Drafts of Nothingness

Days Like Today

        It was days like this when she realized how stupid her decision was. Not the days when she would sit in her room, crying and finding as many pills as she could then shoving them into her mouth until she was dizzy. Not the days she spent bent over the toilet, forcing the food out of her stomach with her middle and pointer finger. It was days like today, days where she was angry; she was so angry that she felt like crying but didn't have the strength to. She was tired. So damn tired, more now then ever. She didn't understand why this arrangement didn't work. No, she knew why. She was too much like her mother, so much so that it made her angry. Yet with that anger came a strong sense of pride. A pride that she had never felt before but still...she was angry. She thought choosing to live with her father and his wife would be a great idea. She thought she would have freedom away from her controlling, passive, absolutely irritating mother. It didn't work that way though. 

        Yes, she had a father, but she barely knew the man and he barely knew her. She had spent her entire life under the care of her mother, only to see her father occasionally over the summer. She was seventeen now, the last time she'd spend more than a month with her father was when she was six. When she moved into his large new house with his wife (who was young enough to be her sister) and his brand new kids she realized that she was living with a stranger. There would be no more movie nights. No more cuddling into her mothers arms during the dark hours. No one to gently run thin fingers through her hair whilst she slept. It hurt, fuck did it hurt. And what hurt the most is that she made the decision herself. She decided to leave her mother, just like everyone else had done. She thought she would be happy, that she could finally escape. Only on days like this, days where she wanted to scream at her stepmother and call out her father on his sudden change, did she realize what a mistake she made.

        She was angry at her father. She didn't understand what was so different about this new woman that made him want to be a better man. A better man than he was to her mother. She knew of his sins to her. She found it amusing one Sunday when they forced her into a church and began to speak of adultry. She found it amusing that he sat there in his seat, agreeing with the things the pastor spoke when she knew that he himself had committed this sin. He had committed it several times. But not anymore. Not since this new woman. Yet when she looked directly at him during the pastors words, there wasn't a singe crack in his façade. She had never forgave him of his sins because he had never apologized. 

        She only grew more angry when they began to speak badly of her mother. Giving her the blame for his loss of connection with his children. He had no right, absolutely so fucking right to speak of her mother in any sort of way. Her mother was faithful, her mother was in love with him. Her mother was there for her when her father was busy creating a new family. "I would never take his kids away from him," her stepmother once said to her. It took every fiber of her livid being to not strike the woman across the face. How dare she speak of her mother, how dare she try and compare herself. This woman was not half the woman her mother was. She would never be more the her than the second woman her father impregnated then married. It was days like this, when she would sit alone on the floor of the room in her fathers house that she realized; this is not home. Her home is where her mother is. 

        The only thing that would bring her down from her angry high were thoughts of her mother. Her controlling, overbearing, frustrating mother that she loved so dearly. She never had to act "ladylike" around her mother. She could burp in front of her and laugh when her mother would rate it between one and ten. She could dress the way she wanted without feeling the judgmental eyes of her stepmother. She missed the days when she would get out of her mothers car in front of school after being complemented on her high-waisted shorts. Now all she was given was a condescending look and an eye roll. She missed staying up until midnight on a school night with her mother, watching old shows on Netflix and laughing together. She missed waking up on schooldays to a light kiss on the cheek, because that had now been replaced with a rough knock on the door and the sudden flood of light in the dark room. Mostly she missed the way her mother held her, the way she felt at home in her small arms. She was a liberal, just like her mother. Her mother held onto no religion or judgment, simply love. The love she had for her mother was enough religion for the both of them. 

        Even now, as she sits in her room listening to the family downstairs that now occupy her life, she knows who her family is. She knows who she is.

        She is her mother. She always has been.