Family

Family. All the descendents of a common ancestor. According to Google, there’s no emotional value. No connection, other than blood and maybe appearance. Yet it’s so much more. It’s Christmas together on that snowy day. It’s staying up at New Years, just to welcome the first second of another year. It’s birthdays, anniversaries, and even  more. It’s the day to day. The break ups, the fall-in-loves, the bad grades, the good grades. It’s the speeches and awards, the track meets and sports games. Even just the I’m hungry’s. All of that is family, and yet it's still more. But it doesn’t feel like it to me. My family hasn’t been as amazing as what it’s supposed to be according to almost every commercial. I don’t think going to Hobby Lobby on Christmas day will help either. 

 I used to be able to talk to my sister for hours, but now she’s barely home, and when she is, she’s asleep or talking to her friends. I’ve hung out with them a few times. They’ve come over on weekends, and I even went to breakfast with them once. To me, it’s just a horde of boys trying to get into my sister’s pants, but to her it’s an extension of her family. She’d rather hang out with them instead of me or our parents. What used to be hours of playing with me, talking about our future, is now talking with those boys. Talk about ‘that one speech’, or ‘that one girl’, sometimes even ‘that one game’. I really miss the times we had together. Rain or shine, she was always there. She would teach me things about the world I never knew. Tell me stories of distant lands. My favorite story was a story about a Prince Charming who saved the girl. I have always imagined myself in the girl’s shoes. The way the knight would smell, his strong cologne calmly guiding my nose into his world, mind going numb with relief and adrenaline from hearing the battle and feeling the blistering heat of the dragon’s fiery breath. His arms would be strong enough to guide me, and gentle enough to hold me. But it was only a dream. A fantasy. But what wasn’t a fantasy was the way that my sister held my hand as I walked to kindergarten for the first time.  She was my only knight in shining armor. Not in a romantic way,but in a way that I thought we both knew. The way where we just needed each other, but now I see that it was just a selfish idea.

My parents, bless their hearts, were not the best. They hurt me without even knowing they were. Ignorance of how I feel. Ignorance of how their well meaning speeches of fanciful promises and a greater purpose would drive me away from them and their stupid ‘live by the rules of another’ wrapped in a package of faith and goodness ideals. How everything that they say to make me feel more united with them, just makes me feel more angry, alone, and different. How their small talks of what’s right and wrong discriminate and insult me and my friends. It used to be better. My parents used to be less religious, not caring too much about differences and oddities. As I got older, the talks of how adults should be and how wrong the world is increased. They sat at the dinner table, plenty of food put on the table, talking about how better off we would be if we just followed the Bible. How indecent young people were. How homeless people should just find work. How “G-d made you exactly how you should be,” while still talking about how “Boys trying to be girls shouldn’t be on the streets and just man up” or preaching “Being gay is a choice”. I resented them for not opening their eyes, for not accepting everyone, for not helping those truly in need. But I was hypocritical for resenting them, because all I did was sit and resent and make excuses. “I don’t have enough money,” or “I don’t want to tell them the truth because if they do, I’ll be dead” swam around my head everytime I thought of something that could be relatively helpful. I blame myself for that. I'll probably keep blaming myself for the rest of my life. 

I sat on my bed playing 2048, texting my boyfriend. I was a scrawny fourteen year old boy, fidgeting with my curly brown hair. The stormy grey sheets tangled around my body in an artwork of laziness and comfort, the rain outside making the atmosphere cozy. 

Me: Wow, the rain is really comforting

       It kinda makes me want to sleep

Babe: Don’t you dare fall asleep on me

                    I’m already fully awake from your stupid coffee idea! And I have to deal with the shitshow about to happen? Are you gonna be so cruel as to leave your precious boyfriend alone?

Me: Absolutely. Love you!

My boyfriend went on and on about how his father had somehow found the invitation to his mother’s wedding, and how bad it was going to be. How his father would either break a table, or find a way to punch the groom. I know that my boyfriend would probably have a panic attack in the car, on the way there. He wasn’t planning on going because he knew his father would see this as an invitation, and come along with him. His father wasn’t the nicest man around. He had landed a three year sentence about five years ago, and was probably about to get another one soon. 

I know that he’s already kind of agitated because his mother’s wedding is supposed to be today, and he wasn’t invited. He loved his mother dearly, being as she was the only one who treated him with respect in his family. She was the only one who took him coming out seriously, and the only one who ever treated him like a son. Plus, she was a great sparring partner for him. But even he knew that if he went, it’d be bad. If he would’ve gone to the wedding, his father would take that as an invitation to come to the wedding and somehow ruin it. The last time my boyfriend was preparing for his mother and father’s meeting, he had a panic attack because his father suggested a double date. When I called him the next morning, he had a huge bruise on his face. He wouldn’t tell me what happened because he knew I’d try to go over there and beat the shit out of whoever gave him that bruise, just to then realise that I couldn’t fight and fall into a spiral of self loathing I never showed him. He knew it was there, he just didn’t know what it was or how to help.

