DADDY ISSUES: A Playlist Diary – 2 Aperols
When a parent agrees to buy you dinner in your twenties or… hell…. any decade in this economy, I think we all shimmy up from the Chili’s appetizer section to the Red Lobster full platter. It is like someone opened the fridge to our soul, and removed every burnt grilled cheese we were surviving on because we could make it under 5 dollars. It is one of the main reasons our parents dreaded ¨visit¨ trips are tolerable. For every questioning and judgment they make on our life choices, we get a potential sushi bar or, in my case, an Aperol.
My mother ordered the first round of Aperols with glee. We were celebrating life with an orange, spritz drink that made our throats feel like they were being French kissed by a citrine. To be frank, I never really liked alcohol, or drugs, because, yes, my dad Dad was a severe addict, but, I also group in a very strict household. In truth, God was watching, and had deemed it to my family of women that it was un-ladylike how I chew too loud, laugh even louder, and have no qualms wearing patterns that clearly clash with each other and calling it fashion. I was a free spirit growing up under a lot of rules and criticisms meant to construct me but ended becoming adult insecurities like, not eating salads in public because lettuce is a surprisingly audible food. Thus, I always kept alcohol to a two drink minimum because getting drunk triggered my childhood training of being hyper-aware of any minuscule behavior.
Alcohol and anger always made me sleepy, which meant by the the time I got drunk enough to flash my tits in a bar or enraged enough to punch a patron, I was in a SpongeBob snuggy napping. Hence, for my mother and I, the first round of Aperols was like a Sunday brunch with the Windsors. Fun, light… royal, which made me think a solid second round would hit like beautiful girls´ night with Princess Diana: completely forgetting how things ended with that situation. Yet, at the time, we felt eternally young, happy, and spoiled. Unfortunately, I flew to close to the Aperol Sun like an Icarus and boldly ordered the second round. As the waiter walked away, I realized I had become to my mother a Meghan and Harry Markle in this ¨royal night:¨ forgetting my place.
When you grow up with parents that made you hyper-aware of all the feelings they could have, versus you could not, little failures to not pick up their social cues can feel like a sledge-hammer to the heart. It is like inviting the shame etched into your inner child’s soul for a girl´s night, instead of Diana. I had let my guard down believing the night was to splurge a little, and within seconds my mother was looking at a menu to see the price of Aperol Spritzs and recalling an oath I had made 2 years ago to stop eating sugar, of which alcohol was, technically, drinking it. After her light shaming, she said it was just in fun. Yet, it triggered one of my old, daddy issues because I knew it was not fun… price-checking is not FUN!
Within two hours of my family reunion with my dad, after 10 years of not speaking to him because of all his verbal, emotional, mental, and financial abuse towards me and my mom, which got worse AFTER he got sober….. he called a me ¨Lush¨ because I ordered a second Aperol Spritz. What can I say? A girl gets bougie when she’s dehydrated. Yet, if there is one person that TOTALLY knows their abuser, it is their victim. They build in us a double consciousness so that to think of them is think of ourselves, at least, our safety. Thus, what he really wanted to say is ¨I´m paying for dinner, not cocktails, and you are lucky you even got that.¨ You see for my father and my mother, spoiled meant the act of getting anything, while, for me, it meant getting what you want.
Both my parents grew up extremely poor, and, by the time I first-breathed, were convinced I was spoiled. It was one out of two character assessments they mutually shared. Diandra is spoiled, and Diandra is hyper-sensitive. To me, I was a purse: going to places that I did not ask to go to, but, somehow, carrying the wallet. Thus, the strangeness of the comment was not that an ex-alcoholic who would go on Ted Talks about sobriety was using the term ¨lush¨ loosely towards his kid after a 10 year reunion. My father disrespecting me was apart of our ¨cool banter.¨ He would call me names, and I would quietly cry into a pillow later that night. It also was not the disappointment to see 10 years on mute did not, necessarily, transfer into him becoming a more silent, humble person. The strangeness was the moment echoed my mom, as well, despite being two very different people to me.
In perspective, what I realized is that my parents, when they could not understand or control me or felt disappointed I forgot to predict their feelings before even knowing my own, they labeled me. That knack is why, oddly,I know I’m ready for fame. Maybe, it is just me turning negatives into positives, but when I look back at all the failed friendships and loves of my life, I realize that I approached them like someone desperate to get her double for her consciousness. I was eager to find the second Aperol, that would add that tonic splash of shame to how sweet refreshed I felt with the first one. In perspective, all my exes might as well have loved me with a moral measuring tape: weighing my calorie intake as much as my care for them. I like to think living so much of my life under the scope of characters that I made into the center of my world, oddly, prepared for fame. In the saddest way, it taught me to shut down, keep your higher value quietly to yourself, and just cry into a pillow because, deep down, you know you will always order a second Aperol.
