Mama, I’m Coming Home

My homecoming wasn’t what I was hoping. I’d gotten into an with my mom right before I got on the greyhound to go home. I cried the whole way. God, how I’ve always hated fighting with my mom. Hated it.  I was so sure she didn’t want me home that I even made arrangements with one of my cousins to pick me up.  The thing is, you might be reading this and thinking “oh man her mom must be a bitch!” But she wasn’t. You see, at this point I felt unworthy to be anything to anyone. If I made someone upset, it automatically meant they must hate me.  And that, I projected onto my parents. It was especially easy to project that onto my father, he and I have the exact same temper. We could get each other from 0-100 on the anger scale just by looking at each other wrong. I took that as he hated me. But oh, how unbelievably wrong I was. I am so grateful to have him in my life. I did everything to push him away. But he never, never left. He just let me have that space, likely hoping that one day, I would understand (spoiler alert, I did understand!)

My first day home I got a call from a friend from when I was 11 years old. It turned out she and my closest cousin were the best of friends. The 3 of us soon became inseparable. We had a lot of fun getting high, getting drunk and whatever other shenanigans we could come up with. My cousin grew up in a very warm  American state whereas we lived in northwestern ontario. So he had never been sledding. So we got super high, super drunk and out we went. I had a nice black eye the next day, but it was one of the most fun nights of my life. Completely carefree. Absolute happiness. My friend confided she was in love with my cousin, but he wasn’t. So it was a little awkward for a while (second spoiler, and because I love it, 15 years after this, they are married with a baby).

One of my best friends had moved away during the last year of high school, so she had come back home for her first visit since leaving. We got the old gang together to go out dancing and drinking. We had so much fun that night. That was also the night I would meet the man I ended up marrying.  My friend had made us dance together for whatever reason and we ended up kissing. I had never hooked up with anyone at a bar, thats not why I went. I was more interested in dancing and fun. But something drew me to him.  I was crushing hard on this man.

Honestly, its shocking that we ended up married. At first, we were so compatible with eachother. Ultimately though, what was a phase for him was who I was, He was raised in a sheltered home where high intellegence was almost  a requirement. So while I pretty well knew who I was at that point, he was still looking to find who he was. We fell in love quickly (That is a problem with me, I fall hard and fast. And by the time I realize it, its too late). Eight months after meeting, we packed up and moved out to Alberta. He wanted to be far away from his parents and he wanted to go to school. I had saved some money for school at that point but had decided to give it to him. He wanted to be a doctor, which is someone far more important than I would ever be, so I happily offered it. I cried so hard when we left that he asked me if I wanted him to bring me back to my parents house!

We settled into our life, at first having no one but the two of us. That is when I started to notice the changes in him. He had grown into someone he wasn’t when we met.  It turned out he wasn’t as weird as I was. I felt like that meant he was going to out grow me. So instead of asking, in typical me style, I let things fester and eat  away at me. My self doubt was at an all time high. He felt distant. Then one night there was a party with his classmates. He invited me along. And that is where I met her, Her. The girl who was everything he had always said he wanted. I saw the sparks, the flirting, the secret glances.  I asked him about her later. I was told I was crazy, But I wasn’t. They had a mostly emotional affair with some kissing. This is what I was told anyways, I didn’t ask for the details. I forgave him for it. But the damage was already done.  Crack. Another fracture. Another step in the direction of my complete and total fuck up. We spent the rest of the school year trying to get back to where we were. And even though I wanted to, I never fully let him back in. I closed myself off. I wasn’t her. So what did he want with me? The fact that it was me he chose didn’t matter to me because now I worried that he would regret choosing me and that just opens up a whole new can of worms. Its absolutely fucked up. We finally decided we needed a change in order to fix things, so at the end of the school year, we packed up once more and headed to Manitoba. Back to where I had already laid some roots.

I was so stupid thinking that would fix everything.