Jacqueline Depestre and the Passion of Colette

Today is my mother's 68th birthday. She married my dad January 1960. She was still in nursing school in Canada and my dad was interning at a Jewish hospital in Harlem. They moved back to Haiti to start a family after the wedding. She was 24.

Now that I am her age, I feel like I am 16 years old with raging hormones and conflicting emotions. Last night, two assholes called me in the span of an hour. One that I will call NoNOb for obvious reasons (his cowardice, of course) and the other, the infamous MARC SICILANO, who just can't take a hint...

MARC: "I FEEL LIKE I DID SOMETHING WRONG"..

MARC left a long pathetic message on my voicemail. What's so sad about it is that I felt sorry for him. My plan all week has been to tell him the words that I have been dying to tell any asshole, the words that would assert my playerdom for the rest of my dating career....

WE WON'T BE SEEING EACH OTHER ANYMORE.

That was my sister SANDRA's signature line during her NYC dating years and last month she passed that torch to her baby sister. "You've got to cut them off right away" she said. "Don't waste your time".

So there I was talking to FLORA and MARC SICILANO called.

COLETTE: Shit (recognizing the 773 area code), I think he's calling me. I am not picking that up.

I clearly chickened out.

My fear is that once I say the fatal words, he will retaliate with a venim so strong that I will just burst into tears thus losing my upper hand...

FUCK YOU. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU ARROGANT, INSECURE BITCH.

I wouldn't have a response for something like that.

SANDRA: Just make sure that when you say those words, you better own them. Mean it.

I feel like if I picked up his call, I would have agreed to DATE # 3 in order to avoid asserting myself. I wonder if my mom regretted date # 1 with my dad....

They were neighbors in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. My mom grew up in a strict Protestant household. She was never allowed to date. My dad was the third son out of six boys and one girl. My dad and his brothers all liked my mom. She was hot. NoNOb agreed when I showed him an old picture of her a couple of months ago in my room...

What sealed the deal for my parents to be allowed to date was the fact that my dad arranged for my mother to go to nursing school in Canada. Her mother was impressed so she gave my mother permission to date him. Did my mother want to go to nursing school? Did she really have the hots for my dad or was it that she just did not have a choice? I think that she told me once that she wanted to be a writer and study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

***ITS NOT EVEN WORTH IT***

FLORA told me not to call back. Just ignore him. Why am I obsessing over this?

***NoNOb IS A LONG STORY***

So now its midnight, as I tuck myself into bed... deep under the covers, cats are finally out of my room and I am slowly drifting off to sleep, I feel my phone vibrate....Its NoNOb.

I shut off my phone and went to sleep.