ventingbaybe

[ventingbaybe]

1/16/24

I did end up moving out after that last post, two or so years ago.

Im on my second year break from school, the whole point of the gap year was to save money for school. I got kicked out though, so there went that.

My parents dont like when i word it that i got kicked out, I was “heavily implied that I should move out so that I can thrive away from my family because they didnt sign up to start taking care of me again because I couldnt go back to school” but not kicked out.

I got a second job, worked 80 hour weeks for a while, quit one, work the other. Moved from one apartment to another and then another. I dont have any roommates, just me. I cant get an animal because it would be irresponsible when im planning on going back to school and wouldnt be able to bring them with me.

Every month I pay $1000 in rent, $500 in my loan repayment, and whatever other shit i get roped into.

I have a boyfriend. I had a crush on him at the beginning of last summer, we met at work. I ended up getting over him at one point. But sometime in October I got drunk and flirted with him, we went on a couple dates and made it official. Its awkward. We dont have anything to talk about and dont have anything in common. I feel bad that I cant be the partner that he deserves, but we just arent fit for one another. We need to break up but we havent had any free time to see eachother and actually have a talk about anything. Hes a great guy, but romantically we just arent compatible at all.

Were having a winter storm in my state and just my washing machine pipe froze, so last night at 2am I got to spend hours cleaning up my overflowed washing machine and hand wringing out and emptying the machine. I feel constantly overwhelmed and like Im drowning, but I dont have a solid enough support system to feel helped. This isnt to diss my friends or anything, I just need professional help at this point and cant keep burdening my friends with this kind of constant badgering of venting.

I need to make some more friends, like actual friends I hang out with who are on a similar level of being grown up as me. I need other people who are moved out that I can find some relation and comfort in. I just dont feel like I have anyone solid in my corner that I can turn to at this moment. Its my own fault which is even more frustrating.

I wish i could just go home and curl up on the couch and be comforted. Im a grown person whose fully moved out, supported completely by myself, but I just want my mom. I wish her and I were close. But neither of us are willing to let down our egos enough to ever talk without fighting. One time my mom told me she likes me better when Im drunk, because Im quiet and sweet. So everytime i go over, I have a drink and pretend it affects me more than it does.

I was a functioning alcoholic for most of my senior year of highschool. I’d drink nearly half a bottle of vodka every night. It hurts to see people compliment how I act when im drunk more than when Im sober. I wish I was a likable person. I dont know why I lash out, why I cant not have the last word, but I also wish i didnt have to fight everyone at any given moment.

I dont know why i fight but I dont know why everyone around me loves to rile me up.

My family has always known I had anger issues, and nothing made them laugh harder than seeing me lose my temper, if i got mad i was laughed at. If i got sad I was laughed at. If i stayed sat at that dining room table and went quiet then i was laughed at. If i excused myself to go to my room or hide in the bathroom, I was laughed at. There was no way to get away from the ridicule besides being an asshole back, and then someone else was always allowed to storm off. No one else was laughed at when they left. The table would go silent until everyone else excused themselves and it was just me.

Theres nothing quite like being left alone while everyone else comforts eachother. Why wasnt I included. Was it my own fault? Was I that repulsive of a kid? A teen? What about me was so fundamentally wrong that I couldnt be included.

I remember being young, maybe 9 at this memory. My brother had said something, I said something back, he stormed off and told my mom. I remember feeling excited when my mom came to my door. I remember thinking maybe it was my turn to be comforted. To be held and rocked the way she would to my brothers. I remember standing there while she screamed at me, hearing my brothers doors squeak open so they could tune in to the show. Being ridiculed for being such a horrible daughter, a horrible sister, just a base level horrible person to be around. How much my brothers would complain to my parents about how much they hated me.

Watching my mother stand there with this blank face as I would stand there, tears welled up in my eyes being told that if it wasnt for being family, I would be unloved.

She would hug me after, let my tears soak into the shoulder of her shirt, and say nothing as Id choke out apologies for being how I was. She’d stand there and hold me, telling me that all I could do was change.

