Admission.
We dream to find our homes underneath where the horizon meets the sky. We dream because our comforts take hold like anchors as soon as we begin to settle in any one place.
Screaming from rooftop vantages. Sneaking glances outside over the edge of the windowsill. I have become a recluse in a familiar environment. I am mired in regret for innumerable regrets, if that makes any damn sense at all. Despite being well-rested, I feel so tired out. This has been a long week...
I moved my sister into her college dorm last Sunday. She is excited, as well she should be, but I wonder how the family dynamic will change with both of us living in "the big city" and my parents empty nesting. They moved me into my new place two days before that. Our home in Watertown isn't enormous by any stretch of the imagination, but I can imagine it being so lonely sometimes with only my mother, father, and cat around, especially if only one or two of them is around at the time (the cat obviously never leaves).
I destroyed yet another relationship on Monday. I use the term relationship loosely.
I started classes again on Tuesday. This year marks the end of my summer vacations and the beginning of 50 years of 80 hour work weeks.
We celebrated my sister's birthday Thursday. She is now 19. We dined at a restaurant on the Mississippi riverfront and had an entire room to ourselves. Everyone dressed up and we all looked very nice. I asked my sister questions about school and campus life. My mother quipped and jokingly made remarks about Cait not studying and whatnot, but they eventually piled up and halfway into dinner Cait began to cry. Mom proceeded to roll her eyes and say that she might as well go sit in the car, and that the next time we planned to do something like this that she was just going to stay home. Cait's boyfriend and I made conversation on the other side of the table as Cait continued to cry and Mom watched the waterfront and rolled her eyes, just trying to fill the silence. Mom excused herself from the table to use the bathroom. She came back and Cait cried again, and thus excused herself to go use the bathroom. I lost my appetite and started an argument with my mother, telling her that she was being childish and too negative about an exciting time in her daughter's life.
...This may sound like a complete family meltdown, which it very well was. But I think it was something that needed to happen.
This was our way of facing a point of no return. My parents, obviously not dealing with the maturation of their daughter well, used defense mechanisms to hide their feelings about the situation. This manifested itself as negativity on my mother's part and silence on my father's part, as if not asking questions about school or pooh-poohing her roommate could conceal the greater truth. In the end, our family reconciled the situation and moved on. We all hugged, telling one another how we love each other. I've seen sitcoms talk about how the goal of parenting is to raise children to the age of 18-20, hoping that they survive with the fewest bumps and problems possible, so that you may send them off to college and never worry about them again. This definitely isn't the case with my family. I just finished a Pahluniak book in which he says that parents only contact you when they want something. This also isn't the case with my family.
I feel unfulfilled.
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Those big doe eyes of yours, so filled with blissful ignorance and adoration, blinked back at me as I sat on the edge of your couch. I now realize that I found myself more enamored with your sense of interior design than I was with you, the person that occupied this space. I broke your heart that night, and while you cried I wondered where you bought your kitchen appliances. You scaled an entire mountain range of emotions, diving into valleys and scampering up peaks. You questioned my reasons, you begged me to reconsider, you called me a jerk. You rescinded that comment and apologized, saying that I wasn't really a jerk and that it was a reflex reaction to the current situation. I recounted the story to several friends later that weekend as we sat and ate at a suburban sports bar. The female bartender overheard my tale and commented that she thought that I didn't look like a jerk, and that she wanted to hear the story. But you know what? She was wrong right from the beginning... Because I am a jerk. I am an asshole. I am the destroyer of worlds and comfort and safety.
I am the tin man, lost and without a heart. I do not feel a love for anything in this world outside of myself.
So fill me with love and that grotesque ball of muscles that pulses and tenses and sends feeling throughout this wretched body of mine. Fill me with a false sense of security and mold my life into something you would see on the front of a postcard. Greetings from Bliss. Greetings from Contentment. Greetings from Utter Fulfillment. My expectations have been set to an unfair standard and I am just waiting to be disappointed yet once again.
