I’ve always liked knowing and thinking about what different shapes, colors, numbers, and entities are associated with. I’m one of those people who fully believes not in a stupid god, but how everything is connected. What it is, it’s potential to morph, and how it can get do so in an experienced way. My friends know this, so one of my best friends found something about my favorite colors: dark red and black. To me, black doesn’t mean mourning, but rather, a blank canvas, the presence of all things known and unknown, and the need for accompaniment, but also the need for a personal little slice of space. According to the site I was sent, “Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath”. ….and I was like, “Wow. Holy shit”, because I don’t think I could have summed up me any better than the way that did. (In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t like to summarize in the least. If you have something to say, explain it, counter it, and then defend it ‘till what people call “Hell” freezes over.) I’m not a bad person in the least, and I damn well know that for a fact, but what I feel about certain things and what I let people know about me makes me feel so…well, alone, and just so damn angry. This year more-so than ever.
My past weekend was filled with such bittersweetness. On Friday I had to finish a long-ass assignment for my world history class that had to be turned in online, so I spent the night at my other buddy’s because I don’t have internet at my shit-hole house, (fucking inconsiderate teachers). The next day she and I went over to the elementary school and volunteered at their Santa Shoppe, (partly for National Honors Society hours, but I also like doing things like that). It was fun, something I thoroughly enjoy doing, and no one seemed to have any problems other than if they ran out of tape, (or burned popcorn, but that’s an inside joke). I wasn’t really watching the clock because, you know, I was actually doing stuff. And when we were recording and putting everything away for next year, my brother comes storming in and yelling at me because my friend and I weren’t waiting outside for him. We were going to my dad’s side of the family’s Christmas party, (like we do every year), from the school, but that was absolutely no reason to act like such a douche, especially because no really shows up there until literally hours later. My friend was supposed to go there with me, but he just kept yelling at me in the car and dropped her off, (she came later, though). It literally made me sick how much like my father he was acting. The very thing that sickens him, he displayed publicly, a “Jack-in-unconscious-training”. I’m never going to take that crap, and I don’t. I told him he was being just like him, and he was saying I was being just like my older sister, which is far from the truth. I said it wasn’t like I was standing around doing nothing, that I was helping, and he pretty much just said that I should have stopped. So moral of the story: apparently volunteering is bad, children.
I also turned “sweet-o seventeen-o”, (to quote my friend), on Sunday. I’ve always kind of been taught that birthdays aren’t really a big deal once you’re actually out of the womb, and I’ve never really celebrated mine the way most people do, but I’ve always tried to make it kind of a special day for other people. In some ways, I guess it is just another day, but it’s like, hey, I was born. Whether you like it or not, someone couldn’t keep their legs closed and I became the product of a mistake, (the 5th, actually). It’s also a money thing, as always, but to me, that really means nothing. Babies don’t start out with a dollar bill until you attach it to their feet yourself. As long as you love them and take care of them, they know nothing about that region of corruption. In no way can I say this more honestly: I love babies. But I refuse to bring something into this world if I can’t at least give it what it needs, so even if I didn’t like children, I would still have that (un)common bit of sense. Anyways, I was talking about my birthday. My friends are really the ones who make me feel good about having that, and truthfully, it isn’t the gifts: it’s the thought they put into thinking about me. Sure people say, “Happy Birthday”, to you when your right there and someone else mentions it, or when they get a stupid notification (screw technology), but I feel like it’s just common courtesy for most people. Hey, at least they have the decency to do that little bit, though, I guess. It’s not like I get ignored by my family, but anymore, that’s just what it feels like. My oldest brother is occupied with his own family, (because he’s actually a good father/husband), and I’m very sure is lost in his own world of pain; my middle brother still lives at home and I can’t connect with him anymore because he’s seriously given up on life and everyone’s too selfish to get him help; my third brother has gotten so sick of how things are here that he doesn’t even call anymore; my older sister’s off in fucking mental/physical La-La-Land because she’s got a dick to bang and clings to him like a desperate little ho (but she “loves him”, and I “don’t understand because I’ve never had a boyfriend”); and my younger sister’s only known dysfunction throughout her whole life, but she acts a lot like me. I just hope she doesn’t start thinking and feeling certain things like I have. I don’t wish this pain on too many people.
