Learning to Love My Messy Life

By Suzanne De Vita

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.
~Jane Howard

I slowly open my front door, praying I'll find some sort of normalcy when I enter. No such luck. Two children fly past me, my sister chasing after our brother, screaming for her doll back. There is pasta sauce splattered on our kitchen wall — artwork, my dad calls it. And my mom has set up shop smack in the middle, ironing a mountain of clothes while Law and Order blares from our television.

"I have five siblings," I mutter to my new neighbor, Michelle. "Sorry for the mess."

I whisk her away to my bedroom. It's really a room shared with my two sisters, but that was nothing a good bribe couldn't fix. They were "gone for the day" as Michelle and I flipped through magazines and painted our toenails. Mercifully, none of my brothers came barging in, and the smell of acetone was enough to keep my dad away. When it was time for dinner, Michelle skipped back to her house, telling me she'd call tomorrow.

She did, and I happily accepted her invitation to go to her house. Any place would be better than my house. Soon, I was standing at her front door, ringing the bell. A strange woman answered.

"Hello, Miss Suzanne," she said in broken English. "Michelle is upstairs."

That couldn't be her mother. I looked up at a gleaming white marble double staircase. Michelle appeared at the top, a huge smile on her face, motioning for me to follow her. I wanted to thank the woman who had opened the door, but she had disappeared.

To say Michelle's bedroom was huge is an understatement. It was more like a hotel suite, complete with king size bed, a sparkling chandelier and every toy imaginable. I had never seen anything so glamorous. She explained to me that the woman downstairs was her nanny, Marion. I wondered if Marion was going to hang out with us, but it quickly became clear that we had total freedom. The only interruption that day was Aura, the housekeeper, who was putting away freshly-folded laundry. A nanny and a housekeeper at her disposal? Michelle was living the life.

I went over to Michelle's almost every day that summer, playing with her insane toy collection, unknowingly becoming more and more like family to her. I loved being in her immaculately clean home, having our lunches prepared for us like we were royalty. No chores, no siblings to annoy us, no parents to constantly nag us. I never noticed that her own parents were rarely home, and her nanny and housekeeper ignored her.

On one of those days, Michelle called me over earlier than usual. Her dad had given her something amazing called an Xbox, and she was dying to play it.

I raced over, flung open the door and announced my arrival. Aura crept up from the basement, greeting me the way she and Marion always did.

"Hello, Miss Suzanne. Michelle is upstairs."

"Thanks, Aura!" My voice echoed in her empty house.

It dawned on me. As I bounded up that glorious staircase, I thought, what did Michelle do when I wasn't there?

Sure, she had an endless supply of the latest gadgets. Sure, she had dance classes to go to. Sure, she had a nanny and a housekeeper. But who did she talk to? Who did she laugh with?

We spent all afternoon playing that Xbox. Time slipped away from us, and before we knew it, my mom was calling to tell me it was time for dinner. I looked over at Michelle, rolling my eyes as I begged my mom to let me miss dinner. This was not a battle I was going to win.

"Fine, Mom, I'll be home in five minutes," I grumbled through my teeth. But before I could slam the phone down, an idea popped into my head.

"Wait, Mom!" I said. "Can Michelle have dinner with us tonight?"

We had to squeeze in an extra chair for her, but she didn't mind. Her eyes shined as she looked around at our table, talking excitedly with my sisters, shoveling food into her mouth like she hadn't eaten in days. She laughed at all the things that embarrassed me. She laughed at my dad's cluelessness. She laughed at my brothers flinging lettuce at each other. She even laughed when my sister tripped over our oven door, which had a broken latch that made it fall open every five minutes. Another thing to fix on our list of things to fix.

When our meal was finished, and all the dishes had been washed (assembly line style, the custom in our house), she turned to me and whispered, "You're so lucky you have such a big family. Can I have dinner with you all tomorrow night?"

I looked over at my sloppy siblings; my brothers were making a fort with our couch cushions, knocking over everything to make room for it, and my sisters were jumping up and down in the other room, dancing to a boombox that skipped whenever they hit the floor too hard. My parents were making espresso that bubbled over every time, adding yet another layer to the permanent coffee stain on our stove. Suddenly, my house — my crowded, messy, loud house — seemed like paradise.

http://www.chickensoup.com