LJ Idol: Empty Gestures (Topic 1)
You have turned twenty-one, and this is a significant milestone in your life! We congratulate you on reaching this passage into adulthood. Things change, as we age and blossom into an adult. As you grow, expectations of you will change, as well. For example, gifts given at Christmas and on birthdays will be expected to be reciprocal. You will not receive gifts from us if we do not receive them from you.
I stared at the crisp, manila-colored paper for several seconds, blinking. I was quite uncertain whether to laugh or fume. Across the house, my mother was chattering away in the kitchen. I was turning twenty-one in three days.
The proclamation that I would no longer receive gifts unless gifts were given of me seemed to stand out sharply against the rest of what might have been considered a warm, congratulatory birthday letter. The sentence was ensconced in a cocoon of exuberant pride and warm wishes concerning my collegiate aspirations thus far, my hard work, and so on. It was signed with love. And yet, there in the very center sat that unfathomable declaration. It might as well have been acid, eating away at the paper. It was pretentious, even for them.
"What does the letter say?" my mother was asking me. When I didn't answer, she poked her head into the living room, holding a spoon in one hand. "Well? What did they send you?" For my birthday, she meant.
I shook my head, smiling for some reason, and handed her the letter. "Just read it," I said.
She read it, and screwed up her face in an exact replica of my own bewildered expression. She took a deep breath and handed the letter back to me with a beautifully executed eye roll. She didn't say anything. What was there to say? Without warning, I had been sent a nicely worded letter informing me that I would no longer receive birthday presents or Christmas gifts and cards unless I sent them first. All folded neatly inside of a generic Hallmark birthday card.
The congratulations didn't matter. The warm wishes didn't matter. It all seemed quite hollow in the face of such a bold statement of position. In the grand scheme of the universe, it wasn't that surprising. I had been offered assistance with college tuition at eighteen, but only if I attended one of the superior universities of their selection. I had been chastised and guilt-tripped for my lazy correspondence with them. They had lamented their limited communication with me and feigned fervent interest in my life's progression. Yet, if I did not follow their guidelines, I was made to feel as if I were being shunned. Only apologies and nicely worded e-mails and phone calls could seal the rift, and I was the sole responsible party for doing so.
Their visits every two or three years lasted for a matter of hours. A mere blip on the radar screen of my life, yet it was I who was decided to be the glue that held our relationship together. Each time it was said that they were proud of me, it was often followed by something like a letter telling me that they wouldn't send me gifts any longer or an offer of assistance if only I reached the lofty standards that they had set for me. It was all empty. All of it. All my life, it had been. Somehow, I think they found it their duty to have a "relationship" with me, but they were ignorant of what that relationship should be.
My father pushed me to keep in touch with them. Insisted that I e-mail them regularly and put on a dopey smiling face when they came to visit or feign interest when they called. They could have done so much for me, and yet they'd done so little. But, it wasn't their lack of interest that I resented. It was that one little sentence. That one step too far over the line of what is and is not acceptable. That was too much.
I laid the letter down on the coffee table, leaning back against the couch with a deep sigh. I was angry and amused all at once. Had they meant more to me, it might have stung. But they didn't, and I felt only anger at the presumption and amusement at the delusion. My mother patted my shoulder.
"You know how they are," she said, and returned to the kitchen, looking worried for me.
I looked down at the paper, reading the last sentence again before chucking it into the trash.
Hoping you have a wonderful twenty-first birthday!
Love,
Grandmother A and Grandpa G
Love, indeed.
This entry was written for therealljidol, Season 6, Topic 1
I stared at the crisp, manila-colored paper for several seconds, blinking. I was quite uncertain whether to laugh or fume. Across the house, my mother was chattering away in the kitchen. I was turning twenty-one in three days.
The proclamation that I would no longer receive gifts unless gifts were given of me seemed to stand out sharply against the rest of what might have been considered a warm, congratulatory birthday letter. The sentence was ensconced in a cocoon of exuberant pride and warm wishes concerning my collegiate aspirations thus far, my hard work, and so on. It was signed with love. And yet, there in the very center sat that unfathomable declaration. It might as well have been acid, eating away at the paper. It was pretentious, even for them.
"What does the letter say?" my mother was asking me. When I didn't answer, she poked her head into the living room, holding a spoon in one hand. "Well? What did they send you?" For my birthday, she meant.
I shook my head, smiling for some reason, and handed her the letter. "Just read it," I said.
She read it, and screwed up her face in an exact replica of my own bewildered expression. She took a deep breath and handed the letter back to me with a beautifully executed eye roll. She didn't say anything. What was there to say? Without warning, I had been sent a nicely worded letter informing me that I would no longer receive birthday presents or Christmas gifts and cards unless I sent them first. All folded neatly inside of a generic Hallmark birthday card.
The congratulations didn't matter. The warm wishes didn't matter. It all seemed quite hollow in the face of such a bold statement of position. In the grand scheme of the universe, it wasn't that surprising. I had been offered assistance with college tuition at eighteen, but only if I attended one of the superior universities of their selection. I had been chastised and guilt-tripped for my lazy correspondence with them. They had lamented their limited communication with me and feigned fervent interest in my life's progression. Yet, if I did not follow their guidelines, I was made to feel as if I were being shunned. Only apologies and nicely worded e-mails and phone calls could seal the rift, and I was the sole responsible party for doing so.
Their visits every two or three years lasted for a matter of hours. A mere blip on the radar screen of my life, yet it was I who was decided to be the glue that held our relationship together. Each time it was said that they were proud of me, it was often followed by something like a letter telling me that they wouldn't send me gifts any longer or an offer of assistance if only I reached the lofty standards that they had set for me. It was all empty. All of it. All my life, it had been. Somehow, I think they found it their duty to have a "relationship" with me, but they were ignorant of what that relationship should be.
My father pushed me to keep in touch with them. Insisted that I e-mail them regularly and put on a dopey smiling face when they came to visit or feign interest when they called. They could have done so much for me, and yet they'd done so little. But, it wasn't their lack of interest that I resented. It was that one little sentence. That one step too far over the line of what is and is not acceptable. That was too much.
I laid the letter down on the coffee table, leaning back against the couch with a deep sigh. I was angry and amused all at once. Had they meant more to me, it might have stung. But they didn't, and I felt only anger at the presumption and amusement at the delusion. My mother patted my shoulder.
"You know how they are," she said, and returned to the kitchen, looking worried for me.
I looked down at the paper, reading the last sentence again before chucking it into the trash.
Hoping you have a wonderful twenty-first birthday!
Love,
Grandmother A and Grandpa G
Love, indeed.
This entry was written for therealljidol, Season 6, Topic 1