been white to begin with.
Because all I really needed to know at this point in my life was that my Depression era great-aunt had been getting it on with my great-uncle outside the confines of marriage. I knew them. I remember them. Worse, they were my grandparents' contemporaries. One's mind can go to the bad place so quickly.
So oversharing is genetic. Possibly dominant.
Last week, my kids and I took my parents to brunch. I was happily filling my parents in on the vacation I had planned for my family. We are going to my childhood vacation spot. A quaint island getaway with beach houses for rent where you can practically hear Everclear sing about the breakers.
My parents pointed out that I may very well be staying in the house in which I was conceived. My mom went on to say that Sister and I are quite lucky as we both know the details of our conception. My brother, she said, is pretty unfortunate. He remains ignorant as to how he came to be in the world.
Because, you know, it would be wrong to share that story.
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