Hmmm, let’s see, who am I forgetting?… Oh yes, my parents. The only thing they excel at it is their irresponsibility. My mom’s a good person, but she, it seems, also hasn’t known anything but un-normal her whole life, so she’s oblivious and gullible. And when she’s not being either of those two, she’s goal-less and weak. Angry at my dad, at herself, and anything I may do that’s in her way. (Guess what? In addition to many things, apparently I’m also a bitch. But somehow I don’t think pointing out what any blind person could see automatically qualifies you for such a reserved title…) She cries, she screams, says that she “just wants to take her girls and move away”, yet when I try to help her, wonders why and then gets overwhelmed at the number of options for things she could do. (I know, it really makes sense.) But enough about her, let’s talk about pa. There is so much to say, and I don’t know where to begin. I may get angry, but hatred is something I don’t dish out freely. But I hate that man, and I hate him with a passion so strong that I simply cannot describe. I have screamed, then been told to shut my fucking mouth, that I don’t know anything or do anything or have anything to do with whatever, even though all problems seem to inevitably lead to me and my siblings. I have cried, and I do cry, very often, in fact, but I’ve gotten so good at acting and preservative-lying that I feel so undeserving of such rejuvenation. I’ve never been told that he was proud of me or loved me, but somehow, my older sister is the ideal daughter. (I love her, very much, but apparently a parent’s love smoothes out all wrinkles…in most cases, it should, though.) I’ve only gotten one hug since I could see through his bullshit, which, believe me, started a loooooong time ago. It was just, awkward, and didn’t seem right. He abandons the task of making sure his family’s warm to go help a so-called ‘friend’ with his damn car. And that’s another thing: my house is literally, somehow, the biggest embarrassment of all. We live right down the road from a junkyard, and more often than not, people think it’s our house they’re supposed to go. (Interpret that one for yourself.) It’s really a terrifying, panicked feeling when people ask me where I live, and I have to A.) Lie, or B.) Give a general direction.) And unless you’ve been in a situation like this, you really don’t get it. Because you really, REALLY just can’t get it, and that’s not your fault, nor should be anyone’s burden. It really is a struggle to push myself to get on and off the bus for school day after day, or to be picked up by my friends, because I live in such trash and that has never, and WILL NEVER be who I am. But all these stupid backwards hicks think is that we are running a fucking car business or they judge and stay away from us. We don’t get Christmas carolers or trick-or-treaters; they completely bypass it because, well, I imagine it’s scary. But if that’s the case, you should be on the inside; it’s no better. I’m just waiting for the roof or floor to collapse, die of some kind of poisoning, or for the wires to burn it all down…among a variety of other health hazards. I’ve so very often thought of calling Child Services, not necessarily even for me, but for my sister. I have the rest of this junior year and then my senior year, and then college…and I’m never, EVER coming back… but my sister is going to have her whole sixth grade year and then high school years to chug through. I’m so damn torn between thinking of her and how it would affect where she goes. My mom isn’t a bad person in the least: she’s the only parent I’ve ever known to raise more-than functional kids in a completely, unbelievably dysfunctional, long past-hickville world. If someone called, as ridiculous as it would be, she might get in trouble because she is, in fact, an adult, which would leave my little sister, and me right now…where? North Carolina or Florida with my aunt? Mercer or Pittsburgh with one of my brothers? A friend’s? Some random person’s home? WHERE?! It doesn’t even matter, because unless I’m on my own, I seem to be always be a burden. Which leads me to my other point: I am very, extremely wanting to do that whole emancipated thing, where you legally become an adult to take care of yourself.
I’ve always worked hard, I’ve always done things right. And if I made a mistake, it normally didn’t hurt anyone but me. I know I’m not meant to stay in one place, and I have a very strong sketch of the map to use for the journey I need to make. I don’t know how to act anymore in front of my own family. I’m sorry, I’m lying again: I just don’t know how to communicate with them because they’ve either given up, never tried, or ignore what it is: a difference between us that is oh so prevalent. I am a dreamer, but I’m also a thinker, and doer: there’s nothing that you can’t do, and I live by that more than anyone can live by your almighty God because it IS a fact. (When I was younger I tried praying to Him, mainly that the stray dogs and cats would come back so they could have a home…it was a joke, especially now when I realize I need one for myself. And your God, yeah, he’s never gonna take the time out of his narcissistic schedule of demanding worship to give you a reply, so unless you truly believe, you’re wasting what little life you have been living. Challenge me on that one, I dare you.)