As summer continued on, people noticed I wasn't quite myself. One of Webster's Dictionary's definitions of insanity is, "being utterly foolish and unreasonable." My new utterly foolish and unreasonable self got mixed reviews. Friends asked me if I was okay, why I felt like I had to act out. I remember feeling often persecuted, doubly angry.
I was angry at them for being surprised that I'd want to let loose. For making me feel bad that I was having fun for once. Couldn't they see it was exhausting being the way I was?
I was angry at myself for holding myself to such impossible standards my whole life. Who was to blame that people were surprised?
My mother and I had never been on worse terms. Growing up with an alcoholic father, she hates drinking and hasn't had a drink in over thirty years. But it went far deeper than that. My mother and I are two of a kind. We are connected in a supernatural way, like one soul in two bodies. The way we love each other goes beyond mother and daughter.
Independence isn't simple. You want freedom but it's scary relying only on yourself. The loneliness I experienced knowing that my mom didn't approve of the decisions I was making, of the new girl I was, was terrifying. I didn't know where to turn. I wanted the closeness, the simplicity of your parent being your hero, but it wasn't so black and white anymore. And so, I felt like I'd lost half of myself.
My father is good in a crisis. I think he knew that if he also openly disapproved of me that it would do no good. Instead, we were pals. I didn't see him often, but when I did, he didn't make me feel stupid for being different. We'd watch American Idol together. Sometimes I'd cry on his shoulder, but mostly the conversation stayed surface. And I was okay with that.
That summer brought my brother Michael and I close in a way that we'd never been before. I'd spent my whole life sheltered from bad decisions and the people that make them in a way that Michael never was. He'd seen the gray in life way earlier. Smart people do fuck up and I'd never known that, in a lasting way, before I was the smart person who was fucking up.
Michael never once condemned me that summer. In fact, he was my saviour. He was there for me every time I needed anyone. He never got frustrated with me for still being heartbroken or for wasting my time. For the first time ever, Michael was the one with it all together. I went to him for advice. I needed him to guide me.
I took him out all over the city and paid because he was eighteen and poor. So many nights we'd fall asleep on the couch downstairs, laughing ourselves stupid. We'd wake up and go for hangover breakfasts.
He showed me a kindness that I have never been able to show him. I realize now that even if I was crazy, at least then I really made time to be with the people that loved me.
I can't say the same anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment