PART 1: Me, Myself, and I

Some Life History


Isn’t it funny the way life turns out? You can’t picture yourself when your nine years old thinking in ten years my life is going to be complete f***ing h***. No, most of us are thinking about growing up to be gd***n filthy rich- let’s face it from the moment we are born, all we breathe is money, all we know is money. Money is the core of every human beings existence, and I sure as h*** know when I was nine I wanted to be a figure skater, a figure skater who got to be famous… and filthy rich. Well I guess things don’t always turn out how you’d like them to, but that’s life- don’t you just love it?

Well ten years later here I am, alone. I am trapped inside of this girl gasping for air, waiting to be able to just scream out at the top of her lungs. The truth is I’m not really alone, I have family, friends, people who care about me, but they don’t know the real me, who I really am, what secrets I really keep. I have a mother who loves me, but doesn’t care all too much, and my father, who, well, cares too much and the suffocation only pushes me farther away to find room to breathe. I have good friends, great friends even, but they are friends who don’t understand, and can never understand, and choose not to understand. And I think that’s the part that really makes me feel alone, the part where everyone cares, but not enough to see behind my smile and realize its empty, emotionless, a lie.

My parents divorced when I was a baby, maybe six months old- who can remember that far back anyway? The divorce didn’t make me some depressed crazy rebellious teenager; it made me sort of greedy actually. I got the better of two worlds, money from both sides, competition on who loved me more. Things were great for both of my parents for a while so they spoiled me, and they told horrible stories of each other’s pasts, things I sometimes didn’t want to hear, but had to sit through silently drifting away to the sound of their envious voices. You learn to live with these annoying things your parents do over time, I guess that’s the joy of growing up, finally realizing what your going to be dealing with for the rest of your life.

When things were going great I was sent away for the summers, because we had the money of course, to camp. This is where I learned how to be on my own, no parents, and no annoying voices relentlessly consuming my thoughts. I was at peace, by myself, no one to guide me, but my own brain. Of course there was the occasional once a week phone call where I would tell them how much I missed them and loved them, but the break I got- eight weeks of freedom, well it was utter bliss.

The year I got too old to go to camp was the year my mother got cancer. The year she got cancer was the year I grew up. Growing up is tough let me tell you, try doing it barely reaching the age of sixteen. That year my mother had to stop working, she couldn’t even get out of bed. She was bald, strong, and beautiful, but that doesn’t help someone raise a child. She was on her own, and I really do give her credit, but I was on my own too, and she never ever realized that. The day she told me she had cancer I remember not even crying, it was like I didn’t hear what was being said, like I went deaf and all I knew was silence. Looking at her hairless, jobless, and incapable of normal everyday tasks made me recognize it was time to grow the f*** up… which I did with flying colors thank you very much.

By the time she recovered, she was a different person, not my mother. She was angry, resentful, and unaware of the positive aspects in life. She refused to see all I had done for her. She wanted sympathy from me, and I couldn’t give her that, and I think that’s why our relationship changed. Not only could I not feel bad for her, I didn’t want to. She was healed lucky to be alive, and all she wanted was sympathy from everyone around her. All I wanted to do was jump out, reach out, to hug her and to squeeze her tight, to show how exultant I was that she was a survivor, a trooper, the strongest woman I had ever known. I never got to do that. It was as if she didn’t want to be known as a survivor, only as a victim. Talking about the cancer was a no, no and even asking about a doctor’s appointment was a hard question to get answered. The only thing I remember being said was how she was alive and how tough it was for her. I get that, I understand it was hard for her, it would be for anyone who has a fifty percent chance of dying, but not once were my feelings considered. Not once was there a thank you daughter for raising yourself, and learning how to become an adult at the age of fifteen. Not once was there a talk where she expressed how joyful she was to spend another day with me. When she recovered all she could talk about was our money problems, and how I have to be responsible now and start paying for things on my own. What she didn’t seem to recognize was that while she was sick, I had already done all of those things, I had already learned the lesson of responsibility and taking care of myself. She didn’t see the hurt in my face, or realize who I had become. She couldn’t even realize that because of her cancer she helped me become the great person I am today.

