Good Girl Gone Bad

One day when I was 6 years old, I don’t recall why, but I was very bad for the babysitter (who happened to be my loving, generous, and sassy cousin, Marissa). Just the worst. A complete nightmare. Repeating everything she said, running and shouting all over the house, touching the crystal chandelier, conspiring with my brother on how to let a bee loose in the living room (a feat that he eventually managed without my help), and a million other things that I can’t even remember but that I am sure Marissa could bend your ear re-counting (sorry Rissa!).

Not me, but I kind of wish it was...

This behavior was puzzling to everyone (including me), because I was usually freakishly well-behaved. I thrived off being told how good I was. Ask me nicely, and I’d sit still and read for hours while you did laundry or ran errands or, in Rissa's case, used the landline to call boys while watching 90210. But not on this night.

On this particular occasion, I was so horrible that when Marissa, at wit’s end, decided to lock me in my room on extended “timeout,” I hauled my plastic Little Fischer table on top of my bed in an attempt to break out of the high ranch windows, screaming throughout the whole ordeal.

Thankfully, I was caught mid-escape wedged in the window looking down at the ground some 12 feet below. Not knowing what else to do, Marissa had acted on her usually-hollow (though very much abused) threat and called in the reinforcements: my Auntie Gail and Uncle Dan. I don't really remember how it all ended, but let's just say that I did not "go quietly".

The Happy Clan -  Cape Cod 2012

When I woke up the next morning the memory of my behavior came into sharp focus, and for the first time in my young life I understood mortification (call it the first of many moral hangovers). How could I have been so bad? Done that to Marissa? And Aunty Gail and Uncle Dan had seen it all! Oh the report they must’ve given my mother!

I was so ashamed that instead of escaping, I wanted to never leave my room. Yes, that was the new plan. If the guilt did not kill me then I would die a slow death locked in this bear-ballerina wallpapered cell. I spent the next few hours crying quietly in solitude, calling to my mother that I was not hungry (at the time I thought I was being sneaky, but in retrospect she must’ve known I was beating myself up in there). After a few hours of self-loathing, I heard a knock. My mother called for me to open the door – Aunty Gail wanted to see me.

Aunty Gail - drawn to scale

If I had known any swear words at this point, I am pretty sure I would have mentally said them all. I was terrified, embarrassed, and most of all, ashamed. But what choice did I have? Wiping my red-rimmed eyes and elbowing the loose snot from my nose, I went to let her in, to face the music, to place my neck dutifully into the gallows.

You can imagine my shock when I opened the door and was immediately pulled close into two gigantic breasts and squeezed tight with so much love it almost hurt. She murmured sweetly to me Aunty Gail loves you and I hugged her back with the kind of desperate intensity grown ups almost never put behind their embraces. I was confused but oh-so-happy. Didn’t she despise me just as much as I did myself? The realization was a profound one. She did not.

In fact, the reason she had come over that day was to give me a present (seriously?!?!!). From her purse she pulled out a hardcover children’s book called “Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day,” and we began to read it. It was about a child who also had a funky “off-day,” and it reminded us that with a little forgiveness, each day is a chance to start over.

It is not that I grew up in a house without love, because it was quite the opposite. I grew up showered with so much love that I understood in a deep way—and probably took for granted—what it was like to be loved unconditionally. That morning when I woke up, I knew without question that of course everyone still loved me. But they didn’t have to be nice to me. Or even really like me anymore. You see, it was a fair house, and we had rules for this sort of thing. I knew the rules, and us Swansons strongly disapproved of bad-asses (I would later learn that almost all the adults were a bit hypocritical in this stance). 

Despite being a strict enforcer of this familial law of ethics, my Aunty Gail is a woman of incredible insight and kindness, who knew me far better than I could fathom. She somehow instinctually understood that the lesson I needed this time was not one about acting-up, but about learning how to forgive yourself. And how to accept others’ forgiveness. She understood that in order for me to find the strength do this, I needed to understand how much I was loved. So she showed on up.

Aunty Gail, me, Uncle Dan, WFU graduation 2010

These moments are not always easy to spot. Sometimes when a person acts out or does something to disappoint, your instinct is to punish them, make them understand the consequences of their actions. And more often than not, this is an appropriate response. However, sometimes—just sometimes—a person is too frail for all that. Sometimes what they really need is for us to walk towards them with open arms as they continue to fire bullets and repeat: I love you, I love you, I love you.

I say this because yesterday I had to walk into the range of fire for someone. And I couldn’t have known to do it without my Aunty Gail (Oh I love my Aunty Gail, yes I do...)

I'm not usually this mushy (I have actually been called emotionally constipated and cold-as-Russia by separate people), but I want to remind my readers (so, my mom) of these moments and these people because I think we have relegated them to the stuff of Hallmark/Disney fables, but they are so real. And they are the catalysts for so much future compassion. We all have an Aunty Gail to be thankful for. And isn't today just as good a day as any to return the favor?

It does not take much to be someone else's saving grace. Let's get to it! 

PS - I'm sorry but I did not bring any embarassing baby photos to Nepal. I tried google-imaging "bad little girl" to see if I could find a funny picture for this entry, but... I'll let your imaginations fill in the blanks, perverts.