Nothing Hits Me Until It's Too Late

If I were one of those young stars just drafted today into the NBA, would I be crying on my way up to the stage? During the minute-long interview after shaking hands with the commissioner?

Would it feel like a dream come true, or would it still feel like a dream until I finally walked out onto the court of a professional basketball arena with thousands of fans watching?

I've found that things usually don't hit me until it's too late. I've never been one to cry when it counts. Not a conscious decision on my part.

I noticed that all of those kids had really strong connections with their parents. That's not an accident. For a while, my relationship with my parents was a struggle. It's still damaged, because I'm still damaged, and some of the things that caused it in the first place are still present. But with how things were in high-school, it's no wonder college felt like an option outside of consideration.

Always feeling like I wasn't supported.

For years, I'd bear the burden of two parents' secrets because I was asked to. Helping carry the baggage; venting, talking behind one another's backs, plans to divorce, guilt-tripping, fishing for sympathy. Trying to help crash-land a failing marriage.

For years I blocked out the yelling matches, when I was too young to understand why they were wrong, but old enough to know that - somehow - they were.

Even after I graduated high-school, I still remember mornings waking up to them having some sort of argument about me. So many things my father said about me that my conscious forgot, but you better fucking believe are being kept safe and sound by my unconscious. Repressed by complete accident. Biting, contemptuous, unfair, ignorant comments about me, and my mother defending me.

If I'm lucky, this family, this household, will be like the ship that we first meet Jack Sparrow on. I, of course, am Jack.



Nothing can undo all that happened. It can only be stopped from happening again. But it's all well beyond repair, and on the off-chance that I have kids (equivalent to getting the rarest drop from a World of Warcraft boss on the first run) I'm not playing this "go here one Christmas, go there the next" bullshit. Either be in the same room together, wherever it may be, or don't bother. You can come if you can act like adults for one evening. I don't care who did what anymore. I'm so done with playing that game.

In some weird way, my going to college has brought about a ceasefire. I think I inadvertently forced them to work together. My father has been unusually supportive (at least financially) about something I'm trying to do. I'm helping myself in the ways that I can manage. I won't be bringing my gaming computer up there because I have absolutely no self-control or discipline. I will have my basic ass HP laptop for school-work and that. is. it. Well, and my phone too, but I barely even use that for texting and calling people. Hell, I probably use Google Maps more than anything else.

Will I manage to quit nicotine? Yes, by simply telling my friends I'll be living with that I've quit, and not to offer me any and to scold me if I ask or if they see me relapse. Oh, and like my gaming computer, not bringing my "nic-stick" with me.

I'm doing my best to try and get things situated. For having never done any of this before, I'd say I've done an alright job. My dad would sooner stare at the sun until it blinded him than ever say anything positive about something I'm doing. No, what he does is try and fill me with doubt or negativity, warnings and bad omens and threats, and then usually try to capitalize on having done that by making himself in control and doing things "his way". And my mother is so polar opposite to him that her positivity isn't even support. It's naivety.

Still, I do appreciate what they are doing to help me. Assisting me with getting my things moved, giving me a financial safety net (in addition to straight-up paying for school). I try to say thank-you every time they do something to help me... luckily my problem isn't with meaning it, but simply remembering to do it since it wasn't something, uh, practiced, let's say. I appreciate that my mom is at least proud of me for deciding to go to school, and for finding a job along with that.

I've come to accept though that my dad will not be the coach I wish I had. My mom will go on being my mom. I have to learn to help myself and be independent because they won't or can't do what other parents can. They don't have the answers anymore. They don't get involved anymore. My dad's planning his post-divorce bachelor Boomer retirement dream extrava-fucking-ganza or whatever, and my mom just works too damn much, and simply doesn't know anything. As I alluded to earlier, I get zero emotional support from my father, and only emotional support from my mother.

I appreciate my friend Nick getting me out of a dark place and getting me to commit to college, even if he doesn't realize what an incredible kindness it was. I'm sure that if I ever said that to him, I'd say it so matter-of-factly and without so much as a hint of a tear in my eye.

But sometimes if I'm alone at night and my mind won't stop thinking, or if I'm driving and the right song comes on and I happen to think about it, my eyes do tear up a little bit to remind me I'm not a psychopath. Just broken.

Time to go scavenge around the house to see what alcohol can be found. Move from one addiction to the next and never stay in one long enough for it to become an ism.