Meet The Parents

Meme Day 3 (October 3rd) - My Parents


My parents never married, at least not each other, although my mother was married and separated before she met my father, and my father has married, divorced and remarried since.


My mother. Carol Louise Onan Frost, born Sandra Marie Elizabeth Henriksen, and one reason I refuse to be called Sandra. My mother is one of the strangest people I know. She's a mix of extremely laid-back (sort of an ex-hippy) and extremely overprotective. She took a unique approach to child-raising - in her defense, it was probably the only thing she could do with a kid like me - and as a result I knew more about the world at an early age than a lot of my friends do even now. My mom was big on learning, both academics and esoterica. At two she read me Poe (and gave me a giant teddy named Edgar Allan Polar Bear); at three she taught me to speak Spanish; at four I learned the names of all the constellations; at five she taught me how to do logic puzzles; at six I learned how to cast the runes and scry into a crystal ball.


She moved me all around the place, not just from home to home (some of them with boyfriends) but from country to country, which is something that I have never quite forgiven her for; while I recognize that it was a good experience, at the age of 26 I still do not quite know where home is.


I moved out of her (rented) house in Spain when I was seventeen, and came back to England to live with my father and brother and start college. The year that I was away from her I worried about her constantly, and the summer that I was eighteen I moved back into her English house and have not moved out since. I love my mother more than anything, but familiarity is breeding resentment, and at least once a week I tell myself that I need to move out. However, I think the worry would still be there - more so than before, even, since she is a lot sicker than she was - so I stay. And I bitch. And whinge. But I still stay.


My father. Philip Collins, not to be confused with the singer (although it does help him get restaurant reservations). My father is one of the most conservative people I know. Before he had his stroke, I could count on one hand the amount of times I've heard him curse, or even get angry. When I was a kid I wanted them to get married (partly because I was sick of being poor, partly because I was sick of being the only kid at school whose parents never married) but as an adult I'm more inclined to look at the pair of them and think, What were you THINKING, having a child together? Where my mother is a creature ruled by her emotions, my father is cool and logical and practical and more brain than feelings. Oh, I don't doubt that he has feelings, but most people - with the exception of my stepmother - rarely get to see them.


I am enough like my mother that my father and I don't always see eye-to-eye, and enough like my father that I drive my mother crazy. The two personality types clash in me, like positively and negatively-charged particles, and I often feel a little schizophrenic.


I get along well with my father as long as I don't show too much weakness around him. He finds my illness hard to cope with, although it's possible that he can understand it better now that he has a life-altering medical condition of his own. Nonetheless, I confine my visits to my father to the days when my health is good and everything in my life is going well. By contrast, my mother gets me at my worst. :P


I do love my father, and I know that it pains him that we have so few interests in common, so I go out of my way to be interested in the things that he likes. He is greatly interested in art, history, literature and all things to do with Spain. He enjoys tennis and opera. Aside from (very) selective literature and Spain, I don't care one whit about any of those things. But I do care about my father, and like spending time with him. So we go to art galleries, and browse old bookstores, and talk about Voltaire and Cervantes. I've learned quite a lot about those things over the years. I even listen to opera with him sometimes, although I tend to draw the line at tennis unless Nadal's playing.


I've been using the present tense here, and I really shouldn't have. My father had a stroke eighteen months ago and hasn't been the same since. He never will be. That knowledge is there, deep inside me, the awareness that I will never walk through a gallery with him or hear him talk about the difference between abstract and post-modern art, or hear him call me darling, but I haven't yet begun to process it, and most days I shove that loss away and don't think about it. I have to, if I'm to function.


Both my parents are wonderfully good people - they have faults, but they're kind and loyal, and I hope that one day I can be that good.



Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment