Mob Wife
Do you remember those “future you” assignments in elementary school? You know, where they force fourth graders – who still think cereal counts as a personality trait – to choose a lifelong profession?
Well, in fourth grade, our teacher sat us in a circle and asked the question she probably thought was simple and sweet: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Cue the parade of future doctors, astronauts and veterinarians. Then me – hair probably in some chaotic half-up thing I insisted was “a style,” feet swinging under my chair like I had mob ties already – and I say:
“Mob wife.”
Silence. I don’t remember my teacher’s exact face but I imagine it was somewhere between oh no and how do I call CPS gently?
My parents were summoned for an emergency meeting. My father’s response? I’m told he burst out laughing – hard. And honestly? Good. That shit was funny.
You shouldn’t over-analyze everything in life (says the girl who has literally rewritten text messages after sending them) but some things? Worth a second look – especially in therapy, which is where this little gem came back up recently.
Bear with me.
I have a bit of a pattern, romantically. The kind where men start with the “you’re amazing” energy and end up treating me like I’m just conveniently amazing when it benefits them – emotionally, financially or intellectually (yes, I’ve been the therapist and financial advisor). They get my cleverness; I get their chaos.
Meanwhile, I’m standing there – emotionally bare, metaphorically screaming, “Hello? Does anyone see me?” But apparently I forgot to also do a little dance and song.
These men always “handled their business,” though that business was usually… how do I say this… criminally unimpressive. One ex had just gotten out of jail for peeling off from a traffic stop – glove compartment full of entrepreneurial evidence. He was known around town, I’ll give him that. People dapped him up at parties. He had that “everyone knows him” essence and for a moment, I thought proximity to that meant I mattered too.
Spoiler: I didn’t. Not to them. But I mattered to me, I just didn’t know it yet.
It took therapy (and one very well-timed eyebrow raise from my therapist) to ask:
“Well, why did you want to be the mob wife and not the mobster?”
Because – ready for this? – I thought I could live a respected – and somewhat flashy – life without having to actually do anything scary. I didn’t want to be the one making the moves. I just wanted to be close enough to that kind of power where other people finally heard me.
Because being “just me”? That never seemed loud enough.
But here’s the twist: happiness doesn’t come by association. It’s not a trickle-down effect from someone else’s life. It doesn’t magically show up when you stand next to someone impressive or infamous or popular.
It has to come from you.
Scratch that jazz – me.
The me that thinks too hard and too much, that makes metaphors out of grocery lists, that knows how to make people laugh even when she’s falling apart, that used to drink to disappear and now writes to be seen.
So ask yourself: Do you know what your wants and needs are? Do you voice them? And if no one else is listening – are you?
Start there, start with you.
And please, take it from someone who has seen some things: I can’t tell you what you should do in your twenties. Fuck, I barely told myself. But I can tell you what not to do and it’s this – don’t build your life trying to be heard in someone else’s story. Write your fucking own. Mob (anything) optional.