In 6th grade she says,
“Oh baby, it’s easy to make friends. Just be you, share what you like. I promise they’ll love you.”
Right. I can’t possibly tell you how many times I’ve heard this…over and over again until high school.
Fast forward to freshman year in 9th grade, she says,
“Well maybe you should find similar interests…”
Like what? I don’t like what people like.
And then in 12th grade, it was,
“Baby things will change, you’ll go off to college and make new friends.”
I swear to God I hate that school.
But then I went off to college and made 2 friends. Pretty tragic, I know but I love them. And of course, my mother was very proud. As I recall, she gave me 2 extra tickets to go see Mike Epps that year.
Instead, when I came home that summer I didn’t feel the same. I mean I was beginning to resent her. And because it was summer, I felt compelled to tell her…
“I’m not going back to school.”
“Why?” she says.
“Because you lied,” I told her.
Except I hadn’t been honest to her about anything remotely close to feeling sad or weird not fitting in as a child. So I’m sure this all came as a surprise to her.
So she turns to me from the kitchen table. Now mind you, I’m sitting directly in front of her with my hands covering my eyes. Though I barely knew what to say.
And fortunately for me, my brother was away that summer visiting family in Florida.
But still, in that moment, I knew I couldn’t blame her for simply parenting a child who puts mayonnaise practically on everything. And by the way, things haven’t really changed.
Though eventually I told her.
“People are genuinely not interested in talking about death as a concept these days…”
And actually, I assumed. I was guessing really (pretty much the story of my life summed up in a few words, more or less).
But anyways, I feel like I’m getting off track here.
So because it was raining, we stayed in watching movies all day—during which I fell into another crying spell.
I mean God, it was awful.
I told her I was sorry. She hugged me and then we cried some more. And that was it.
But from time to time, I like to think about it. I mean I think about how she might’ve felt and how difficult parenting really is. And I’m sure she just wanted the best for me, to feel secure with myself growing up.
But I wasn’t.
Though instead, I learned very quickly that my hobbies included dancing, writing, and basking in the nothingness that we come from.
Until next time.
“My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem but they don’t really know me.”— Garry Shandling
