A Summer Project
I’ve scantly written for this website in some time and for good reason (so I’m claiming). I’ve been exploring the world of dating apps, going on dates, and attempting to understand this world of digital connection. I’ve been writing a series of essays on the topic and am figuring out how to stitch them together to present on this website.
I should make it clear that my intentions for dating apps are honest. I’m not looking for hookups but for something real and substantial. Turns out, the journey to finding something real means delving into a world of false advertisement and curated profiles trying to hook a certain kind of fish (and it is a wide, wide sea out there). Along the way, I’ve found that dating apps mean different things to different people, and I’ve done my journalistic duty of figuring out what all that means.
So, stay tuned! I’ll be posting a series of essays in the coming weeks of my experiences.
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Mother’s Will
My sister was in no mood for my nephew’s antics last night. My nephew is 1.5 years old (which is incalculable in months), bordering on the “terrible twos” that are sure to bring all kinds of twists to the plot. My nephew has a routine of being spoiled at this house (frankly) and goes about his life fearlessly expecting to be caught if he falls. His itinerary is up to his whim, and if he should want to play at the sink, the world will stop turning before he is ever told no. The amount of treats and candy he is able to con his grandparents out of is hilarious to watch. He knows where the stashes are, and so an impromptu trip upstairs and around the corner to grandma’s office means another roll of Smarties for the road. And once he emerges back downstairs to grin up at his mother, she exclaims, “No! He just had a spoonful of frosting and a cookie a little while ago. He doesn’t need anymore!”
And my nephew smiles, the game won, because nobody is going to take the Smarties away.
The little Smarty.
Lo and behold last night when after dinner, the little tyker wants to play in the sink for the umpteenth time. It’s been a hot, sticky day and there’s a hot, sticky mother planted to her chair, pining for the day when she can go out to restaurant again for something called The Bowl, a half-liter Margarita glass full of juicy liquor complete with a salt rim. Little guy cries out, reaching up to the unreachable kitchen sink, “Awa! Awa!” and his mother has had enough. “No,” she says, as though talking belligerently to customer service somewhere, knowing she’s been swindled. “We’re going home. We’re done.”
And the cries of inhumanity ensue.
But Mommy hath forespoken and all the innocence, all the heartbroken tears, and all the King’s men can’t break the will of Mommy who will put her baby down for sleep again.
I love my sister like this. There’s something intimate about someone breaking character, becoming irritably more like themselves that contrasts with who they’d like to be. I know my sister is a loving, a considerate person, but everyone has a limit. Past those limits, past the expansion of the universe, anything is possible. And for a boy that controls the cosmos with his limited vocabulary and newfound powers of playact-crying, he stands no chance with her behemoth personality.
And I think that’s the hallmark of parenting (said the writer with no children), that there will be a time when Mommy says “No,” and even the great tides of the world will recede away.
What I’ve learned from watching her is that, yes, even I have this power. There will come a time when it is called upon and it will strive forth. It will be tyrannical and wondrous and the earth will cease to quake if I so order.
I think that’s what I love most about having had an older sister; I’ve learned so much by watching her.
Just as my nephew will learn by watching her in his lifetime.
And little guy is just scratching the surface of her potential.
Keep scratching, little fella. Mommy is one of the good ones and fit for the task.
No matter how many Smarties grandma sneaks your way.
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Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,
