Scribbles | 5SOS

Ashton

Dear Ash,

Today was basically an overall whirlwind of emotions. Just one of those days, you know? Let me start from the beginning.

I woke up early to go tutor this kid who needed help writing a history paper, took a shower, the normal stuff. I went downstairs to have breakfast and boom, it hit me like a wall.

Pure sadness.

I wish I could say that this wasn't a frequent thing, but it seems to be becoming more regular, at least at the present time. But that's life, I suppose.

It just really sucks.

I was sitting in the kitchen, pouring myself a bowl of cereal, and it all came crashing down on me. My mom was in the room with me, and somehow, call it superhuman-mom sense, she realized something was wrong.

When she asked me if I was okay, it didn't take long for the waterworks to start, and to be honest, that really sucked because I hate crying. It makes me feel over dramatic and annoying, but I couldn't help it.

Anyway, I sat quietly for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts, before responding.

When my mouth opened, my answer came out in short, teary sobs, which made me very uncomfortable. I mean, how easy is it to explain that you're just genuinely unhappy with your life and you can't really pinpoint it to an exact thing, but more just a combination of stress, shitty friends, insecurities left and right, and a generally negative outlook on the world?

I tried my best though.

She did what any mother/therapist would do (which is common considering she actually is both) and listened to my entire embarrassing rant before trying to encourage me, reassuring me that things would get better with time, and that 'you'll find your niche in a few months when you go to college' and 'you'll find a wonderful guy who loves you for you', and all that other BS, but it obviously didn't hit me as strongly as it usually does.

She seemed disappointed about this, mainly because no mother really wants to see their child unhappy, but I just couldn't fake it this time. When she asked why I didn't find comfort in these things, I responded simply: I'm sick of waiting for these things to come along. I'm tired.

She seemed stumped by that one.

I took my bowl of cereal and ate it in the living room quietly.

When I came home from tutoring the kid, I spent some time in my room, thinking about doing the mountain of homework that sat hanging over my head all break, and resolved myself to doing the easiest of it and then call it a day.

My parents suggested that we go out to dinner, probably because they already were feeling bad that it was another Saturday night without me having any plans (cue more dramatic crying about shî tty friends) and I agreed for their sake. Also, I wanted the food.

It was snowing when we left, and things looked like they were covered in powdered sugar. It was still in the stages of the pretty, light kind of snow that can be brushed away easily, rather than the annoying thick stuff that is deceivingly hard to shovel, and it made me smile the first genuine smile of the day.

When we were at dinner, my dad told cute stories about watching the sunrise in Montauk with this friends and jumping off the foot bridge by his house in Brooklyn during the summers, and I felt the tide beginning to turn. I admitted to myself that my parents actually did know how to make me feel better sometimes.

Driving through the snow back home I talked to my sisters, different from my silent attitude on the way there, the three of us resolving to watch TV together as we did on a typical Saturday night. I smiled a little more.

I finally laughed as we watched Karl Pilkerton travel to Giza to see the pyramids (spoiler alert: he was seriously unimpressed) and my dog curled up to watch with us on the couch.

Eventually even my parents joined us and we sat talking about stupid old superstitions we had. I revealed that I slept with the blanket pulled all the way up to my neck as a child because I thought that it would prevent vampires from biting me while I slept.

We all laughed pretty hard at that.

By the time everyone decided to go to bed, I was still downstairs in the kitchen, listening to music and flipping through pictures on my phone out of boredom (and refusal to go to bed before 11:00 on a weekend) when I found a screenshot of a tweet that you sent a few weeks earlier. I didn't even remember taking it, but there it was, shining at my suddenly watery eyes.

"I hope you feel happy today..."

This is why I'm dedicating this one to you, Ashton. I know you don't know me or anything, but I hope that if you could've seen me today, you would've been proud. Because I'm trying, Ash, I really am.

Yours truly,
M