Luck of the Draw

"You're really lucky to have the body to wear that."

"Lucky?" I took another bite of the obscenely large sandwich that I would most likely finish. And the pickle. I would eat the pickle, too.

"Yeah. I can't wear a dress like that."

"But you could. You can wear a dress like this anytime you want. Nobody's stopping you. Except you." More chewing. God, I can't get this sandwich in me fast enough.

"But it wouldn't look the same."

"Do you even know...what I do...during the week? To my body? Like really know?" I started lifting my hem to show her the shins that were peppered with bruises. I started taking my shoes off to display the medical tape wrapped around each foot and a big toe, to show her the jammed up bones and the knotted arches. She stopped me.

"Still, you're lucky."

I tapped at the yellow bruise on my cheekbone, covered by make-up, wondering how this conversation would go if I had a dick dangling somewhere from the middle of my body.

"Hey brah, looking good. Taking care of yourself. Your arms are sick, man."

"Thanks, man. I've been working hard."

"It shows man, it totally shows. Keep it up. Proud of you, buddy."

Fucking lucky...

It's a cultural disease, this thing...this fantasy of luck that follows the female species around. I am lucky that my kids are polite. I am lucky to have a pretty thriving freelance business. I am lucky to be able to play music. I am lucky to have all these opportunities. Because when I was born, God shit charmed glitter all over me and determined that I should be lucky.

Poof.

And I should be grateful for all this luck. Grateful to the universe. What a good life...

"Everything will fall into place, babe. It always does."

My husband has stopped saying this to me. He knows not to say this anymore. The last time he said it, I was marinating in sweat, hallucinating with hunger, bleeding from my knee, and eating unwashed carrots over the sink freaking out about not getting three major checks that were more than a month late.

"Of course it will fall into place," I growled, spitting out hard peels. "Because I always make it fall into place. I work like a burro to make it fall into place. There is no magic wand. I am the fucking wand, man."

I have never said to my little brother, who has no body fat on him and can eat like pork rinds and cupcakes all day and not ever look any different, that he's lucky. It's an insult. He's a tree climber. He literally hoists his own weight all day long up giant gnarly trees. And he suffers for it. Every moment of every day. If I told him he's so lucky to be so lean and muscular he'd flick a lit cigarette at me and tell me to get fucked. Then he'd eat a hot dog and something from a box while limping to his truck.

"You're so lucky to be a freelancer. To work from home."

Yeah? That right? Cause the work just floats to my inbox every day and all I have to do is write the story and voila, the check comes within the week. Like magic. Other writers know. That to make a living doing this, an actual living, you gotta be a hustler. I mean an honest-to-god hustler. Same rules apply. Right down to getting paid.

"You gotta make it rain." That's what I say to the kids when I'm depositing checks at the bank. That I've been waiting on. Some I've had to wrangle like a mob boss--street style. Right as my account is about flatten like a dead balloon. Lucky me.

And the kids. I can't imagine someone saying to a single dad or even a married father, "You're so lucky to have such great kids." Maybe, but I doubt it. Mostly it's "You've done such a great job being a role model to your kids." Or, "look at you, doing your daughter's hair. What a great dad."

You know who's lucky? My kids. Especially my son. HE is lucky that I have watched him like a bear-hawk for most of his formative years, not taking an eye off him even to take a piss. Because seriously, he would have killed his own self. We are talking about jumping THROUGH glass windows, trying to drive cars out of the driveway, multiple knife and choking incidents (I have fished more food out of that child's throat...oysters and cheese still terrify me), jumps off of hay lofts where I have caught him literally by the loose threads of his clothes. When he told me they got a laser cutter for his inventor's club at school I almost fainted.

We, all of us men women boys girls people personas whatever, need to get it out of our heads and our mouths that women are lucky for their success. Or anyone for that matter. I have never equated my hard work with luck. That's a dangerous thing. Because that means I am waiting on chance to get me where I want to be, not my own ability and capability to get shit done. If luck is a major part of my equation, then hope is not.

I can't have that.

Getting an extra nugget in a 6-piece is lucky. Finding $20 in the parking lot is lucky. Winning at roulette is lucky.

Having a strong body and endurance is the result of hours of hard work and pushing through the urge to just give up. On one occasions I distinctly remember whipping my water bottle across the parking lot, which was dangerous because I used to be a pitcher, then sitting in my car after a jiu jitsu class. I threw out every insult about every mother I could find (in French) and swore I was never going back to "that goddamn fucking class" and "I'd like to see them push through a dance routine or keep up with me on the trail and do this training, too. Connard!" It was vicious. And stupid. But I went back. And I still keep going back. It's not luck that drives me to that class.

Luck didn't show up for any of this. There may have been some lucky moments, but I am owning the rest, so I don't lose it. Serious, dig-deep, bitch get your ass out of bed cause you ain't done yet, hard work.

Just one more mile.
Just one more roll.
Just one more punch.
Just one more turn across the floor.
Just one more hard lecture about real respect.
Just one more early morning drive to the school.
Just one more paragraph.
Just one more night burning the midnight oil.
Just one more day where the pain is unbearable.
Just one more turn with the medical tape.
Just one more payment this month.
Just one more lunch to pack.
Just one more trip to the hospital.

I can do this. Luck can't. Luck is a little bitch. But I can.

Aren't you all lucky?

All growed up...?

My son's face is flushed that familiar rageful pink. He does not like being told what to do, yet, he really needs to be told what to do sometimes. Otherwise we'd have cockroaches playing poker tournaments in his room and we would never have hot water. This particular moment, he is being told to apply sunscreen to his transluscent Scottish complexion before spending an entire day in the blazing sun for his school field day.

