New Years with Ron Weems

It's the holidays and like any other day of the year, I'm reminded of my mother. I fully believe grief morphs into something else: it becomes part of the air you breathe and expel, part of your insides. You grow it out in your hair and nails. Whenever you lose anyone, there is a direct and bumpy line from that loss to the loss before to the first. It's still a shock to the system and hurts like hell because you're feeling three or more heartbreaks at once. I'm not making this up. Someone much smarter than me with a medical degree told me this fun fact.

My mom died on January 1, 1991. As I was fourteen at the time, it shocks me that the number of years I had my mother and the number of years without her are now the same. My dad usually disappears on New Years Eve and resurfaces on January 2. He also disappears in early May, on his wedding anniversary. We celebrate my mom's birthday, just two days before mine, together.

This year my dad and I are having a Netflix night together on New Years. We're also going over my budget and he's going to see just how little money I have. A homeless person has more cash than I do because they don't pay rent and don't have credit cards. As I'm in the red, I often want to curse at the homeless: "Fuck you, dude. Whatever cash I give you is yours to keep, you bastard."

My dad knows I have no money as I haven't bought new clothes in years. I desperately need a haircut. I'm on at least three different medications, multiple vitamins, I wear contacts and I'm a girl (which requires an expense report, quite frankly). So I'm not really sure what this meeting will bring. He's being surprisingly kind and says "I've never gone ova budgeting wid you, Kad." He is an accountant after all.

I suppose there's a first time for everything.