Momma Mia

My parents are getting a divorce. Or at least planning on it, though the planning has only gone so far as to determine that they are getting divorced.

I honestly cannot say how I feel. Relieved would be a good word. Happy? Maybe a little bit.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that my parents don't get along, and that I don't get along with my mother. I actually don't know why it took them so long. They've been fighting forever, and I'm really really tired of it. Especially when I get involved, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

It's probably better this way, except financially. Financially, it's pure suicide.

I'm not going to cry over this. I didn't when I found out, and I'm not going to. Because the truth is, I really hate my mother. I don't think I can even describe her in words. You may be thinking, "Well, hate may be too strong of a word. She is your mother after all." No, not so. In this case, hate is a perfectly good word to use, perhaps not even strong enough. Besides the fact that she gave birth to me, I don't really think it would be appropriate to call her my mother. Mothers are supposed to love their children and support them and encourage them. All my "mother" ever did was control me and everything I ever did or thought about doing.

When I look at her, I feel disgust and loathing. She's a monster.

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Control Freak

Forward. Almost.

I finally got over the whole not-going-on-vacation issue, and was getting pretty excited about going to university this fall, and now it just seems like everything has been thrown off balance.

Stop.

Everything has come to a complete standstill. Each day is just like the one before it, and all of them blur together into one long, torturous day that never ends.

I can't sleep. Can't think straight. Maybe I can't think because I can't sleep.

About ten days ago, my mum began acting as if my dad didn't exist. Stopped talking to him. Stopped coming to dinner. Just. Stopped. Later, I found out that she had apparently accused him of not "respecting her," which is the pot calling the kettle black. If it's anyone who doesn't get enough respect around here, it's my dad. And sometimes I'm the one who does it, and it makes me feel bad.

I don't think my mother feels guilt. If she does, she certainly doesn't act on it. In fact, it seems like she never feels a bit of remorse for the hurtful things she says to other people. She doesn't apologise, because to her, it's all someone else's fault. She doesn't accept apologies either, like some sort of malfunctioning vending machine that refuses to take your bills or give you change.

We tried to get her to come back to us (even though I don't think she deserves it at all). We brought her plates of food; they came back untouched. Has she been eating? I don't know. I don't care either. We came back from Father's Day dinner (without her because she wouldn't go), and I asked her if she ate, and she said yes. So I said, "What did you eat?" And she looked away from the TV screen, her face an eerie blue from the light, and she said, "Why do you care?"

I don't care because she doesn't want me to. I don't want to. I don't need to.

I think it's better this way--less of her shrill voice nagging at us to do this, do that. Less of her yelling at us to do something and then complaining that we're not doing it right. Everything is different now. My dad and I go grocery shopping together, he makes dinner, I bake cookies. We chauffer my sister to her sports activities and whatnot. And she stays holed up in her room, only coming out when she needs to. When she does, we avert our eyes, mumble something and go in the opposite direction. She's like Medusa--look at her and you'll feel her wrath.

I feel like I've taken her place, and part of me says that it's not right, that I am The Elder Child, not The Mother. But The Mother seems to have given up her place in this household, and she is now merely Another Person Who Lives Here, someone who is occasionally whispered about. The other half of me, the rational half, tells me that I am only doing what anyone would do. After all, the groceries don't buy themselves. I am only doing what I must.

But it is killing me to see how she treats my dad. All he is doing is trying to be nice to her, and she just turns her back and walks away. I want to grab her by the hair and tell her how selfish she's being, how disrespectful. Tell her that if she wants respect, then she has to start giving it. But each time I venture into her bedroom and open my mouth, some stupid thing like, "It's hot outside today," comes out, and then I just lose what little courage I'd mustered up and cower as she gives me a scathing look for interrupting her peace.

But one day I will stand up to her and tell her all the things I've been bursting to say for years. This is a new era--we are escaping from her grip. It used to be that she dictated everything we did. If she didn't want to do it, then we just didn't do it. Well, it's not like that anymore. Even the small things, like going to dinner without her, are teeny steps foward. Away.

We are doing what we should've done a long time ago: getting in control of our lives.

It's our turn to steer.

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Golden Rule=Crap

I don't even know where to begin. It seems like everything's an end these days.

So let me start with this: my sister made it onto her school's cheerleading team. This sentence is very simple, is it not? Seemingly innocent. Oh, but it isn't.

Because along with this came a whirlwind of woes. She goes to practice for hours on end all day. She's taking courses in the summer so she is always doing homework. If there's one thing you need to understand about my sister, it is that she is a complete workaholic. She is capable of sitting for an entire day in front of a book and doing math problems. I swear she doesn't know what the word "fun" means. Most unusual for a teenager. Unheard of.

My family had been planning a trip to my birthplace for years, and of course, I was excited about it. I'm turning eighteen this summer, and we were originally supposed to take a weeklong vacation so that I could see the hospital in which I was born and whatnot. Well, it also happens that cheerleading camp has been arranged in intervals which makes this vacation impossible. Normal parents would say, "Oh, let's just go without her. This is your eighteenth birthday after all, and we have been thinking about going there for years." But no, my parents decided that they wouldn't leave without her, so thus, we are not going. Anywhere.

Do you know what that says to me? That is telling me that I am not important, or at least less important that my sister and her stupid cheerleading. And ever since she was born, that's how I've felt: inferior. It's just like when you give a child a new toy--they immediately begin playing with it and ignoring all the other ones. And as if that wasn't enough, they only pay attention to me when I'm doing something wrong. I feel like I'm tiptoeing through a mine-field.

And you know what else? I don't get any respect. I run around all day, packing my sister's lunch because she's too busy to do it herself and because I think that being nice to her will make her be nice to me. Like the "Golden Rule" says. Well, you know what? The "Golden Rule" is a sodding pile of crap. Whoever made it up must've been living in some sort of imaginary uptopia because my sister merely complains about how I didn't put enough mayonnaise on her sandwich or that she doesn't like yellow mustard. Not a word of thanks. And even if she does say thank you, she doesn't mean it.

It's the same with the word "sorry." She steals my clothes out of my closet all the time, claiming that she has "nothing to wear," which we both know is absolutely untrue. She has tons of clothes, and as she frequently informs me that my clothes are "not stylish," I don't understand why she would steal them from me. And every time I catch her doing this, I yell at her, and she says, "Sorry." Which, of course, has lost it's entire meaning by this point. She might as well say, "Lawn clippings" or "Ostrich." They are all equally meaningless. And what's more, my parents never do anything about this. They just laugh because, oh, it's just the most hilarious thing ever and she's their precious little angel that can do no wrong. Ha. She could probably cleave someone's head off with a hatchet right in front of their eyes and they wouldn't believe she did it.

I don't really know what it is that I'm trying to say. I can't even think straight, I'm so...angry. Frustrated. Humiliated. Cheated. And I feel like I'm always being punished for everything. Everyone's too busy caring about my sister. My parents are too busy hating each other.

Sometimes I wish I'd never been born at all.

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