Week 3 - Smile
"This has to stop," he says, shuffling papers from his lap and turning to face me from his lounge chair in the corner of the room. "Your mother and I think it has gone on long enough."
I am standing just inside the doorway, my body not fully committed to the idea of remaining in this room. I make a concentrated effort to stare anywhere except his face, my eyes settling instead on a glass tumbler of ice and amber liquid sitting on the coffee table. As I watch, a bead of condensation drips and pools at the base of the cup. There will be a ring burned into the wood when the glass if finally cleared away.
He continues. "You just stay up there in your room, always on your computer sitting in the dark. You never talk to us, you never have any friends over..." He spreads out his arms, a gesture for his loss of words in the face of my troubling, anti-social behavior.
Silence hangs in the room, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, my arms crossed over my chest. "And? What's the problem?" I prompt, wanting to get this heartfelt moment out of the way as quickly as possible. I can se his shoulders slump a little as I say it, and it hurts me too. I hate that I'm too good inside to really be the bitch I am pretending to be.
"And we are worried about you. You don't seem happy. Are you happy? We can't tell."
"I'm fine. Everything is fine," I lie, not even convincing myself. It's an automatic reaction these days. I'm fine. Ever since my mom found my prescription for anti-depressants, my parents had been working under the assumption that happy is the opposite of depressed. Depression plus medication is their formula for happiness. I'm not striving for happiness - I'm striving for the ability to get out of bed and function.
I wish I could explain it to them, but I am a teenager and they don't understand me. Communication issues on both sides. I know they feel as though they have failed as parents, and I know I feel like I've failed as a person. I'm too stubborn to talk about it or accept their help.
We're both silent for a few more beats. I edge toward the door.
"Hey, we just want you to be happy. Just smile more," he says, offering his panacea for my self-worth issues. "Smile." It's more of a request than a suggestion, but I don't acquiesce. My face stays bereft of emotion. I can hear him sigh heavily as I head up to my room to do some more productive sitting in the dark.
A smile wouldn't have magically fixed everything in that moment. But forcing a smile probably wouldn't have hurt me any more than my departure hurt him.
I am standing just inside the doorway, my body not fully committed to the idea of remaining in this room. I make a concentrated effort to stare anywhere except his face, my eyes settling instead on a glass tumbler of ice and amber liquid sitting on the coffee table. As I watch, a bead of condensation drips and pools at the base of the cup. There will be a ring burned into the wood when the glass if finally cleared away.
He continues. "You just stay up there in your room, always on your computer sitting in the dark. You never talk to us, you never have any friends over..." He spreads out his arms, a gesture for his loss of words in the face of my troubling, anti-social behavior.
Silence hangs in the room, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, my arms crossed over my chest. "And? What's the problem?" I prompt, wanting to get this heartfelt moment out of the way as quickly as possible. I can se his shoulders slump a little as I say it, and it hurts me too. I hate that I'm too good inside to really be the bitch I am pretending to be.
"And we are worried about you. You don't seem happy. Are you happy? We can't tell."
"I'm fine. Everything is fine," I lie, not even convincing myself. It's an automatic reaction these days. I'm fine. Ever since my mom found my prescription for anti-depressants, my parents had been working under the assumption that happy is the opposite of depressed. Depression plus medication is their formula for happiness. I'm not striving for happiness - I'm striving for the ability to get out of bed and function.
I wish I could explain it to them, but I am a teenager and they don't understand me. Communication issues on both sides. I know they feel as though they have failed as parents, and I know I feel like I've failed as a person. I'm too stubborn to talk about it or accept their help.
We're both silent for a few more beats. I edge toward the door.
"Hey, we just want you to be happy. Just smile more," he says, offering his panacea for my self-worth issues. "Smile." It's more of a request than a suggestion, but I don't acquiesce. My face stays bereft of emotion. I can hear him sigh heavily as I head up to my room to do some more productive sitting in the dark.
A smile wouldn't have magically fixed everything in that moment. But forcing a smile probably wouldn't have hurt me any more than my departure hurt him.