Screaming from rooftop vantages. Sneaking glances outside over the edge of the windowsill. I have become a recluse in a familiar environment. I am mired in regret for innumerable regrets, if that makes any damn sense at all. Despite being well-rested, I feel so tired out. This has been a long week...
I moved my sister into her college dorm last Sunday. She is excited, as well she should be, but I wonder how the family dynamic will change with both of us living in "the big city" and my parents empty nesting. They moved me into my new place two days before that. Our home in Watertown isn't enormous by any stretch of the imagination, but I can imagine it being so lonely sometimes with only my mother, father, and cat around, especially if only one or two of them is around at the time (the cat obviously never leaves).
I destroyed yet another relationship on Monday. I use the term relationship loosely.
I started classes again on Tuesday. This year marks the end of my summer vacations and the beginning of 50 years of 80 hour work weeks.
We celebrated my sister's birthday Thursday. She is now 19. We dined at a restaurant on the Mississippi riverfront and had an entire room to ourselves. Everyone dressed up and we all looked very nice. I asked my sister questions about school and campus life. My mother quipped and jokingly made remarks about Cait not studying and whatnot, but they eventually piled up and halfway into dinner Cait began to cry. Mom proceeded to roll her eyes and say that she might as well go sit in the car, and that the next time we planned to do something like this that she was just going to stay home. Cait's boyfriend and I made conversation on the other side of the table as Cait continued to cry and Mom watched the waterfront and rolled her eyes, just trying to fill the silence. Mom excused herself from the table to use the bathroom. She came back and Cait cried again, and thus excused herself to go use the bathroom. I lost my appetite and started an argument with my mother, telling her that she was being childish and too negative about an exciting time in her daughter's life.
...This may sound like a complete family meltdown, which it very well was. But I think it was something that needed to happen.
This was our way of facing a point of no return. My parents, obviously not dealing with the maturation of their daughter well, used defense mechanisms to hide their feelings about the situation. This manifested itself as negativity on my mother's part and silence on my father's part, as if not asking questions about school or pooh-poohing her roommate could conceal the greater truth. In the end, our family reconciled the situation and moved on. We all hugged, telling one another how we love each other. I've seen sitcoms talk about how the goal of parenting is to raise children to the age of 18-20, hoping that they survive with the fewest bumps and problems possible, so that you may send them off to college and never worry about them again. This definitely isn't the case with my family. I just finished a Pahluniak book in which he says that parents only contact you when they want something. This also isn't the case with my family.
I feel unfulfilled.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Those big doe eyes of yours, so filled with blissful ignorance and adoration, blinked back at me as I sat on the edge of your couch. I now realize that I found myself more enamored with your sense of interior design than I was with you, the person that occupied this space. I broke your heart that night, and while you cried I wondered where you bought your kitchen appliances. You scaled an entire mountain range of emotions, diving into valleys and scampering up peaks. You questioned my reasons, you begged me to reconsider, you called me a jerk. You rescinded that comment and apologized, saying that I wasn't really a jerk and that it was a reflex reaction to the current situation. I recounted the story to several friends later that weekend as we sat and ate at a suburban sports bar. The female bartender overheard my tale and commented that she thought that I didn't look like a jerk, and that she wanted to hear the story. But you know what? She was wrong right from the beginning... Because I am a jerk. I am an asshole. I am the destroyer of worlds and comfort and safety.
I am the tin man, lost and without a heart. I do not feel a love for anything in this world outside of myself.
So fill me with love and that grotesque ball of muscles that pulses and tenses and sends feeling throughout this wretched body of mine. Fill me with a false sense of security and mold my life into something you would see on the front of a postcard. Greetings from Bliss. Greetings from Contentment. Greetings from Utter Fulfillment. My expectations have been set to an unfair standard and I am just waiting to be disappointed yet once again.