Sometimes I go to make a Facebook status and I stop myself and come to tumblr or make a note on my phone that will never see the light of day. I say this at the start of almost everything but holy cow it’s been a hard couple of years. I’m so ready to be over this hump. SO READY. But also, so unbelievably overwhelmed.
I’m not sure how I forget that this house is no longer the quiet peaceful house I used to come home to a handful of years ago. My bedroom shares a wall with my 15 year old nephew and another with my almost 90 year old grandpa. I take after my parents in most things, especially when it comes to noise. I am a pretty quiet person to live with. I don’t talk very much, there isn’t a television in my room, and if I listen to music it’s usually in my car. I’m so used to this house being this quiet place where my parents would rather read than watch tv, where everyone kind of does their own thing and comes together for meals. While most of that is still true, everyone still kind of does there own thing, my room is in the middle of the most noise this house has probably ever witnessed.
My grandpa watches the news VERY loudly. And I mean, it’s his right, he’s an old man. He also goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night and doesn’t take the time to slowly shut a door so door slams are another thing. I do enjoy the sound of his shuffling feet on the carpet. I love how he’s always humming a song. So, the good outweighs the bad.
My nephew. Basically, my nephew is the little brother I never had. I’m the youngest. It’s very, very hard, for me to see my parents baby a teenager because they didn’t baby me or my brother to the extent that they’re babying now. Do I get it? Of course I do. He’s had a hard hand dealt to him. I love him. I would take a bullet for him, without hesitation. With that said, I do not understand teenage boys. It is a different world we are living in now compared to the world I lived in when I interacted with teenage boys daily. I also only saw them in social environments. My brother is so much older than me that my memory of living with a teenage boy is limited.
My nephew lives in his bedroom. Most of the time he eats in his bedroom, something that was very very rare for me growing up. He plays video games like 20 hours out of 24 hours in a day. He talks to the people he’s playing those games with while he’s playing them, I don’t get it. Last night he was talking to a girl on SPEAKER while he played a game, while talking to the people playing the game. I know I should find this to be the same as me sitting on a bedroom floor watching a boy play video games, but I can’t wrap my head around it.
The language I hear from my bedroom, the conversations I’m NOT trying to hear every word of, they are shocking to me. I have to constantly remind myself that while I want to think that his upbringing is similar to mine, it hasn’t always. My parents don’t say the f word ever, but my brother says it all the time. I’m sure feeling cool as a teenager saying words that you’re not supposed to say on top of hearing your dad say them most of your life, I get it, that must be hard to break out of.
Being around a teenager, for basically the first time in my life when I’m not a teenager too, is eye-opening. As a teenager I felt a lot of shame, and personal responsibility. I felt insecure, lonely, accountable for my actions. I felt afraid of getting into trouble. I felt like I didn’t belong, a lot. But at the end of the day I also had a house down the street where one of my best friends lived. I didn’t mind watching A Wedding Story with my mom after school and taking a nap before killing myself with the hours of homework I had each day. I didn’t feel a need to pick up a sport, club, or hobby, until it was necessary for me to have something on my transcripts to get into college. I felt rejected a lot because I never was a true part of any friend group I hung out with. But even if I felt like a loner and a lot of things could be defined as me being a loner, I wasn’t one. I didn’t have plans every weekend, but I did have plans often. People remember me from high school even when I don’t remember them. I kissed boys. I had a boyfriend for a week or two here and there. I was secretive with my parents because their rules seemed a lot more strict than I thought I deserved them to be. That sounds really manipulative, but it is true. My parents worried so much that I would get caught up in the wrong crowd or have some sort of bad reputation, but I never really had that in me. I think a lot of being a teenager is just giving into your own personality. It’s never been “me” to take risks. So I went on dates and told my parents I was going with a group. So I went to a late movie when I spent the night at a friend’s house. I did the most minimal risk taking secretive behavior. My brother, on the other hand, was always a risk taker. He always wanted to challenge authority and rules. And while I know that my nephew is not my brother, I cannot help but see some similarities in their personalities.
There’s something so blatantly disrespectful to me about saying words you know you’re not allowed to say out loud loudly. Nothing whispered, nothing even a little bit hidden, just OUT THERE. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for me to not step in and say, listen, you think you sound like an adult and I understand that. I’ve worked in places where people talk JUST like that. Adults saying the f word almost every other word JUST like that. But you know what that says to me? It says that they don’t know how to talk. It says that they’re so unsure about how to sound smart that they’ve resorted to sounding like a teenager’s perspective of what an adult sounds like. I’m not saying DON’T ever say the f word. But let some words MEAN something. Don’t let words that pack a punch be filler words. There are SO MANY words! Find better ones that better suit what you’re wanting to say.
The house wakes up at 5am every weekday. So at 5am, I hear some of the worst music I’ve ever heard for about an hour. I remember the selfishness of being a teenager and I’m not going to tell the boy he can’t get ready listening to his music, but my god I miss silence.
While everyone was at church today, I cleaned the kitchen, I took a shower, and then I sat on my bed in silence, just to soak it in before they returned. Weekdays are better, obviously. I have the entire morning of stillness and quiet. It’s only been a week since I’ve been back, and now I know what I’m dealing with. I know when I should post up downstairs and enjoy the quiet there. I know I can disguise needing quiet with saying I want to watch a show downstairs. I know I can sit in the room no one uses and no one will bother me. I’m getting the hang of being in this house. I am. I know once I have a job it will all be easier. A routine will make everything so much nicer.
As much as I want to keep this feeling very temporary, I do need to be realistic with this situation and with myself. If unpacking everything will make me feel like this is it for now, then I need to do that. Because this isn’t the time for me to sit on my bed and watch Netflix and scroll through instagram. I did that enough in 2017 to last me a lifetime. I am overwhelmed. I did need a second to breathe and decompress. I might need a day or two more. I do need to be patient with myself. But there are things I need money for. Things I need to save for. I need to save to get that silence back. To be with my boyfriend in our own place again. To have that silence while I wake up in the morning. To have that silence after a long day. There are things I am working towards, and so what if those things are on a more personal level than a professional one? I just need A job. I don’t need THE job. I need to be ok. I need to actually take care of myself and that mean more than binging a show and taking a bath. I need to tackle my credit card bill.
I do feel so lucky to be here. I feel lucky to have this time with my family, and a couple of my closest and oldest friends. This time may seem like a bump right now, but in the future when I look back I’m going to be so happy that I was able to see my parents so much. That two of the babies I know get to know who I am. It does feel good to be here for a number of reasons, and I have to be better at reminding myself of them.