My children, along with my wife, are a
bit O.C.D.-ey/ Tourettey acting. They
aren’t afraid to admit it. For example,
my wife has this crazy, continuous habit of annoying me every day — bad joke, couldn’t
resist. My oldest son, when he was a
baby, used to roll his wrist in a repetitive motion. At first we thought something
might be
wrong. We lived in North Carolina, and
when we explained to the elderly, daycare lady we were concerned he might be
autistic we were shocked by her response of, “Oh Honey, wouldn’t that just be
great?” After a brief pause she
continued with, “He would be able to paint and draw.”
My youngest is agitated when things
are not a particular way he
thinks they ought to be. He, too, has
little quirks like eating all but a tiny bit of crust from sandwiches or
pizza. I stood as a stalwart of normalcy
as I discussed these issues one afternoon with my mom. Her response was to remind
me, I was a weird
little bastard. She said, I may be normal
now, though there was doubt, but
she assured me this was not the case growing up. Apparently, my offspring didn’t
have a
chance.
As a kid I had three habits that
were repetitive and
distracting. Two were publically
embarrassing to my mother and the other a bit hidden and confusing to her.
The first behavior my poor mother had to
deal with was the mouth stretch. I am
not sure how it started, but once it did, I embraced it with the passion a
horse fly takes in tormenting a sweaty, bald man’s head in the summer. It
felt so damn good. I would simply open my mouth as far as I
could, making sure to stretch the thin flaps of skin on each side of my
lips. This feeling was so gratifying I
fear doing it today as I am afraid I could be sucked back into the vortex of
ecstasy. I warn you to not be lured into
the siren song of the mouth stretch… you may never recover.
My mom thought I had gone nuts.
This was back before the internet and Oprah, so she had no clue what was
up with her kid. She flat out told me it
was weird and if I kept it up, she wasn’t going to take me out in public. I
promised I would stop, but we both lied; I
didn’t stop and she still took me places.
Mouth stretching was my meth.
When winter rolled around and the air became dry, I developed seeping
cracks on each side of my mouth. The
slits would crust over, but with each new stretch, they were torn open once
more. I continued to do this until I
developed impetigo, a highly volatile, bacterial infection that spreads. I soon
had sores all over my face. I was a vain kid, yet still I couldn’t
stop. My mom now not only had to deal
with parading me around whilst I was looking like a baby bird in want of a
worm, but she had the added shame of doing so with a scabby-faced, baby
bird. As an adult you love your kids,
but no matter who you are, you realize they are an extension of you when being
judged by others. You shouldn’t care
what others think, but you can’t help it.
Try to make a good first impression
to develop adult relationships
when your bait is a sore-laden adolescent who literally can’t keep his mouth
shut. I just stopped doing it one day. I
don’t recall the moment or what transpired to make me stop… I just did.
Mom survived this public shame
only later to be
introduced to the newest member of the family, My random head shake. I was a
bit older when I developed what I
thought was a brain tumor. I could
actually feel something hanging lose within my skull. As a result, I felt the
need to shake my head quickly from side to side, as if trying to produce sound from
a baby rattle. I would go a few minutes
or so before I felt I had to repeat it, so I was able to hide it from people
for a while. Plus, I had long bangs at
the time so I would work in a hair-flip to mask the habit. Eventually, my mom
noticed and wanted to know
what was wrong with me… now? I told her
she should sit down and brace herself. I
then, as gently as I could, told her about my suspected brain tumor. She
took it well; in fact, she might have
been smiling, a clear cover-up as not to show her inner pain.
