A Memoir: Episode 2

I will never forget December 19, 2008. It was the day I was coming home for Christmas break after my first semester of college. I was excited to be home, to see my family, and for Christmas (it is my favorite holiday). I got home mid-afternoon and my sister asked me to go see Seven Pounds with her that night. ***SPOILER ALERT: I CRIED THE WHOLE TIME*** After bawling in the movie theater, I was ready to come home and go to bed. However, when I got home, my mother said that she needed to talk to me. I thought, "What could I have done? I just got home from college!?" I reluctantly sat on the couch with her as my sister went to her bedroom. I should also note that I always brought my moleskin home with me because I painted in it and my sister loved to look at it. I had forgot that I placed my letter to myself that I'd written months before in the back of my moleskin and laid it on my bed without thinking that anyone would look in the back. Do you see where I'm going with this? Needless to say, my mother apologized to me. I was taken aback because why would she be apologizing to me if she needed to talk to me? She said that she read my journal without my permission. But I didn't think that was strange because I always let my sister read it...

And then it hit me.

My mother or I didn't have to say any words. Or rather, there were no words. I have never cried harder than I did at that moment, ever. She and I knew exactly what she was talking about. I was not ready for this. I was planning to never tell my mother. I was planning to move away from home and live my double life when I got older. I was completely broken. I found it strange though; thinking back, my mother would always be the one crying, and she didn't. She was almost completely emotionless, or at least, that's how I felt she was. She would constantly ask questions that I knew any of my answers she would not be able to understand. To make a long story short, nothing was really resolved because honestly I didn't know some of the answers myself. I still wanted to be her good son, but all I could think about was how I was disappointing her. Every time I would come home from that day on, my mother tried to talk to be about how it was a choice, and I was choosing this lifestyle. She called it, "the struggle." I hated that. I still resent that word even though I live it every day. That's hypocritical. I started to hate coming home because I knew that I would have to talk with my mom about it. She would never come to understand what I was going through. So I continued with my double life. I got really good at hiding my college life. It was at this time that I immersed myself in this lifestyle and had no reservations about it. Needless to say, a private and personal thing was taken from me (not by force) and I'll never be able to have that back.