I just want to leave and go back to my ‘home.’ I just want to run away and I can’t. I can’t. Mom needs me and I’m sucked back into my childhood. (And yet, I don’t even believe Mom needs me anymore.)
“Have you faced any trauma or highly stressful situations between the last time I saw you and this time?” they’ll ask when I see them in a week and a half.
My mother had her knee surgery and her foot isn’t moving the way it should.
I learned my brother tried to hang himself in fifth grade.
I learned my brothers are smoking.
I held my ferret as he breathed his dying breath.
I didn’t tell Mom the ferret’s heart was beating his last beats.
I didn’t tell Dad we were burying the ferret and the rabbit last night.
I’ve been trying to bring our other ferret out of his depression spiral because his bonded mate has died.
One brother had a melt down and threw a shovel at the other and caused my mother to cry.
I can count on one hand the number of times my mother has cried in front of me.
My mother said if the thrower of the shovel had seriously hurt the other sibling, the police would have been called and charges would have been pressed.
I’m drunk at 3 pm on the third day of the year.
I started the first day of the year with a hike and ended it with a massive melt down.
...
“No. No, I didn’t.
My family doesn’t have much drama at all. My family is loving and kind and amazing.”