"But I don't need sunscreen, I have a hat." He makes a show of flinging his cap to the ground and glaring at me. I am used to this. His older sister has hardened me to these stare downs. I am a rock, I don't blink. Do your best, kid.

"That's fine. You don't have to wear sunscreen. You have choices."

"I do?" He is smart. He knows me. He knows this is a semantic trap, but he walks in anyway. Why the hell not, what's he got to lose?

"Sure. You can skip the sunscreen and go to school and stay in the office all day while the other kids do field day...or you can shut your mouth, put the sunscreen on, and have a great day outside with your friends."

Just then, his sister smugly interrupts. "They will probably have an essay assignment for the kids who don't go to field day."

He begins to slather himself with SPF 50. I give her a dirty look.

"I can't wait to be an adult," he says, angrily smearing the white liquid chalk across his face. "Then I can do whatever the hell I want."

"Are you nuts?" His sister squeezes about a thousand tablespoons of honey into her Superman to-go mug filled with cinnamon tea. "Being an adult sucks. You've gotta do all this stuff. Like take care of little shits like us."

"You know, honey is actually a form of sugar," I say, making a cutting motion with my finger across my throat. "It will rot your teeth. As for being an adult. It's awesome. It's awesome 'til it's not."

"So what is being an adult all about?"

"I think it's about doing the right thing...every day. And figuring out how to enjoy life in a simple way."

"Was there anything surprising about being an adult?" This conversation was getting pretty deep. I wasn't even into my first sip of coffee.

"I think the biggest surprise is that other people who you think are adults, are actually not making adult decisions. It's...pretty tough when that's what you're up against."

My daughter nods her head slightly. "Yeah, the grow-ups are the ones doing the really stupid shit lately. Guess we're going to have to follow our own lead."

It's a wonder I don't put whiskey in my coffee. But then, that would be a pretty bad decision right before I drive them to school. I'm sure people do it. I know people do it. It's un-adult. They're in denial.

Of course, who hasn't wanted to check out sometimes? Especially the adult population that is responsible for smaller beings. We all know, but some may not admit, that this parenting thing is just...it's sucking the life force right out of me. These little monsters are expensive. And they're not even little anymore. I was talking with a 747 pilot the other day about the 26,000 gallons of fuel that that giant beast eats up on long distance flights.

"Try feeding teenagers," was my response. He laughed.

In addition to the food consumption, which, if you are raising two VERY active human beings, is abysmal on the wallet, there is the occasional attitude injection at the most timely moments. Like, right before we get in the car, or, just as I am waking up or trying to head to bed...always some little snotty comment drenched with entitlement and arrogant (faux) wisdom. The boy just asks so many questions I finally end up whipping around, coffee in hand, my face twisted in horrible wrath.

"Judas Fucking Priest, that's your last question for the day. That's it, you've met your quota. And how am I supposed to know how many fire ants it would take to eat a man whole? Who asks these things? How do you even think this shit?"

My language is admittedly not adult. It is shamefully un-adult. I am working on it. There is an elaborate ticketing system that will take effect June 24. It excludes my language in the car.

It's a delicate balance and I am watching adults tip the scales in the wrong direction. They are giving in to the self-destruction that ruins whole families generation after generation. I can't tell you if this is a phenomenon that is happening only in this generation, or if it just that we see it more in the news or on social media or in a louder consciousness. But it's there. Very loud, and very clear. We are letting 'the others' make the decisions for us, trusting that, well, they must know best.

They don't know best. Adults make mistakes all the time. But are we learning from the mistakes? It's too easy to blame something else. The addiction, the depression, the desperation, the crappy job, the bad husband, the bad wife, the catastrophically stupid teenager, the coaches, the government...

So, who's gonna make the right decision then? A cruel grandmother marches her 9-year-old granddaughter around the neighborhood until the kid finally dies of exhaustion...no one notices? No one speaks up until it's too late? Where are the adults?

A teenage boy prays on the innocence of his younger sisters...and instead of in jail, he ends up on a major television network...expecting his fourth child with his wife. Why didn't anyone step in? What about the girls? They are marked for life. It is a life sentence enacted on them by their older brother. And he's no longer a predator? Bullshit. Where were the adults?

It's 8:30 at night, you've just walked in the door after a full day of work, watching your kid's baseball game, piggybacked with your other kid's tennis match, and you know you have to sign two permission slips, make some kind of a nutritious meal because they're starving, make sure they check themselves for ticks...Do you hit a 30-pack and let them lick the wounds of the day? You could. But you're an adult. I'm an adult. Being an adult means you don't give in to the destructive whim. Of course you want to, we all want to. We all have tendencies.

There's a monster child lurking in every single one of us. Do we let it win? People are waiting for us to do our job. Small people. People who will do whatever we say. If that's not the most frightening thing in the world, I don't know what is.

We've had a few 'situations' here, that kind of shit happens as your kids get older by the way. They come home with problems like "my friend isn't eating," or "so and so says he wants to hurt himself..."
These are burdens too big for a child's shoulders. Then they say, "but don't tell anybody, OK?"

Not OK. I want to pretend I didn't hear that an 8th grader might be contemplating suicide. But I don't. 'Cause I'm a fucking grown up and shit is real now.

I just tell my daughter, "You're a good friend, but this is too much for you. You're not responsible for fixing this. It's on me now. Let the adults handle it."

I pick up the phone. She sighs, relieved.