growing pains

family ties and furniture, and the underlying ache of it all

I hate the place that is supposed to be my home. Really I’ve always had a contempt for it, but today it’s extra strong. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t wear my retainer when I was 13 and I have a gap between my teeth that I now have to pay to get fixed because it makes me insecure. Maybe it’s because my coffee tasted so bad this morning that I left an angry Yelp review under a fake name. Maybe it’s because my father is secretly miserable and it’s rubbing off on me- perhaps that is why he would not let me take in the adorable stray kitten I found who scampered up to me like it had known me forever. Maybe it’s because of that.

Or maybe it’s because I grew up going to school with rich kids whose houses had granite countertops and spiraling stairwells, while mine had cracks in the wall and beat up furniture we never bothered to replace. Maybe it’s because no matter how many times I rearrange my possessions, the space feels foreign, tainted with something stronger and inescapable. Maybe it’s because this room I’m in, this house I’m in, the lack of attention to detail in this house, the meaningless objects and how they pile up, make me feel impoverished.

I will never tell my father this because he will call me ungrateful. I will never tell my mother this because she will resent my father for not trying hard enough. For all the wounds she has given me, at least she bothers to cover the cracks in the wall.

I have to come to realize, recently, that I am a product of my family tree. I have my father’s eyes and smile, but when I fight with him I shrink into the shell of my mom. I can feel the burden she carried back when she was married to him- the frustration of going up against a man who is warped by financials and closed off to any emotion other than anger. The reason she ultimately left. I claim I do no want to be like her, but by way of being her daughter, and his daughter too, I am destined to bear the same weight.

I envy the kids who got to grow up in one home- the same home, all their lives. The same four walls where they learned how to walk. That familiar childhood bedroom waiting for them when they eventually come home from college. Not renovated, not turned into an in-home gym, but preserved in all its nostalgia, sweet and reminiscent. I wonder what that would feel like. When I pack up my things to move out in a few weeks, I won’t be saying goodbye to my childhood room, but some halfhearted cave containing the ache of my adolescence. A bleak, poorly decorated house that makes me angry if I give it too much thought.

I tried the other day to replace the sad old dresser in my room before I move out. I don’t know why- It’s not like I’ll be around to see it. I guess maybe I wanted something a little prettier to come home to. I made a plan to get this wicker dresser from some lady who lived way far out in suburbia- I gave her 85 bucks for it, even though it was old and beat up and the moment I saw it I knew it would be too small. Her husband saw the reservation flicker across my face standing in their driveway, and offered to give me the matching nightstand, which was in worse shape, for 30 dollars. I agreed. I had probably wasted several gallons of gas driving so far and I didn’t want it to be for nothing. Plus I felt kind of bad, seeing that whole wicker set just sitting in their garage. So I took those two pieces knowing I would probably have to paint them, and I made my tired father help me get them out of my car and I tried to shove my clothes into the drawers of the dresser but it was no use. I figured I’d just sell it and hold onto the nightstand. But the nightstand was covered in inconspicuous streaks of what I assume was pink nail polish and had a sticker on the inside from someone else’s childhood and it looked out of place in my room. Now I’m out 115 dollars and I have 1/2 of a wicker bedroom set sitting in my garage because I was foolish enough to think I could make my room less of an eyesore with other people’s bargain furniture.

I suppose I’ll hold onto to my sad old dresser- the one I’ve had for ages- even though I’m too lazy to touch up the paint job and the wooden panel in the middle drawer is starting to cave in. At least it fits all my clothes. At least it serves as some symbol of permanence- something that’s stayed with me all these years. I suppose I’d rather come home to its presence, and the presence of the cluttered bookshelf doubling as my nightstand than a worn wicker wonderland that belonged to somebody else. Maybe that is how I leave a piece of me behind in this tainted time capsule. I suppose it isn’t particularly common to refurnish your room 2 weeks before leaving for college anyway. I suppose any normal kid, with a normal sense of what a home is, would leave things as they were.

