All Was Golden When

Chapter #1: Well, She Sure Is Gonna Get It

"He's going to be such an amazing father," Lizzy suggested with a nudge to my shoulder. My sister was a very observant lady and could often spot the best and worst qualities in people within mere minutes of knowing them. In this case, however, she and Brendon had been friends for years prior, so she knew quite a lot about him. I even learned recently that she has been giving my boyfriend romantic advice even since we officially embraced the label of "boyfriends," nearly 5 years ago, which I found to be incredibly cute. And while I did love this man with all my heart, hearing Lizzy make this statement brought my heartbeat to a halt.

"I know," I agreed hesitantly, starring off into Brendon's dark brown beaming eyes with contentment. I smiled as he focused intently on the game within the television screen like a child in awe. This youthful innocence is one of the biggest reasons that I allowed him to sweep me off my feet in the first place. Life was a monochrome nightmare before I met this man, and he was the vibrant dream world that I needed to take me away. All the little pinpricks of life felt dull and painless around him. He kept my head in the clouds even to this day; as whenever I'd sleep, I'd dream of him and fantasize about the wonderful adventures we'd go on together in this beautiful but impermanent journey we called life. However, as good as being with him felt and as much as the illusions of perfection distracted me from other worries, we come from a planet called Earth and there is a point where you have to distinguish between ambition and reality.

My hollow smile sullied the air with the weight of ambivalence. Honestly, I didn't "know," and that scared me. Sure, Brendon was charismatic, talented, and had acceptable leadership skills for a musician in his early 20s, but I struggled to picture him raising a child. I suppose this was partially influenced by personal bias due to the poor relations of my own father. My professors never failed to remind me that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I was not going to let my child become the victim of a tyrannical parent.

The signs were already there... drug abuse, alcoholism, and the disapproval of my career choice. Well, not necessarily. George honestly believed that I would amount to nothing and that an instrumental career path would fail to bring any pride to the family name. He had no faith in me. Brendon, on the other hand, believed that it would be better for us to settle down and move on from the band. He assumed that I would be an amazing stay at home dad and that I'd prefer him to take on the role of the working father. He had too much faith in me. And while I never mentioned this to his face because I preferred to avoid conflict, I still hadn't forgiven him for that lie that he told me. That one lie; the promise he betrayed. The promise that, well, we both betrayed.

But regardless, the resemblance in personality between my father and my boyfriend was greater than their contrast. It was like a "spot the difference" game in a newspaper or comic book. I didn't believe Brendon to be ready. I didn't think, no, I knew, that he wasn't responsible enough for that. He's already having trouble taking care of himself. He fails to keep up with our family's finances by missing bill payments, he fails to keep up with our vehicle's insurance plan, and he often splurges his paycheck on unnecessary consumables like weed or alcohol, amongst other things like fancy suit-jackets and button-ups. We barely have any groceries in the house because the man can't tell the difference between a need and a want...

I felt incredibly remorseful for Brendon's innocence and how corrupted it became because of me. I felt ashamed of how critical my mind was and how I demanded Brendon be this perfect person or superhero. It was my fault that he has these addictions in the first place anyway, as I am the one who introduced him to weed and booze. Sure he has a harder time putting them down in comparison to me, but he has an addictive personality and that's not necessarily his fault. He has ADHD, he's a hyper man. You add fuel to the fire and he's just going to bounce off the walls like a monkey in heat. I sometimes wondered if I was his enabler; if maybe he was just better off without me in his life.