Ever since our relationship began to fall apart, and I grew older, I became closer and closer with my father. When I was a kid he was barely there, my mom practically raised me herself. Well I shouldn’t say he wasn’t there, he was, just in a different sort of way, a way in which didn’t involve any real parenting. I spent all my summers with him until I started camp. During the school year he’d have me over every other weekend, until I got too old for that and told him I didn’t want to spend weekends anymore. I knew this hurt his feelings, but when I was thirteen my friends were the most important thing to me. Growing up I learned a lot about my dad, about his past, and it wasn’t a very charming story. He gambled, went to rehab, and other various mishaps, but I forgave him for his past, because family is family. I know most people don’t change, but after my grandfather passed away, my dad became a totally different person. He was so much more involved in my life, to the point where it was too much. I had no breathing room, I still don’t. When I drove to college my dad was the one who drove me, we drove twenty-four hours, and learned a lot about each other. We both had exceptional taste in music, enjoy smoking marijuana, and we both smoke cigarettes. Except, he doesn’t know I smoke them. It’s strange how both of my parents went through such life changing situations, and then they completely switched roles. My dad gives me anything I need, he doesn’t complain when I ask him for a couple of bucks if I am running low, taking care of me isn’t a chore to him, it’s a responsibility, a responsibility he wouldn’t have any other way.

If someone asked me to chose between my parents, I don’t think I could pick one, id rather live on my own then have to live with them. Being on your own is scary, but living with people who don’t really know you is even scarier. Of course they know things about me other people don’t know, but they couldn’t see the pain I was carrying, the unwanted sadness that hung so heavy on my shoulders. Feeling like a total outsider with my own family was the worst, it made me feel like I had no one to turn too. It wasn’t their fault though, I never said anything, yet did I really have to?

I have always known I was more mature then the rest of my friends, and even my parents at times. I have always realized I had to go through immense struggles when I was just a teenager, but I don’t think I would change any of the obstacles I had to get through, because then I wouldn’t have been so mature, deep, and bright. When my friends were at parties, that I so longed to go to, I was home taking care of my sick mother, or at work making money to pay bills. When I was alone after she recovered, I learned how to take care of myself on my own, without any help. I learned how to be my own parent, I decided what was right and what was wrong for me- and so far I think I’m doing a pretty d*** wonderful job.

Going to college changed me totally as a person, not only did I not know who I wanted to become yet, but I was spiraling into a path of depression, probably because of the lack of care shown by others around me. I thought about suicide a lot in high school, but I was too much of a coward to go through with it. So I turned to writing, which helped, but not enough. I bottled up my feelings, my real true feelings, and put on a smile and hung out with my friends like a normal teenage girl would. I have a lot of friends, which is another pathetic piece to my ongoing puzzle. I have a lot of friends, but not one could see the hurt in my eyes, the swelling from tears that I shed for no apparent reason in the middle of the day, when not one thing was even the slightest bit glum. I remember even calling one of my closest friends crying saying, “I’m just so sad, I am just so sad, and I don’t even know why.” And all she had to say was “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” You don’t know what? You don’t know what’s wrong with me? That’s all right I don’t either.


God- or something like it


My mom asked me once when I was really young about God, if I believed in God or if I didn’t. I replied simply, “I don’t believe in something I can’t see, and in something that hasn’t shown me anything.” I still believe in what I said back then, and I don’t think my thoughts will ever change. What has God brought to this world? Hope, belief, religion, hate, murder, discrimination, heartbreak. That’s more evil than good people open your eyes. Anyway, isn’t God just someone we can place our blame on? He, this all mighty being is the sole reason everyone has problems, right? He, the creator of everything, gave every person on the planet a s***ty situation to go through in their life, a struggle that makes them have their own personal sob story like the rest of the world. So we blame God, someone we don’t know, someone we “believe” in, we blame him, because we are too scared to blame ourselves.

Sometimes I find myself praying though, which really worries me. It is as if I want so strongly to believe he isn’t the one making me feel this horrible, I want so badly to believe I can change the way my life is heading, I can do it on my own, I don’t need you God, I don’t need you to make miserable destiny with my life again. But I pray, and sometimes I long for your love, your protection, when I am too weak to believe in only myself. And that’s the part that gets to me- I don’t know what to believe, I’m torn between two polar opposite beliefs, and I don’t know which one is right.

Religion is something that you are born into, something you don’t even get to choose yourself. People grow up in household that celebrates one holiday, families pass down their religion to their children and that is all they learn, how to believe in something opposed to nothing. What if someone who grew up to be a radical Christian was born into a Muslim household? It all just doesn’t make sense, but in every religion there is a God or many Gods, that’s the similarity- the unanswered question that everyone has on their minds. No matter what faith, what belief, what morals, every religion has a God, so that is the only real debate, is God real or is He just something people use to help them sleep on a lonely, sublime night?

There are so many questions I have for God if He is up there in that blue sky. If I go to heaven, if there is one, and God is standing there, I would look him straight in the eye and I would say, even at my darkest moments when I so strongly didn’t want to have to rely on you, I turned to you and I asked you for your help, but you never came. I would ask him why he wants me to feel so alone in the world, what the purpose of this feeling is, and why me? What did I do to deserve all of this? And then when God sends me to Hell for questioning Him, then ill realize why I didn’t believe in Him in the first place.