Part Ten
If I run into the woods screaming, how long will it take someone to decide to catch me and have me committed to a mental hospital? If the answer’s anything longer than four hours, it’ll be worth it to get some peace and quiet!
Dad and S have been arguing for the past fifteen minutes – I know because I’ve played through the entirety of my getting ready playlist and it’s about to start again from the top. It sounds like they’re about to start again from the top as well.
What are they fighting about? Money. Well, Dad thinks they’re fighting about money. S thinks they’re fighting about morals.
Me? I think they’re just going around in circles and they need to stop. We know that Mom’s care is insanely pricey. S knows better than anyone – she’s the one who makes those payments. Dad constantly reminding us doesn’t do anything useful. It just makes sure that S and I both leave in a foul mood and the rest of our weekend’s spoilt.
I feel bad for Dad. I do. He’s here and he has to answer the questions about the accounts that are always just barely paid quickly enough that Mom doesn’t have to suffer from the scramble.
But S and I – as much as I can – we’re the ones who’re working our butts off. Dad doesn’t work. Dad stays with Mom and tries to breathe life back into her. He never went back to work, never even really left her side. It was all we could do to get him to sleep. Working, being a functional human being, leaving her… None of that ever entered the equation.
S makes allowances for them. She was always the one who bought in to the romance of the living, breathing, always in sync thing our parents had. Me? I was a selfish lil brat right from the beginning. I didn’t like not getting attention because they were so wrapped up in one another all the time and couldn’t ever come up for air.
S would roll her eyes at me then, ever the worldly big sister who knew better. She always told me I’d understand one day when I met my soulmate. And I, stubborn little brat that I was, I’d insist that I was never going to let that happen.
My stance hasn’t changed since then. I didn’t know then what I was afraid of. Now I do. I don’t want to be consumed. I don’t want to watch something vital walk around outside of the protective cocoon of my own flesh. I don’t want to turn into Dad, tied to the remnant of a person who should have been put to bed ages ago.
Neither S nor Dad understand what I mean when I say these things though. I stopped a long time ago – this is one fight I’m fine with losing. The two of them loved Mom more than anyone else in the world. I understand.
I just wish they’d stop making me a villain for not feeling the same. I loved her – I love her still – but I learned how to let go of Mom a long time ago. Dad never had to, he had her completely. And S… though she’ll never admit it, she clung to Mom and tried so desperately to be Mom’s focus that she ended up lying to herself she was.
Ahem. That’s enough about our dysfunction for, well, for forever.
I don’t know why I keep hitting save on these things. I don’t know why posting them makes me feel better either. Maybe I really am just a huge attention whore like that kid in my debate club team liked to yell at me.
I mean, maybe I am, but he was still way in the wrong. You can’t debate by patiently waiting for everyone else to give their entire arguments before you start to speak. That’s just you trying to cherry pick ideas from everyone else. It’s not smart, or subtle.
That kid, wherever he is these days? I almost guarantee you he’s the office snitch who eavesdrops on people and runs to the boss like a grownup tattle tale every chance he gets. I hated that kid.
Everyone was always convinced we had such good chemistry, but I honestly fantasised about sticking pins in his eyes. I don’t think people with chemistry do that to each other.
Oh my God, they stopped. And I was so absorbed in typing this freaking electronic diary that I didn’t notice. I really need to stop writing this thing before it turns me into an oblivious nut.
Or maybe I’ll just cut down a lot.
Some.
A little.
Not at all.
Why is this thing so addictive? I’m talking to no one. If anyone had told me they were doing that a month ago, I would have laughed myself sick and offered to drive them to a psych ward.
Oh, don’t judge me! I offered to help in that imaginary scenario. Yeah, I laughed, but that’s because it would’ve been hilarious.
Now I’m one of the crackpots talking into thin air.
Guess if you can’t beat them, join them. And this is better stress relief than the punching bag I got myself so I wouldn’t blow my lid with S and yank all her hair out because she’s such a giant control freak.
.
.
.
Story for another time, that. I never pulled all her hair out, just a tiny bit. And just because she kept leaving it everywhere like the world’s germiest breadcrumb trail that on one memorable occasion got stuck in my eye. Not on. In. Like, inside. It was disgusting. And sore!
S apologised about that one, at least. I guess she was afraid she’d blinded me. I was afraid my brain was being pulled out along with the hair. That’s still the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me, bar none. Including that time when Dad left me at someone else’s house and everyone just pretended that all of that was according to some outlandish plan instead of fessing up – I was eight, I had enough of a brain to realize that he’d forgotten about me.
The Imperfect Muslimah 