I have ghosts that have haunted me for years.
And the irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.
But they still hang around and haunt you.
They used to be alive.
But now they’re dead.
But you still can’t stop hearing them.
And you can’t stop being afraid of them.
The ghosts tell me if I don’t stay shut up in their haunted house
And follow all their advice,
And answer all their questions,
And stay scared of them haunting me,
That things will only get worse.
So my ghosts show up all the time
And haunt me when I’m least expecting it.
Like the stereotypical nagging aunt
Who inexplicably always has a Brooklyn accent.
My ghosts show up and ask why I accidentally walked into my kid and made them fall and cry.
They tell me it’s fine and that it happens,
But not to parents who love their kids just a little bit more.
They ask why I let the strawberries in my refrigerator get moldy again,
And ask me why I keep getting strawberries when they keep getting moldy.
They keep telling me that no one will respect me if I’m not the smartest.
But they also tell me that I’m arrogant (as if I didn’t know)
And that no one likes a know-it-all.
They tell me that making a joke is the only way I add value to the room I’m in.
But they also tell me that my jokes are just a little *too much* sometimes.
They ask me why I’m not self-conscious about my looks.
You are a woman after all,
You’re supposed to care and be self-conscious about these things I’m pretty sure.
It’s not enough that you’re self-conscious about other things,
You’re really supposed to care about your looks, right?
They keep asking me why I am not cHeRiShInG tHe DaYs a little more.
When I’m working, they tell me that I should be spending time with my family,
When I’m spending time with my family, they tell me I should be working.
They ask me why I hate bathtime with the kids.
After all, these are the days of precious memories.
They tell me that my emotions are a burden,
my boundaries are a doormat.
They tell me that the list of things they nag me about
Isn’t cool enough,
And that other people have way cooler neuroses
That are way more existential.
Mostly they just tell me
that there’s something that’s not
*quite*
right about me.
The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.
But they still hang around and haunt you.
And you can’t stop being afraid of them.
And the ghosts tell me if I don’t stay shut up in their haunted house
And follow all their advice,
And answer all their questions,
And stay scared of their haunting,
That things will only get worse.
Until I have a Clark-Griswold-from-Christmas-Vacation-Moment-of-Clarity and finally say
“WORSE?! HOW COULD THINGS GET ANY WORSE?!”
Worse than shutting myself up in a haunted house
And listening to nagging ghosts with a Brooklyn accent?!
It’s not possible.
The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.
So I stopped trying.
Instead I flipped them off—
Which they found quite distasteful—
And left the house they’ve been haunting,
And threw away my moldy strawberries on the way out,
And ran out into the sunshine.
They followed me of course,
But I took off toward a river.
I made finger guns with my middle fingers,
And shot them at the ghosts as I ran,
Shouting all the time that they could go screw themselves.
And I ran through the streams and kicked and splashed and played.
And I ate good food and had a bottle or two of wine.
And I was full and happy and had nothing to prove to the ghosts.
And I sang at the top of my lungs,
And danced in a way that ignored all the rules of my childhood dance classes.
The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.
And they still hang around and haunt you.
They used to be alive.
But now they’re dead.
And you can’t stop hearing them.
But you can stop being afraid of them.
And you can flip them off anytime you want
And play and dance and sing in the river.