Mr. Moneybags
In 1983 I worked at a squash club. I was twenty-six, trying to be an actress, sober, poor as one could be without living on the street. The squash club guys glanced at me while they read their papers. My job was to smile, give them a towel, remember their names, and ask if they wanted anything else. I was also supposed to say, “Good morning.” They were driven captains of industry who knew to take a towel from a stack. I read scripts seeking my type, perky yet depressed. I wrote complaining letters to friends in other countries, started novels, one a murder mystery with a wealthy, ruthless squash player, dead on a squash court. I showed this to a literary agent. “Find a different genre,” she said.
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Higher Power
After my sister was killed, I married a violent idiot, tried to drink myself to death — again — went back to a 12-step program, found an incredible shrink, an apartment, a sponsor, a job, and some tiny hope that I might live despite all the mayhem and chaos and humiliation and lack of sleep and starving myself. I needed a higher power. God was not something I had ever trusted. God didn’t keep my father from drinking, me from drinking, my best friend alive, my sister safe, or anything about the terrible state of the world. Religion was the enemy in my childhood; laced with fear, guilt, remorse, and boredom. Church was a place my cranky grandmother loved beyond anything —
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Be the Parent Your Child Needs
Yes, I have fallen into the labeling trap, helicopter, snowplow, psycho. After so many years of teaching high school and college and coaching teenagers in writing the college admission essay my only suggestion, never advice, is to be the kind of parent your child, teenager, young adult needs. If your offspring is able to make friends easily, advocate for him or herself-give me back that bucket-does not welcome your problem solving, then back off. My son was a climber, a skateboarder, and a talker. He had the confidence of a professional party guest, could chat up a potted plant and was giving advice to grown-ups on home buying at three. Few were strangers especially if they were young and pretty girls or young men with something he coveted.
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