Around 2000, I decided things weren't working for me. There were a lot of pieces to this, including an underpaid, frustrating job leading nowhere, a town with few eligible men, and, at the core, an optimism that somewhere, someone would value me more than where I was. I needed a change, I kept telling myself. Somewhere else would be better. I wanted to try new things. I wanted things to be different. I wanted ME to be different.
The picture in my head was amazing. I would put all of my stuff into storage, and keep a home base at my parent's house. Without rent stealing all of my money, I would make my savings last a really long time, and I would visit all of my relatives and friends up and down the West Coast, going where I wanted when I wanted. I was sure I could pick up work here and there to make ends meet, and get a temp job if I needed to. I didn't need a normal life. I could check out and do what I wanted instead of being like everybody else.
When I think about the picture I had in my mind, it feels like the road trips I used to take during the summers in college. My friends or boyfriends would drive with me across the state to visit or go to a far away concert in the boonies or hit every thrift shop in a hundred-mile radius. We'd pool our coin jars and make snacks for the road and drive all night playing mix tapes all the way. It was warm and summer and we were free to do what we wanted.
To be honest, I also wanted another chance to have actual parents. I thought that maybe now that I was a grown-up, I wouldn't disappoint them as much as I did when I was a little kid. I knew more, I was smarter, I could help them more. Maybe they wouldn't hate me, and I could get to know them and they would like me. I thought that if they just heard me, if we could talk more and I could explain better, they would see who I was and they would finally understand me.
You can imagine what's coming next, like a frickin' freight train. Work and friends gave me a great going away party; I put my non-essential stuff in storage. I moved into a room in my parent's house, and immediately launched on a road trip to visit my uncles a few hundred miles away. And it began: The visit was amazing, but my car decided to have an intermittent overheating defect during the trip. After I got back, there were no more long trips in case it happened again, which eliminated most of my plans. I wanted to bond with my parents, but they were gone most of the time doing their own things, leaving me alone in a house haunted by childhood trauma and hiding places. I'd watch tv, get on the internet, read, then hang out when they got home. I found myself zoning out a lot, killing time. I started collecting mysteries by a couple of new-to-me authors from thrift stores and soon had about fifty books piled around my single bed from childhood, where I stayed most of the day. I thought about trying to find a job, but the air in that house froze me up, and I couldn't even remember my plans, let alone figure out what grown-up me would have done.
The word spiral barely covers it. It only took two months to go from a fully functioning adult to completely depressed immovable pile of sludge. I finally broke down sobbing when I got my renewal notice for my car tabs and didn't have the $70 to pay for them. I'd been watching my checking account slowly disintegrate piece by piece, unable to figure out how to "just get a job" as I'd imagined before I'd landed in my hometown. As usual, my mom was her understanding self. "Well, I just don't know what you want!" <deep sigh> My despair was making her uncomfortable. Thanks, Mom. But I knew how to translate into her language. "Mom, I just need enough to cover the tabs. I'm going to look for a job back in Bellingham." "Well, I can give you enough for the tabs and some gas. I think it's a good idea for you to get a job. I just don't know why you had to quit the old one!" Yep. Why doncha pour just a little more salt on that one, Mom. I held my tongue, took the money, and got out.
I moved into a spare room in a friend's apartment and stayed with them for a couple of months until I unfroze a little. I eventually got another job, apartment, and my life back together. I felt like I'd been through a fire of some sort, burned it down to rebuild; I was furious when I realized some people hadn't even realized I'd been gone; hadn't missed me around town. It still feels like it was a hell of a lot longer than two months.
I'm sure my parents still don't understand what I was doing there. I wanted to connect with them in a way that I never had been able to before, that I'll never be able to. I wanted to know them as human beings, as people. I wanted them to see me as something other than the Role Of Daughter Will Be Played By....
I wanted to be seen.
When I finally realized they would never be the ones to see me, I was able to move on with my life and stop looking back.
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