I’m still trying to get words onto the computer screen for those incompletes. I’m so worthless. I’m changing sentences because they don’t fit right on the screen. Well, maybe I’m not that bad, but I think about it.
I hate my life with all the various expectations on me and all I’m trying to do is figure out what kind of person I’m to be. The ‘rents thwart that effort time and again. They’ve never recognized themselves as the problem nor do they realize that they still are. They’ve been the cause of some difficult situations. But as messily as I handled them, I think back and realize how much worse I could have handled them.
Something has to happen. Something has to change. But how do I change if they don’t? For a while I was thinking how little right I have to complain. They aren’t hitting me or being outright, intentionally malicious. They provide and pay for me in full. But what I’m doing is just swinging to the complete other side of the argument, the side in their favor. For every argument giving them the benefit of doubt, there’s a counter-argument that invalidates or overrides it.
The ways that they abuse their wealth and privilege and aren’t even aware of it. It’s disgusting, sad. I sit and wonder whether my life would have fallen apart without all the things they literally bought. Things that make it feel as if I’ve been bought.
That’s how they see it. Money means so much to them and that is how they express their love. But money is money and love is love, and if you think one is the other, you find that the receipts just don’t add up. People see their money surrounding me and see no reason why I shouldn’t be glad for what I’ve got. As if I owe them something.
People say they’re not bad. I sit and ponder what they’ve done to my life. Some things I can readily identify, many more I’m sure I won’t discover until later. Is it a coincidence that I’ve just given up on music and that is exactly what they’ve always wanted? It’s a strong position of power parents have, and they’ve put a psychological stranglehold on all my interests until there’s only one option left.
Clever. They don’t do anything. They don’t have to do anything in a mind-play. They never say, “No, you can’t”. But they know and they wait until the only option I have left is business school or law school and thank god I don’t have the merit for those options or I’d have a bullet in my head by the time I’m twenty-six.
Money works for them, so they think it’ll work on me. They’re counting on my greed and material comfort to get what they want. Bastards. But it’s my life and unlike them I can take or leave it as I please.