So I tried. I tried so hard. I distanced myself from my family so they wouldnt have to deal with me. I got criticized for hiding away and hating them.

Now that I dont live there its easier. I dont see any of them often and they seem happy. My older brother is also moved out but he was still over there constantly, having dinner with the family most nights. I would tell my mom I would swing by later and come over to an empty house. Id wait for an hour, thinking maybe they were all just out, but they wouldnt be back. Id put away whatever Id brought over and leave, a silent drive back home to throw myself into an empty apartment and sit there. Not even a text to acknowledge whatever Id brought. Who knows if they even noticed.

I know my parents care about me, at least on some level. My dad comes over to help me set up my wifi, he drove me to work during this snow storm. I can see that on a base level he cares. But I hate that ill never know how much. Some people you can just sense it when you meet their parents, how they interact, how their parents look at them so fondly.

I feel embarrassed when my friends meet my family, not because Im embarrassed of my family, but because I know that the way I talk about my family isnt reciprocated. That no matter how many stories of my family I can share to my friends, how fondly I talk about them and their achievements, how every eyelash I wish on is spent wishing for my family to receive only the best, I know that when my friends look at my family and I, they dont see that fond look that their parents give them.

No matter how funny I can be around my friends, it will never translate over with my family. How I get quiet and move to the background around family.

I wish I was something and someone that could be talked about.

I wish I was worth bringing up in conversation when Im not around.

I wish just once in my life I felt like I was worth putting up with.

[ventingbaybe]

6/9

I feel like this was the culmination and the breaking point.

I moved across the country for college. Left a smallish city in Oregon for Boston, Massachusetts. 

I had a dog before I moved, he died suddenly and traumatically back in late July. I’d been at work, my brothers were supposed to watch him and our other dog, they let them out in the backyard and forgot about them, something common. He got out of the yard, another common thing. But this time he got out on a busy road, got hit, luckily a family friend drove by and saw him, she held him while he passed and took him home with her till my dad could pick him up after work. I loved this dog, he was my soulmate honestly. I’d sit and talk and talk about how much I couldn’t wait to move out and take him with me. He was a flashy faun boxer, light brown fur with white splashes on his chest and a white line down the middle of his face, I’d sit on the ground and hug him and he’d press his face to mine so my nose would rest between his eyebrows and we’d just sit there.

I found out on my way home from work, cried the whole walk home and spent the next hour sobbing in my kitchen telling my brothers it wasn’t their fault. It was, obviously, I don’t want them to feel guilty or like they are to blame, because hundreds of other factors go into his death. But they knew not to leave them outside unwatched and they knew he had a habit of running off. My dad picked his body up and he was buried later that day, underneath the same tree as our other dogs.

After this I was definitely...numb. I was torn between being so viciously angry and so sad that I couldn’t do much more than follow the motions of life and try to get over it. 

A month later I left for school.

Small transphobic school on the east coast, a nudist minor for a roommate, and a friend group led by a possessive and controlling asshole. Set up for success. My dream school was across the street, I had planned on transferring over there, but thats the point of this days entry.

Yesterday I had a call with the man in charge of financial aid at the school and was trying to talk to him about getting more aid so I would be able to attend.

Backstory, I don’t have FAFSA due to issues with my parents, and a cool thing is that without FAFSA you cant apply for most additional aid opportunities or get a federal loan, because the school cant decide wether you need the additional money or not. I was paying alone, had to beg my dad to cosign my loan for me, but he let me know it’s all on me. I paid for everything on my own for college, the whole shebang. 

But he let me know that without FAFSA the school can’t give me any more money. So just like that, my dream school is out of the question, I cant go back to my original school because they only guarantee housing for freshman so I wouldn’t be able to get housing. 

My mom already let me know that if I decide to take a gap year I’m not allowed to stay at their house for it, this is layered on top of the threats of kicking me out that she’s already laid out for me.

