52. Money, sex, religion

About money again, because it was our poison. Loving it, clinging to it with compulsive enthusiasm. Or getting rid of it as if it was unsanitary. Two opposite stances: Defining one’s distinctiveness by the glitters of the dollar sign, or identifying one’s demise by the scurry of bank notes. On one side, petitioning the Almighty to win at the lottery. On the other, imploring Homo Sapiens to disregard the concept of payments.

Money was either the flawless solution to all ills, or their irrefutable root. It was here salvation, there damnation. There was no middle ground.

For my virtuous mother, money was wholly orgasmic. For my sullied father, it was an anti-climax destroying all the fun. A godly aphrodisiac. Or an unholy frustration device.

Indeed, from our family’s female perspective, cash was the wing allowing purity, righteousness to rise above the dirt Man carried into the house. And for the man of the house, it was the slime at the bottom of the foul tunnel through which he escaped.

I think, deep down, for my mother having lots of money meant she wouldn’t need to have sex. Whereas for my father it automatically lead to unrestrained carnal depravity.

You could clearly hear how the two positions got intermingled in the loud gruesome confrontations between my parents. Jumping lice and bounced checks finding their way into the same sentence. Arraignments targeting both how venereal diseases get transmitted and how fast bad credit spreads. All the time, monetary affairs merged with hanky-panky ones.

Practicalities forming an unusual bond, consensus reached, when my mother would announce with hysterical tones that not only would we go without food for a while, but also were forbidden to use the toilets at home on account of pubic crabs. No eating, no shitting. That seemed to make sense.

I have always made just enough money to see us through, barely finding what we thought we needed until the end of the month, necessities, whims, luxuries. Never accumulating at the bank. No savings. No discourse on the matter. Ignoring the long-term. Simply considering the day, what was best for you now. Laboring to meet those needs, whatever they were. Living like I had funds, resources, forever although they had to be invented day-to-day. No back-up plans. Nothing permanent. A compromise between my mother’s obsession with amassing security, and my father’s delinquent and inexcusable pecuniary conduct.

So I won’t be transferring to you any objects of value. No jewels, no insurance money, no inheritance. Just souvenirs of things we did together, of my love for you, heartfelt gestures, moments and words. Our concerns for each other. Efforts. And numerous victories, the only things at my credit. As I battled my way out of absurdity to make sure you’d be free from its repercussions. Often failing, true, but trying again.

That is the compromise I had to make to slowly build a functional sanity for all of us. Saying my farewells to all those who chose to stay behind, in the mind-numbing world where sex, religion and money end up jointly in the unilateral impetus for self-absorption.

For you I chose no material blissfulness, but no Inferno either.

I'm not that interested in learning if I was right or wrong to do so. It's not a debate. Just a fact now. The rest is up to you.

Laolao