Hanson - Blue Sky

Butch Walker - Maybe It\’s Just Me

The past couple of weeks I’ve been spending most of my time with my family. It’s really weird because I don’t ever recall spending this much time with them, even when I lived at home previously. And I don’t just mean my parents; I’m talking sisters, grandparents, and almost everybody really. I’ve never been one to give parts of me away slowly; I usually tell mostly everything that I’m comfortable giving all at once. Hence, my rushing into things. I realized, however, that I can’t do that with my family. My relationship with them needs to develop slowly, I need to be able to trust them, and I need them to know that I’m not who they think I am. That’s something that’s going to take time.

Yesterday, my sisters (all three of them) and I were in the kitchen, eating lunch with my Dad. He was about to leave for work when he said that we should be nice to my Mom today because it was the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. I didn’t remember it until he said it, but as soon as he opened his mouth and said that we should be nice to Mom, it clicked in my head and I tried to give him hand gestures to shut him up. My two youngest sisters are really emotional about my grandma’s death and I wanted to avoid any sort of extreme emotion. But he said it and he couldn’t take it back.

Andrea began crying, the ugly cry, Nicole tried not to cry but I could see the tears forming in her eyes, and Steph got a bit angry. She’s bitter that all she has to remind her of Grandma is a cookie jar. She was upset that my Grandpa gave me a ring. Seriously, why does it matter? I find it interesting that we all had completely different reactions about it and I think that it says a lot about who we are. As for me, my initial reaction was to change the subject or make them laugh. That’s usually my first reaction for most things. That’s not always a good thing and I used to not be able to recognize that. The past few years I’ve learned when to be serious and when to crack a joke though.

I often think about the past but tend to avoid thoughts about anything that would remotely bring in a flood of different emotions. This would be one of them. It’s not so much that my Grandma died that bothers me; of course I miss her and it was unexpected but I can’t change the fact that she’s dead. But her death changed me; this is when I really began to pull away from my family. However, that’s not because of her death; it’s what happened to everyone around me that I did that.

Nine Years Ago

I had just fallen asleep after not being able to get to sleep for a few hours. I believe it was the end of Spring Break because I remember missing a week of school after the funeral because I would break out in tears at random. It was a little after midnight when two of my sisters came into my room crying. I’m usually a heavy sleeper and I can sleep through Earthquakes, but I woke up almost instantly that night.

They told me that my grandma had died. I thought that it was a joke. Neither of my grandma’s could die, or my grandpa’s. They were all invincible to me, almost immortal. I had been to plenty of funerals in the years previous to this, so I wasn’t new to the idea of death, but it hadn’t been that close to me yet. One of my Grandpa’s had colon cancer when I was in 8th grade and that was scary and I knew that he could die, but he didn’t. And besides, my Grandma was too young to die; much younger than my Dad’s parents.

I still thought it was a joke but my little sisters were crying so I climbed out of bed. One of my sisters was on her knees in the hallway, crying. I can’t remember which one it was now but that’s not really important. When I went downstairs, my mom was crying, my dad went to pick up my other Grandma to watch us while they went to see everyone. Just before they left my mom broke down. She started jumping up and down, throwing a tantrum like a two year old, screaming that she wanted her mommy. I hadn’t cried up until that point, but when I saw that, I cried. It wasn’t so much that my Grandma had died that made me cry; it was that I saw my mom that way. It’s not a bad thing; what happened to my Mom is something that a lot of people do, but I had never seen my Mom do anything like that before. It scared the shit out of me.

I made a decision then that I wouldn’t ever do that. I couldn’t imagine ever being in that much pain and shock; I could never imagine feeling that much loss or wanting something so bad that I did something like that. It sounds kind of stupid now, but that had been my life’s mission from that point on until just recently. To never get close enough to anyone so that when they were no longer around, I wouldn’t ever do that. I didn’t want to ever feel that much pain.

Currently

I never imagined that I’d be faced with so many things all at once; things that are out of my control (which I hate in and of itself) and things that I wish I could change. It’s always hard to deal with a break up, but that’s just one of the things that I’ve been trying to deal with recently. There are health issues that leave a taste of uncertainty in my mouth, there are familial relationship issues that I’m working on, and then there’s the ever-present who the fuck am I.

I’ve been avoiding my past for a really long time. Yea, there are some horrible things that have happened and that I’ve done, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t deal with these things. I’ve used it all as an excuse for far too long.

Yesterday I spent part of the day reflecting on what I’ve done so far in my life and another part looking ahead, but I spent most of it in the present. I didn’t look back most of the day, I didn’t look forward, I just stopped and enjoyed what I was doing right then.

I did some more yard work with my Grandpa. We put up part of a fence and we only did half of this one part of the yard. My Grandma asked him if he was going to finish that part and he said no because it looked good the way it was already. She said that she didn’t understand why he would do that and I said that it was art, and it wasn’t supposed to make sense. My Grandpa enthusiastically agreed with me and that was the end of that. That still makes me laugh a little bit.

And then I hung out with Andrea and Nicole. It’s weird hanging out with them sometimes because they are so much younger than I am. On top of that, we’re so different from each other, and that just makes them annoying most of the time. But we had a really good night last night. We bought ice cream (even though I’m not supposed to have any but I decided to live a little), we went to Wal Mart and they helped me pick out some cologne/body spray/ deodorant. We all ended up smelling like a bath house after words. On the way home I saw a traffic cone and I figured what the hell, might as well take it. There wasn’t any reason for it being there, except that it was left behind after a road crew filled in a pot hole last week. So we took it. That was hilarious. Sure, it’s a traffic cone, big deal, but that’s not the point.

Last night, my sisters and I bonded over ice cream, a stupid and meaningless trip to Wal Mart, and a traffic cone. And in the process, I cheered them up. If all my days could be like that, then I would be happy.

I’ve never been very good at reflecting on my past but yesterday I took a drive to wear my family had spread my Grandma’s ashes. Mandy will appreciate this: it was at Rock City Park, where there’s a bunch of rocks. I walked around, climbed some rocks, sat down and wrote in my journal. I watched the sun set and realized that while I may not be where I want to be in my life - living at home, single, and lost - I wouldn’t change it. I appreciate who I am right now in my life, and I wouldn’t be who I am right now if it weren’t for my past.