Black in College

Here I am–at the boyfriend’s parents’ house. I’m sitting upstairs in his room while they listen to William Shatner and chuckle to themselves. Another thing about white people: They sure do love their irony. The boyfriend didn’t wake up until some time after noon, after I had already engaged in some kind of heart-to-heart with his mother. She told me she feels stressed during the holidays because she usually spends the entire day cooking and putting out food on Christmas while her husband’s family gobbles it up. She added, however, that she finds it fun despite all of this. I told her I wish I could think of the holidays in such a way, but I already know exactly what it’s going to be like: I’m the oldest on my mother’s side, so all of the adults are going to ask me what I’m doing in college and what I want to do with my life. They’re going to notice that I don’t have a kid and am not expecting a kid, and they’re going to be happy about this. They’re going to tell me I’m pretty and make me uncomfortable–they’re going to stare at me expectantly and I’m going to look at my hands or a glass of booze I happen to be drinking and not know what to say. I will be dodging children I don’t know and wanting to get away.

Now, I didn’t tell her all of that, but I told her some of it. She then went into this long story of how fragmented her own family is, and how they became even more so after her mother died. It seems that getting older doesn’t do anything for easing sibling rivalry. As the youngest (20 years younger than the middle child, her older brother), she was the most responsible. When her mother passed, she left more money and responsibility to her and not very much to him. Not to mention, that her mother’s will dictate she sell the house he was living in after gambling all of his money away. She had to evict her brother from her dead mother’s house. Awkwaaaaard.

This made me think about what’s going to happen in the future of my family. My grandmother is shrinking (literally and figuratively) and I know death isn’t that far away for her. Who knows how many medications she’s on. I try to call her and e-mail her, but she (like everyone else in my family) doesn’t seem to be much for returning messages. I have no idea why. You’d think she’d get tired working her crappy, anonymous part-time job and watching Law & Order with the remainder of her time. I want her to move to Ohio with the rest of the family, but she says she’s “comfortable” in Queens. Old ladies shouldn’t be spending the end of their days in Queens, for God’s sake! It’d be really great if she moved to the Virgin Islands with her long distance boyfriend. It may just be that these proposals are more satisfying for me than for her. Maybe she’d just be lonely without all of the hustle and bustle of the city.

Looks like the boyfriend’s mother isn’t going to let him take a shower before we leave to get a tree.

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