Maureen Kadash
January 27, 2007
English 3017
Dr. Chandler
Free writing, listing and clustering for personal essay:
It was 1985, the year that I turned seventeen and the most important thing to me that summer was going to see the Bruce Springsteen concert. I had one problem though----I was not allowed to go. No matter how I presented the argument my parents said no. What my parents did not realize is that I already had tickets and I had been planning this with my friends for quite some time. Many people were going and we had rented a bus to take us to the Meadowlands and back. I spent a whole day waiting on line with my friends to get tickets and I was going to the concert. Since I could not convince my parents to allow me to go, my only option was to go to the concert against their wishes----How would I do that? Oh everyone had ideas, but nothing that I was comfortable with. I really thought that my parents were wrong and had no good reason to prevent me from going to the concert. In fact while we were making plans, getting tickets and filling our souls with Bruce it never occurred to me that my parents would not allow me to go to the concert. My thinking and my argument at the time was that I was responsible enough to have a good job and to baby-sit for my sister while my mother was at work during the day, therefore I was responsible enough to go to a concert. I was not asking them for money for the concert or to provide transportation. They just said no and never considered my argument----so it seemed anyway. I could have said that I had to work and that I would be late-----Maybe they would have believed that. I could have made plans to sleep at somebody’s house----that might have worked. Did they want me to lie to them? I don’t know! The fact is I wouldn’t lie to them, I didn’t lie to them. I could have said nothing and just left for the concert, but I didn’t want them to worry. I told my older sister, who was home from college at the time, that she had to watch my little sister until my mother came home. I then wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. I told them where I was going, how I was getting there and back, what time I would be home and why I had to do it---for the reasons I previously stated. I went to the concert knowing that I was in big trouble and knowing that I hurt my parents. I was willing to suffer the consequences. Would it have been better if I lied and they never knew that I went to the concert? I don’t think so! Why did I let them know what I was doing?
Now it’s the summer of 2006 and my fifteen year old daughter wants to go to the Warped Tour Music Festival at Englishtown. “What’s a Warped Tour,” I’m thinking. Oh boy I’m getting old! So I said “Let me think about it.” I find out that a Warped Tour is a touring music and extreme (bikers and skaters) sports festival which features about 100 performing artists and attracts thousands of people. How could I let her go? The next day she says, “So, Mom can I go? I need to know because we have to order the tickets.” “You can go” I say “But please be careful.” The day of the festival arrives and it 95 degrees out. I hand her the sun block and tell her to make sure she drinks enough water and tries to stay out of the sun. What else could I do I said she go. All day I was nervous I kept thinking she is getting sun burn, she is not drinking enough, and she is going to get trampled in some crowd of people. “Didn’t you think of this before you let her go?” My husband said. The fact is I did think of all of these things before I let her go and I still let her go. Oh how could I let her go I kept thinking? She called me about half way through the day so I knew that she didn’t get trampled. I refrained from asking her if she put the sun block on and if she was drinking enough because that would have insulted her. Finally my baby came home in one piece she did drink enough, but she was a little bit sun burned. I jumped up and gave her the biggest hug and she just rolled her eyes and proceeded to talk about the concert. I do not regret letting her go and I suppose I will let her go again and again.
The year before Samantha, my then 14 year old daughter wanted to have her navel pierced. “No,” I said without even thinking or considering her argument. Was I being unreasonable? I don’t think so, but I guess it all depends upon perspective. She began asking me every day until I finally said that I would think about it. I just thought that she was and still is too young to make that decision. “Everyone has a belly button ring,” She said repeatedly. I choked on the words as they were coming out of my mouth but I said it,” Well I’m not everyone’s mother, I’m your mother.” That is one of those phrases that my parents used as reasoning that really irked me and there I was justifying my position with that very phrase. I think they look cute, but they look so painful and so open to infection and if she decides that she doesn’t like it she will be left with a hole in the middle of her stomach. I told her that if she still wants it when she is eighteen then she can get it done. Of course she will no longer need my permission at that point. I am not sure if she really wants this or if she just wants it because “everyone” has it. My husband said don’t you remember when she got her ears pierced. I do remember she was five and jumped out of the chair into my arms screaming. I then had to struggle every night to clean them and turn them.
When I was little I was not allowed to have my ears pierced. My father said “If you were meant to have holes in your ears you would have been born that way.” Well after years of asking they finally let me pierce my ears when I was thirteen and graduated from eighth grade. By that time everyone I knew had two or three ear piercings. I decided to let my friend give me a second piercing in freshman biology class. We were supposed to be testing our blood type----I think. It was the perfect little instrument for poking a hole in someone’s ear. She stuffed a cookie in my mouth and then poked a hole in my ear. The teacher never noticed, but if she did I don’t know if I would have been in more trouble for the cookie in mouth or the blood dripping from my ear. WE decided to do the other ear in my room with ice.
1992 my brother and sister-in-law were getting tickets to Bruce and a bunch of people were going and they wanted me to go. I was hesitant. I really didn’t want to leave my baby who was just a little over a year just to go to a concert. I missed her terribly while I was working. They kept asking so I thought about it and finally said alright. My sister said she would watch the baby. I was getting ready for the concert when I realized that Samantha had a fever. I gave my sister the ticket and as I fell asleep with my baby on my chest I knew I wasn’t missing a thing and that I was right where I belonged.
2002 My younger sister said hey Bruce is coming to the Meadowlands do you want to get tickets. I laughed. I did think about it for a brief minute and then said no. I occasionally pop in A Bruce CD and fill my soul with memories of those warm summer nights and am always reminded of what I did. The thing is we all have regrets and things that we did in our youth that if we could go back we would do differently. Piercing my ear during bio lab was stupid, unsafe and an impulsive act that I would advise against and definitely not do again. I was wrong for going to the concert only because I was disobeying my parents. I would like to say that if I could go back I would not do it again but I can’t. I do not regret going to the concert and if I could go back I would do it again.
Monday, January 29, 2007
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