Ep.30 Pear and Carrot

The Chicken Mind Nuggets's Podcast

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

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@mindchicken

References for this episode

(None, these are my own experiences)

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

Many years ago, I was a godmother to a cute little boy we will call Michel. Michel was born to a crazy family with a foundation of instability, chaos, alcoholism, and malevolence. Several members of this family partook in the building of this foundation; however many of them had blindfolds on and didn’t know they were dancing the same dance they thought they unlearned. The mother (we will call her Carey) fled by her life in an escape from the tangles which kept her bound to patterns and eventually self-adaptation of those patterns. I viewed our friendship as uncomfortable, but I stayed because I was romantically involved with her brother. When Michael was born, she asked me to be a godmother to him. She made it very clear that this would involve responsibilities and I would need to be there to help raise him. This was stated in a demeaning tone to a 19-year-old me, as if co-parenting is my responsibility because she can’t handle the load of being a mother.

I agreed to be a godmother, not because I had any sort of life experience to help raise a decent human being (actually quite the opposite; I didn’t even know these were the early years of transitioning out of the dark side), but because she needed me and I felt like being needed was being helpful and doing good.

She told me that I would need to take responsibility and be there for her and him when she needed, so I did. Carey called me up one day and asked if I could babysit Michael. I hesitantly agreed because I didn’t know how to take care of a baby, I didn’t even know how to change a diaper. When do you feed him? How do I burp him? What sounds mean WHAT?!

I knew one thing, she was unhealthy, and the family she was staying with was unhealthy, so I went to the store and bought a pear and a carrot so I could plan to make some baby food because something that is important to me is feeding people RIGHT. Developing babies need good food, not sugar, to function as good human beings, so I wanted to have a plan in case she wanted me to give him pop tarts.

I got to the house and she showed me the baby food in the fridge and said what to do and how to take care of him and left. The baby food in the fridge was horrible, it had stuff in it I couldn’t pronounce and wasn’t meant for a developing young baby. I cooked the pear and the carrot until they were soft, then put them in the blender until they were mushy. When it was cool, I fed it to him, and he LOVED IT. He ate it all up and I felt so happy that Michael was getting real food and he was responding so well. We played, I successfully changed his diaper, and we communicated, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand any of my words, but instead related to my energy.

When Carey got home, I told her I fed him the pear and carrot mush I made and that we had a great day together 😊

She was livid.

Carey yelled at me that I went against her wishes and I’m not his parent and many other things which are blurry because I was so stunned that I didn’t retain some of what was happening at that moment. She told me I wasn’t allowed to see him again.

That moment broke my heart because I did what I was supposed to do and lost Michael because of it. This is a very personal thing for me to state, but some of my fear of having children stem from this moment, because I could do something good, and have my kid taken away from me.

Years later I know that what she did was messed up and it wasn’t right that Michael was taken away from me. Michael lives with his dad. Carey went down a deep and dark slope and ended up dying of a drug overdose after losing custody of Michael and her other son.

Recently I heard that Michael was doing good and I saw a video of him on YouTube which stirred up a whirlwind of emotions within me. I am tempted to contact him, but he doesn’t remember our one day we had together and I am not a part of that life or his life anymore, so I am smiling knowing that he is OK.

Why am I telling this story? I think that when something significant like this happens in our lives and we re-unite with some of the main characters later, you can realize that everyone evolves in a play and act 1 ended a long time ago. Sometimes it’s good to see a main character resurface and sometimes we need to let that story lay because it doesn’t fit with the current plot. But what I am taking away from this is that that one day doesn’t define me as a caretaker, or a friend who reached out in times of help, or a godmother. I don’t think it even defines Carey or anyone else who was involved with the story because defining is subjective to an audience’s interpretations. Maybe the moral of the story is to respect boundaries, or don’t take on more than you can handle at a young age, or recognize toxic relationships. Either way, no matter what you took from this story, treat yourself better, and eat more pears and carrots.

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