For Those Who Wanted To Know
It was almost movie worthy, really. Kicked out of the house at eleven thirty at night in the rain, with nothing but a backpack holding two shirts and a laptop. She shivered in her thin coat, not nearly warm enough for the biting wind. Her panda hat sat jauntily on her head, the paws swinging around my shoulders like they were waving goodbye.
This is one hell of a birthday gift, she thought bitterly.
One argument. Not even a full argument really. Just a few words, lies, and a tired girl, sick of it all. Whatever it was called, it had been six months, five years, and several disappointments in the making.
A woman gets a knock on her bedroom door. She’s a large woman, both tall and wide in the way that lets you know she’s never done a day’s worth of hard work in her life. She drops her newest toy, a new phone, on the bed and welcomes her daughter in with a distracted wave.
The daughter says the words everyone knows all to well: “We need to talk.”
The sentence has been spoken. No turning back now. Automatically, the woman is on edge but doesn’t show it, making a big deal out of turning her new phone on silent, laughing about how it’s smarter than her. She turns her body awkwardly in the bed so that she’s facing her daughter but keeps her eyes on the tv on the dresser; she doesn’t want to miss her show.
It all started with a question. Two really, both starting with ‘why was I the only one…’
Why was I the only one not invited to the family gathering at a friend’s house? (They asked where I was.)
Why was I the only one in the house to not get a new phone, to have a phone bill to pay by herself without warning? (I can’t afford a phone bill.)
Excuses trot out, but it’s an old tale and she’s heard it all before. The daughter is unmoved and presses on, determined to get to the bottom of it all: dinner, but not enough left for her. A car sold and the sudden need for ten dollars a day for a ride to work. A shelf just for her food, food that disappears when she’s not eating it.
”With your brother’s troubles…” the woman starts. “It’s hard.”
And the brother needs a talking to, staring at his sister for minutes on end, peering through curtains when she’s getting dressed, running when he’s caught, loudly proclaiming to his friends that his sister is a bitch because she yelled at him for barging in without knocking. She doesn’t have a door, but he threw the curtains open without warning, her shirt being lifted so she could change.
”He’s thirteen,” she says. “He can’t be staring at me and calling me a bitch.”
”Well if that’s how he perceives you, I can’t help that. He can think want he wants.” Suddenly her tone is accusing. A finger is pointed. “Do you know how many times is has come to me crying because you’ve yelled at him?”
”Do you know how many times he’s peeped at me? He’s even stared at me while I was sleeping, and barged in without a knock or anything-“
”Well he can’t help it.”
”He’s thirteen.” He’s supposed to know better and they both know it. “He was grounded last month for signing that our sister was a bitch and I’m getting told to deal with it?” Now her tone is disbelieving.
”All the doctors are saying he might be autistic.”
”But that’s not an excuse. Can’t you at least talk to him?”
A firm shake of the head. No, the woman won’t do that. The tears start. “It’s just so hard lately. You act like you don’t want to be part of this family, like you don’t want to be here.”
She’s heard this before too. “Sometimes I don’t want to be,” she says honestly, gently. “But I am here, and it’s getting unbearable. I just want you to talk to him.” A pause, a collection of thoughts. “We need to communicate more-“
”I’ve tired,” the woman almost yells, her tone now sharp and biting. “The other day you chewed me out at the table about your brother’s friends because you didn’t like them-“
”Just one and you know why-” Walking into the house while they were all sleeping, staring at the sister younger than her but older than their brother. Inviting himself into her room. They had agreed months ago he couldn’t be around when an adult wasn’t around.
”You sat there and told me I was just like your father-“
The words had never left her mouth. “No I didn’t,” she says, confused.
”Yes you did.” Angry tears now. Voice louder. A dare to defy her again.
”No.” Voice firm. She knows what she said. Her words will not be twisted to make her mother the victim.
She hears the tone. She knows she will lose this argument. But fake sickness won’t work this time, her daughter knows all of her tricks now and she no longer falls for any of them. There is no one to hide behind either. So she does what she can, pointing to the door of her room.
”GET OUT.”
The girl retreats to her own room, a small breakfast nook, separated from the kitchen by the presence of the refrigerator against her bed. She’d originally had curtains, but her mother had decided to rearrange things to suit her and the girl had lost even more privacy.
Two hours later the husband appears, peeking his head through her remaining curtains.
”Where’s your ride?”
Confusion now, followed closely by fear. “What?”
”Your mom said that you told her you were moving out tonight, that your ride was coming to get you.”
Dry throat, numb lips, and suddenly shaking hands. “News to me,” she whispers. She can’t make her voice any louder.
