Unfriendly fire
It’s just like how my sister Jen puts it – being home is like being in the middle of a damn battlefield, with verbal bullets flying freely around in the air.
I’ve always had to answer queries on my apparent role of the prodigal daughter of the family. Maybe it’s true, I really shouldn’t shrug off my responsibilities as the eldest. But living in the crossfire of my parents’ constant bickering is unpleasant, painful, and downright traumatic.
Especially if one’s expected to play the damn role of impromptu marriage counsellor to the two people who should have been role models to my sisters and I instead of causing so much chaos in a house that doesn’t feel much like home anymore at times like this.
I’m no one to judge, but I’m getting effing weary and completely exasperated at how it seems to be yet another repetition of every issue brought up the last tiff; how I don’t see how either are right, yet cannot completely remain apathetic to their perspectives; how it can feel so lonely, having to sit out yet another cold war where the atmosphere can get frostier than the Antartica; and how completely unnecessary all this really is.
Maybe it’s because their relationship dramas don’t come close to the severity of my own, but I find this mindless bickering downright stupid and childish and completely unnecessary. It’s frustrating. Two grown-ups married over two fucking decades should’ve learned how to settle minor disagreements in a more sensible way by now, instead of blowing shit out of proportion and making mountains out of mole-hills.
This year’s reunion dinner was just… shit. And I left the house after being made utterly miserable by how it all went.
I’ve got too much on my own plate to want to have anything to do with this endless reenactment of domestic dischord. It’s not like I don’t have my own crap to worry about, in fact, compared to my own burdens, these two warring middle-aged people have absolutely NO reason for all this drama.
Maybe it’s because it’s just that that’s the cause of all this madness – and they’re really two bored middle-aged people throwing temper tantrums for the heck of it, because there’s nothing much left to say or do. I don’t know. And I really shouldn’t give a flying fuck about the reasons behind the escalating tension at home…
I’m lonely in my silence, and frightened, and terribly depressed, but it does feel like I’ve nobody to turn to. I’m chronically tired and I’m just feeling hurt all the time, and there’s no way I can seem to verbalise the all these emotions to anyone, so I paint on this painfully fake smiley face, and continue going through the motions of everyday life, but it’s getting to the point where I… so badly just want to break down and cry.
And there’s no one I really want to confide in, nobody I can trust to listen to my myriad of concerns and remain objective and understanding and supportive, nobody I know that won’t just deal me a few sound slaps and tell me to get a grip on myself and straighten up my life somehow.
So I wrap my arms around myself and give myself a hug.
Maybe when I open my eyes again sanity might just be restored to my world, and my upside-down universe of bewilderment and uncertainty might just make some sense.
mrs jeff buckley said,
February 19, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I grew up in a household like that. chairs hurling, words cutting deep, tears trickling. I’m actually glad they’re not under the same roof now. But it seems I remind her too much of someone. And maybe I am, and I’m tired of being under this roof as well. So you’re not alone. At that minute someone else on the other side of the world could be as lonely as we are.
creativebitchin said,
February 22, 2007 at 7:45 pm
reta: i remind her of herself i think, and that doesn’t go down well with her. nobody likes to look at a reflection of their own flaws. maybe we’re not alone in this, but the isolation sure feels almost lethal =(