So...I have until late August to either find a new school to last second accept me or find a place to move into, try to convince some of my friends to move out or something. 

Anyways it all just kind of came to a point today because my middle brother had been complaining about some of my baking attempts. I used to be really good at baking but bread has always been a weak point. Tried it once when i got home and it didnt work, tried a cake the same day and it also didnt come out right, they both got tossed. Made shortbread cookies and everyone also complained about how gross they were. I get it, but the whole point was adding the curd on top, but they all ignored that. Yesterday after my call I decided to try bread again. Whipped up some premade brownie mix my mom bought too. I don’t know where the brownies went wrong but they burnt on the bottom and stayed raw in the middle. Bread looked promising, rose up amazing, I baked it, and I liked it! Pretty dense in the middle but I was excited, the first bread loaf I ever got to properly rise and bake. My brother tried it yesterday and spent a solid 5 minutes complaining about how gross it was and fake gagging/coughing. Today my mom grabbed it, only halfway eaten maybe, asked if it was okay to throw away, I just nodded, upset, but my brother cut in again with the fake gagging and talking about how gross it was, he goaded her to eat a slice, which she threw away after one bite and joined in complaining about the denseness and lack of taste. 

I understand it’s gross, and I understand it’s pathetic and embarrassing complaining about this as an 18 year old, I’d say its because I never learned to accept constructive criticism, but it’s not really constructive at that point. Afterwards my brother complained that every time I bake nothing ever comes out or tastes good. 

After that, I stayed sat at the computer, while my mom jokingly asked “didnt you miss your brother?” I nodded, I did. 

I talked about my family constantly, how excited I was for them to meet my parents when they came to help me pack to come home from school (they didnt end up coming, pretty embarrassing after talking it up for 8 months), I’d drag them to the school mailboxes at least once a week, hoping for a post card, a note, anything really in response to the copious amounts I’d sent them over the months. None ever came, a few from my aunt, some from my grandma, never any from my parents or family. 

None of them cried when I left for school, I remember the distress when my older brother left. When I came back for Christmas my middle brother had told me that he didn’t miss me, that he knew I was coming back so why would he. I like to think I have a tight grip on my emotions but my heart definitely broke in that moment. I’ve always been closest to my middle brother. 

My brother interrupted my nodding, to talk about how much he hadn’t missed me. How he hated that I was back home. How he thought I was so cool the summer before I left, and that when I came back for Christmas he was glad when I finally left, that he can’t wait till I leave again. It hasn’t even been a month yet and he’s already so excited for me to be gone. My mom had laughed, scolded him in the shitty way moms do towards their favorite kids, the “haha, dont be mean” but she didn’t have anything else to say when he continued with it.

I hate how much I missed my family when I left, how I excitedly talked them up, how funny all my brothers are, how much I couldn’t wait to go home and see them all again. And instead this is the worst. They don’t like me, they don’t want me back here. I had to pack up my room when I left, they wanted to move my youngest brother into my room, we have enough rooms in the house that I could have kept a bedroom here, they knew I’d be back for the summer after all. But instead most of my shit is gone, the other packed in the 3 allowed storage bins I was allowed to keep. Everything I took to school fit in one suitcase and a backpack for a carry on. I live in the ‘guest bedroom’ it’s a bed and a rug and a sauna my mom got for Christmas. 

When I first got back all my mom did was complain that I’m staying in her sauna room. 

There’s something about having your presence in your house be wiped out. To wake up in a room that isn’t yours that you aren’t allowed to decorate beyond whatever stuffed animals are on your bed. 

There’s nothing for me here, nothing to do. 

All my hobbies were thrown out last August all my shit is packed away in bins my parents dont want me unpacking since I’ll be gone next August anyways, whats three months in an empty room? 

I get made fun of if I sit at the kitchen table to write, I get made fun of for sitting on the couch, I get made fun of if I stay in my room. 

There’s nowhere for me to go here. I sit on the back porch with my dog while it rains and clench my jaw till my ears are sore.