And he knows it’s not true. He knows what his wife does, how she acts. He won’t ever leave her, even when her actions brought debt down upon his head and she stood with her hand out, asking for more money because she’s never happy.
But it doesn’t stop him from telling the girl, not a child anymore but not a woman yet, to get out. “Then you’d better make arrangements.”
So I stuffed what would fit into my backpack and headed out the door of a house that had never been home.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I was defective somehow- a daughter sent to purposely make all of her parents reject her, from her father, rejecting her because she looks like her mother, to her mother, rejecting because she acts like her father. I’d switched parents and states, only to find myself homeless for the second time in six months, and this time with no one to turn to.
My life-long friends, the people who’d take me in without blinking, were seven hours and several hundred miles south. After living in one place your entire life, you tend to have deep roots, but that didn’t stop me from blowing away like smoke, my freshly planted roots tearing up easily.
And four days before my twentieth birthday, I found myself walking down the sidewalk in the dark, frantically going through my contact list and wondering who would be awake at that hour. I tried to ignore the rain splattering on my glasses and phone, soaking me through my too thin coat.
When I shivered, I wasn’t sure if it was from cold or fear, and it chilled me either way.
An Ode to Bathtubs
You have to love bathtubs, whether they be big or small.
You can wash you body, or scrub your clothes, scrub them all.
Don’t pay any mind to the faceless white,
It doesn’t care if it’s day or if it’s night.
Crawl in and wash away the worries of the day
Or soak your clothes, clean laundry without having to pay.
You have to love bathtubs, especially ones in a motel
they’ll be the cleanest thing in the room, and a far cry from hell.
Thank God for The Ghetto
I’m living in a motel week to week because it’s within walking distance of my new job. It’s not ideal, but compared to what I just came from, it’s like paradise. I have a bigger bed, my own bathroom, and a DOOR. I have a door. I cannot stress how much I love the door.
I’m a bit broke until my last check from Levi’s comes in, and most of that will be going to rent for another week, but hey, I have a job that pays $9 an hour and no over controlling mother hell bent on shaping me into who she wants me to be.
I’m happy. Lonely and hungry, sad that I had to quit the job I love, but happy.
It’s my birthday
And I’ll cry if I want to. I’ll work if I want to. I do whatever the fuck I want to. Because my mother no longer controls my life.
Par. Tay.
Things I’ll never do again
- Live with my mother.
- Actually, I’ll probably never speak to her after this.
- Take showers for granted.
- Take beds for granted.
- Take food for granted.
- Spend more of my check than I mean too. I am so lucky I’d stuck to my budget after getting paid or I’d be in major trouble.
- Not have a back up plan.
- Look at my birthday the same way (It’s tomorrow and neither side of my family has even spoken to me).
- Make up excuses to not volunteer. Yesterday, on four hours of sleep and in two day old clothes, I went with my work group to the Rainbow Resale Shop. It was hot, tiring, dirty, smelly work. But it felt good.
- Work at a place with people who can’t or won’t ever be my friends. I cannot stress how lucky I am to have so many coworkers as friends. I couldn’t work today (staying too far away) and on my first try I got someone to take my opening shift. My last job I had two or three friends, and that was stretching it.
This has been a new, scary experience for me. It’s not over yet, but so far, I’ve escaped unharmed.
Well…
Guys, I’m homeless. I’ve got a few friends letting me couch surf, but I honestly have no idea where I’m sleeping tomorrow night. Plus I have to work Wednesday.
Apparently, telling your mother she’s wrong when she calls you a liar, tells you you don’t want to be part of the family, and claims that everything is your fault, including the recent financial hardship (caused by her not paying bills), means kicked kicked out of the house at 1:00 in the morning in the rain.
It’s almost movie worthy, really.
Everyone in the house but me got a new phone, a new plan, and a new carrier. I was not told we were switching carriers because they didn’t add me to the plan. I had no warning about this. So now, on top ofeverything else, I now have to come up with the money to keep my phone, which I need for work. I don’t know how I’m going to do this because I have to pay my parents $10 or more every time I need to go somewhere.
If I need to get to work, $10. If I need to go to the store to buy food for myself, $10 (plus whatever I spend on groceries). So I have to pay them $10 to take me to the store to pay my bill (the carrier doesn’t have a pay online option- it’s a local crappy carrier) and then pay my bill.
I can’t fucking do this anymore.
I just can’t.
justanotherfinalfantasyfangirl:
Brilliant.
go notes go.
yeah this deserves thousands of reblogs.
Hello sweet logic
This is so smart!
hello common sense.
I missed you. ;w;
never not reblog~
via sherlyhondacase
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