Today was an okay day until I got home. Some days…I hate my mother with a passion.
Ever since I was born, I was my Dad’s hope. I don’t know why, he already had a son but I guess he just didn’t listen like my Dad had hoped. So I was named the smart child, the one who did well in school and enjoyed it (which was never really true), and the one who would go to college and make a load of money.
For the most part, I’ve lived up to those standards. Even when I wasn’t trying I got A’s and B’s and very few C’s. If I had put some actual effort into my work, I would have gotten straight A’s easily. I played tee ball and then softball and was a majorette for years, until I was about maybe 11 or 12 or so. Things didn’t start going south until I turned 13 and my body started growing in ways that made me unhappy and a bunch of nasty high school and middle school kids started bullying me nonstop because I was nice.
Even still, I’m the "smart one". My younger brother is basically the "spare". He doesn’t do much of anything and can’t take care of himself even at 18 years of age. He won’t brush his teeth in the morning and wakes up for work at 7:55 even though we have to leave here by 8:25 at the latest although given how traffic can be, it’d be best to be out by 8:20. He just doesn’t give a damn.
He wakes up, sits around for a while, combs his hair, throws on some clothes, and then heads out the door entirely too late. He makes it to work with fewer than 10 minutes to spare because he speeds. What’s worse is that when we went to orientation (because we’re being paid by fed money, it’s a youth program for low income families) he had no clue what he was doing. I bailed him out repeatedly because he wasn’t listening to what everyone was saying. He didn’t know his SSN or his physical address. He missed parts that I had to go back and tell him to do. I even turned my papers toward him to let him copy me.
That’s how life has always been for me here. I used to have to spend hours doing his homework for him in elementary school. I finally put my foot down at 15 and said no. I don’t give a damn if he passes or not. He could drop out and I truly wouldn’t give it a second thought.
I feel really cheated. I get the short end of the stick no matter how you look at it. My Dad expects me to do certain things and if I try to change my plans, he becomes enraged. I have to babysit my brother and simultaneously be called names. I’m told that I’m mean and egotistical, a loudmouth, etc.. I’m not supposed to be proud or feel smart, I’m supposed to just put up with all the crap and be quiet no matter how unfair it gets. I’m not even supposed to talk to my boyfriend. The only way we can talk over the summer is via YIM because my house phone blocks his number and it’s long distance anyways but because my brother wants the only computer that really works (this one freezes up all the time, it took me several tries just to get here and I don’t even know if this will post), I’m supposed to just deal with it and not talk to the only person I have in life who truly cares about me and roots for me and gives me the strength to keep going no matter how effed up I get.
Right now, I’m just sitting in my room crying and sipping on wine. When I get this upset, my first instinct is to destroy myself and naturally, one way to do that would be to drink too much but Mom is here so she’s watching so I settled for enough to hopefully relax me.
All I do…is go to work…come home…and sit here. The only enjoyment I get out of life is playing online games, reading, and talking to my boyfriend. I know that probably makes me a nerd…and seemingly pathetic to probably a lot of other people whose lives are more active…but it’s what I do, it’s who I am, it’s what I love. But I don’t have much to read at the moment, I won’t get paid for a few more days so if I finish the book I have now, I won’t be able to continue on in the series until I can get the next book and that’s maddening. All that’s left is my laptop…and it’s been gone for about 4 weeks now. I’ve sent it here, sent it there, driven it to this store and back home and then back to the same store a second time…I’ve been dealing with this since the very beginning of June and I’m fed up. I just…want it back…I want to buy music and listen to it to relax myself. I want to play games and talk to my boyfriend and look up schools in case I get a chance to move and I want to write without having to worry about someone finding it or any of my other personal information.
I don’t think it’s fair that my brother does so little and gets so much. He has over $1,000 worth of games sitting in his room…and he never plays them anymore. Mom used to be so lazy and in love with the kid that when I wanted to play a PS2 game once years ago, my brother protested and she said, "All he has are those games, they’re his, you can’t go taking them anymore than he can take your computer, that’s your thing." Well now he’s changed "things" and so I gotta give up my only hobby even though they know I don’t play console games and I have no one to talk to. Around here…there’s just not much going on. It’s largely why, IMO, kids get into so much trouble. When you hit a certain age, you want to have fun and go out and there’s nothing here for anyone under 21 and the bars that do exist for the 21+ crowd are, IMO, very trashy. It’s just not a good place. If it were, maybe I could say eff you, I’m going to do X but I can’t.
Consequently, I feel like it’s time for me to move on. I’ve been feeling really temperamental lately, like…angry at my life. I feel older than I actually am for some reason. I’ll be 21 in a month and yet I feel more like I’ll be turning 31. I’ve been wanting to get married and have a home (almost anywhere would do, even a small one room apartment) and a job. I’m not happy living at home or being single/unmarried or not having a steady income. I don’t know why I feel this way or exactly when it started but I sort of think it happened around the time my boyfriend stayed with us for two weeks. Having him around made me realize how life could be… Yeah, we fought twice but his being here helped. I was mad at him for, oh, a few hours the one time and then we got over it. Online, such a fight could last all day and keep reappearing weeks later. But we handled it. We figured it out like a normal couple, it’s doable. And it’s real and I like that.
When I get my first paycheck, I think I’m going to pay back my Dad and my Mom and then put the vast majority of what’s left in the bank just in case I can move. If not, I’ll put it away for a trip out to the west coast to see my boyfriend again. Maybe this feeling I’ve been having will pass, who knows. Maybe it’ll disappear as quickly as it appeared and I’ll be back here in this hell hole within a few months.
Ugh…