I wish we never sold our family lake house. When my grandfather died and my grandma ran out of money it seemed like the only option. God knows my dad and his sister couldn’t afford to keep it, despite her being a doctor and marrying a lawyer. I still feel a pang of sadness when I think about the glistening blue of the lake-the way the sun’s reflection bounced off the surface and poured in through the blinds in the morning. I still remember the creak of the old wood stairs leading up to the deck where we sat and played poker. The view of the mountains when they turned purple at sunset. The rush I felt when my feet left the dock and plunged deep into the cool of water. I still remember the way it felt to hug my grandpa; how crazy the boat drove him and how hard we had to beg to take it out for even 30 minutes. He was always stressed out about something. Being in a marriage with someone cold and narcissistic will do that.

Now my grandma is on her deathbed, and the lake house that was once ours sold to some big shot at the local university. My dad acts like it doesn’t bother him- just another one of life’s disappointments that you have to accept. He’s become so jaded it makes me feel foolish for feeling anything at all- for having a cavern underneath my feet from something irretrievable.

I am cursed, I think. I look in the mirror at my icy blue eyes and I see something cold in them that resembles my grandmother. I wonder if I am as apathetic as her. I wonder if I am sick like her. I wonder why I am the daughter who fell victim to the generational illness, why I have the parents who left one another, why I have been saddled with this ache that has existed inside of me since I was old enough to form a thought.

Am I being existential or am I really this unlucky?

My childish longing follows me into adulthood. I wish I had the cushy family dynamic where things last. I wish I had the big house with unscathed walls that welcome my return. I wish I had a clean mind, free from insecurity and inherited anguish. I wish I could start over, given different circumstances.

Today I had lunch with my other grandma, the one I can stand, along with my great aunt and her daughter. They wanted to see me before I left town. I was dreading going to the frilly little restaurant they’d chosen- all my dressier clothes are packed away and I had to settle for baggy jeans and a tank top which I worried would earn me disapproving looks. But my grandmother has always looked at me like I am the single most important person in the universe, and today is no different, even though I feel bland and underdressed. She brings out some old photos of me to pass around the table- snippets from the days when I was younger and freer and probably a lot less angry. They all fawn over how beautiful I was- how beautiful they still think I am. I laugh it off and tell them I don’t see it, which is the truth. When we take photos, I don’t hide my disgust for the way I look in them. I crack a couple of jokes and they laugh. I force my grandma to delete the particularly hideous ones, which she cannot fathom because she thinks I look perfect. I wish I could see myself through her eyes.

After lunch, we go to an antique store nearby to look around. The first thing I see when I walk through the door is a pair of adult-size sparkly jelly shoes that are most definitely too small for me. They remind me of a simpler time. I show them to my grandma and together we savor the brief wave of nostalgia-glittery and plasticky and softly reminiscent of princesses and playground slides. I know she misses the days of me being a bright-eyed little girl as much as I do. I know she dreads my departure more than anyone. With each sorrowful sigh she lets slip it somehow becomes more real- I am leaving her and everyone else behind. The room grows more tender. Everything feels symbolic now.

When my grandma finds a comically large teddy bear holding a big red heart, she jokingly asks if I want her to buy it for me. If only it would fit in my suitcase, I giggle in response. A woman who works for the store overhears our exchange. She asks me if I’m just visiting. I tell her I live a few minutes down the road.

I tell her I live a few minutes down the road.

Her words echo in my mind. I can’t decide what’s weirder- the fact that she assumed I was just a visitor or the fact that I answered her question so instinctively, without restraint. I usually hate to tell people I’m from here. I’d be perfectly happy just being a visitor; calling a more interesting city home. I’d be perfectly happy never having stepped foot in this place at all. But I told this woman with my full chest that I live here- like I was offended she would even have to ask.

It occurs to me moments after this interaction that the next time I’m here, I will be a visitor. I’ll come home for holidays, and maybe in the summertime, but that’s it. Before I know it I’ll be the daughter who moved on and started her life somewhere else- chasing her wild fantasy in spite of all the factors that once grounded her. I will no longer be defined by anyone other than myself. It’s a weird sensation, but it feels freeing.

I’ll finally be the girl who got away. I’ll finally escape these walls and leave this place behind. I’ll change and I’ll change and I’ll change until I’m finally brand new. I’ll come back, but only as a visitor. Nothing will never be the same again.

And I’m glad.