Where do you go when you have nowhere else left to go?
I went home.
Not to the place that I had most recently made my home, that place had failed on one of the measures of a home. It was no longer safe.
So, I made my way back to the place I grew up.
They said you should never go back. I’m not sure who they were and what the premise of this advice was. You do what you have to do is my retort to them.
Maybe I was resorting to the only thing I knew. I was fresh out of ideas and my head wasn’t going to provide me with much of anything right now. It needed a rest and so did I.
I rode home. I figured it was as good a way to travel as any. I took my time and I went by the back roads and I kept my wits about me. You have to when you ride. Riding has always induced a big wide grin, but the only time I smiled on this ride was when I thought of one of the biker maxims, ride like everyone is out to kill you, it’s the only way to stay alive.
Maybe that maxim was why I chose to ride. The bike had dual purpose tread, but I doubted it had gone off-road ever in its life. I needed that option, but as it was, the roads treated me well and I only left the tarmac twice.
I took this as a good sign and I allowed the seed of hope to unfurl and peep out of the soil. I knew this was a foolish endeavour, but I did not have the heart to crush that seed. I didn’t see the point.
The sun was giving up as I returned to my home town. Truth be told, it isn’t a town, not by a long shot. It’s a village and that suited me fine right now.
I’ve visited this place regularly, but not as regularly as I’d like and certainly not as regularly as my folks would like. That’s before I get to my siblings. They seem to think I should make all the effort with them.
Why?
Because I moved away, not them.
Only, that isn’t the real reason. That’s an excuse they glued on top of the real reason, and the real reason is they hate me. Not so you would know though. Their hatred is low-level, it’s an ingrained habit. They were taught to hate me from an early age. It was my mother’s way of evening the playing field, what with me being the eldest and having all the advantages of going first and breaking new ground.
It took me a long, long time to suss this hatred of theirs out. My folks are oblivious to it. Oh, they nod as I tell them there isn’t anything I can do about it, and it’s all down to my siblings to move on from being ten year olds, but I know that they are not listening, and if I need any further proof of their deaf ears, it’s when they beseech me to make more of an effort.
I’ve been there and done that, nothing was ever good enough. Eventually I realised that I was as dumb as the moth above my bed, bashing its head over and over on the hot lightbulb. So I stopped trying so hard. My efforts only hurt me and they were a waste of everyone’s time. I quit leading that particular horse to water and I got reports via my folks of how bad I was for not trying with my brother and sister. They actively thwarted everything I did, and yet they wanted to see me try harder?
Why?
Because I’m the eldest and it’s what I’m supposed to do as far as they are concerned.
I dunno what they told their kids, but I don’t think I even got to be the black sheep of the family.
Still, it took me a long while to see what they were doing for what it really was. They didn’t know me. They never took the time to look at who it was that was stood before them, instead they projected their own notion of what I was on to me and they behaved in hateful ways towards that. It took me an age to see it for what it was, because I was nearly as bad as them. I didn’t want to engage with the reality of it.