I heaved a sigh. The rain beat steadily down my window, streaming in a neverending trickle. Thunder boomed, but it was only a distant noise to me. I smiled, even in the gloomy weather. I alway tried to be as positive as I could be. Forced optimism. Great for appearances, not so much solving my problems or saving energy. It was also good for feeling a bit better, or starting a good day. I think the pros weigh out the cons, so I did it quite often. But the rain was too relaxing, too calming. I was also in my room, so I let the smile slip off of my face. I imagined my boyfriend with me, us cuddling. The warmth between our bodies becoming the perfect temperature in this stormy weather. I once heard a quote about how your loved one can feel how you feel at times. I may have remembered it wrong, but I hope it was true. I hoped it would comfort him a bit because I didn’t know how to comfort him. Only how to be hypocritically resentful or overly positive and coach-y. I hated that about myself, but before I could think another thought, I was plunged into darkness. A huge boom shook through my bedroom, rattling the four of us. Damn, the power’s out, I thought while searching blindly for the phone I had lazily tossed aside a few minutes before. 

“Is everyone ok?” Mom had called out, “The power’s out!”

“No shit Sherlock!” yelled my sister, “The entire fucking neighborhood can hear you, you know!”

“Language!” Dad snapped.

My sister cleared her throat and in a sarcastic proper voice replied, “ I’m very sorry sir, let me try again. My deepest gratitude to you for announcing a very easy to see fact, but I insist that you lower your voice, for the entire residency of neighboring houses will hear you.”

I could cut the tension in the air with a knife. I knew there would be a fight, and I really did not want to deal with their yelling while I was in a good enough mood to not have to force my optimism. 

“No fighting guys!” I yelled, “We need light first.”

There was a bit of silence and a bit of fumbling, then a small flame flickered to life, lighting up the kitchen. My sister walked to the light, muscle memory kicking in so she didn’t trip around in the dark. She looked like she had just woken up, which explained the sarcastic outbreak.

“I’m sorry guys. I had just woke up,” she said, handing over the good smelling candles she kept in her room.

“You’re not getting out of being punished, but we can discuss that later,” Mom told her. 

“Where’s Mr. No Fights?” Dad called in the direction of my room.

“Right here,” I shouted after I tapped his shoulder from behind. I saw him flinch, sigh, and shake his head. 

“Not funny,”

“Absolutely hilarious,” my sister chimed in, Mom snickering behind her.

“What should we do now?” I asked. “It looks like the power’s going to be out for a bit, so we’ll be a bit stuck.”

“Games?” my sister suggested.

“Card games?”

“No. Video games. Of course card games! Idiot,” she shook her head.

“Okay okay,” I raised my hands in surrender.

“We could also go outside,” Dad joked.

We all laughed and giggled, taunting each other to see who would go outside in the storm. It was all fun and games at first, but it got really serious. WHat once were lighthearted jabs were now almost insults.

“I’m going outside,” I said first, “But I’m going with a tent and light,”

I ran upstairs into the old storage closet that had everything you could think of, but nothing you could find. I rummaged around in the dark for a few moments, feeling around for that plastic-y feeling that’s artificially silky. I felt a rope that attached to that weird silk and yanked. The tent pooped out of where it was nestled and I ran back downstairs to go outside. By then only Mom was opposed to the idea of going outside. 

“It’s  stupid idea! You could get hurt!” she argued.

Dad placed his hand on her shoulder, “There hasn’t been any lightning for the past ten minutes. The only lightning strike that got remotely close to us was the one that blew out our power. I think we’ll be fine”

Mom gave us one of her motherly sighs and threw her hands up in surrender. My sister walked back into the light with some dusty cards that she had found at the bottom of the card game/domino bucket. I went outside first. Rain poured on my head, soaking it within a few seconds. The sopping coldness penetrated my warm jacket. I shivered but set up the tent on the patio. It was a deep maroon and an unnatural glint crept on it’s “neatly” folded surface. The tent wasn’t supposed to be pegged into the ground, but rather weighted down by the inside. If it wasn’t, a fly could tip it over if it really wanted to. I set the array of candles we had inside of the tent, on a plate so it wouldn’t burn through the thin material known as it’s floor.

Mom and Dad came in after me. My sister was apparently getting snacks for the night. Food was always good in my eyes. When my sister came in a few minutes later, she came bearing gifts of store-bought cookies and Cheez-Its. She also brought some water bottles and apple juice boxes that Mom insisted we kept buying.

 We crammed together in that little tent, chattering until almost dawn. Cookie crumbs and bright orange bits lay scattered around the floor. Cards were crammed in a corner, us being too busy with our talking to care a lot about them. When the night was over and the power had already turned on long before, I looked up at the maroon tent. Maybe family wasn’t as good as it’s represented in TV commercials, but who cares? We have each other. That’s all we need. Family.