Good morning, good morning. Is the sun up where you are yet? Here it’s all fog and hush.
There is still a cereal bowl in the bathroom. Don’t ask me what a cereal bowl is doing in the bathroom. Did someone eat cereal while going to the bathroom, or while walking into the bathroom or…? I can’t answer. What I can say is that it’s been there now for about 30 hours, 36, and in that time, more people than me have been into the bathroom and seen the bowl with a spoon resting inside it and bits of cereal stuck to the sides. But I seem to be the only person who cares about it. I am certainly the only person obsessing about it. I mentioned it yesterday morning — please have him bring his bowl from the bathroom to the kitchen to the dishwasher — and also last night — go get that bowl and bring it to the dishwasher, while you’re loading it up after dinner. But still the bowl still sits in the bathroom, on the sink next to the toilet.
It’s not the cereal bowl, understand. it’s what it represents.
This is the work of the trauma survivor stepparentish figure. There’s no name in our culture for what I am here. Not stepmom — that’s not what I want to be. I don’t want that word. I’m mom’s girlfriend. Just Jen. I have the feelings and fears and urges of someone who stands in what seems to be the role of a parent, but I don’t have the responsibility or the space to act on them— what I mean is, I am not the parent here. I am not ever the parent here.