Bittersweet Symphony
2004-08-07 at 11:15 p.m.
Don't cheat on me
I'm in an ill-defined sadness. It is probably my inherited, biological depression. My uncle killed himself. My mom has tried to kill herself. I have wanted to kill myself. That... sucks.Maybe it's knowing that everything can go right or everything can go wrong. It doesn't matter how good or how good-intentioned you are. Nothing is certain.
Maybe it's knowing that everyone betrays you. People who love you, people who don't mean to. At some time they will, in a big way or in a small way. People who are capable of great acts of sacrifice on your behalf can still, in less hero-demanding times, do something that will hurt you.
My mother. I know in her way she loves me. But she is willing to do horrific things to me, based on her steadfast belief that She Knows Everything. She will never trust me to make my own choices. Eventually this will lead to our permanent estrangement. But to her it will be my arrogance, my spitefulness, my stubbornness. Nothing I say will ever convince her that she can't know the whole story, and that, maybe, I can.
My husband. He works everyday towards the goal of making people he cares about happy. But he never trusts that other people might know what they want, might really want it, and be willing to give up whatever it is that he's going after to get it. He can love us more than everything, but still push us off the phone when we need him to spend time with his friends.
My son. Will he love me? I think I am a good parent. An exceptional one. But I make earth-shattering mistakes. He can't stand to fall asleep without lying on the same pillow as me, but someday he might do everything he can to avoid me, to hide whatever he is from me. Maybe he won't know that I would accept him no matter what. My moral relativism is most relative where I love most. It's scary to say, This is what I have. No matter what, it's you and me forever. Maybe he won't be willing to accept that from me. Maybe it will be something worthless to him.
My brother. Secretly believing that we were "in it together." Allies. Never telling me this for years. On his mission in England, waiting for a letter from me, the sister he loved. I never sent it. I never knew he wanted it. He never told me. You can pour your heart out to him, he'll look at you with an expressionless face. His heart might be with you, but you'll never know it.
My dad. A father desperate to have his children, willing to fight and fight and fight for them. The fight made his love deep. Unconditional love. He'll love you even if you "change." When you come to him and say, "Look at me Dad, I'm a better person than I was before. I found a way to look at the world, a way to act, a way that fits me and who I always was." And he'll say, "I still love you, but I don't know what happened to you. You changed." He'll always be back there, waiting for his daughter to come home, missing the chance to have a better one.
Me. You want to be a certain way, to do certain things. But you have to fight something else in yourself that's sometimes stronger than your will. Sometimes this pitiful, worthless nothingness beats your nobler self. Lose to a foe that's not worthy.
The best thing to do is lie down, cry a little and sleep. Tomorrow it will be gone.
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