It is currently five in the morning and I am typing this in bed while on vacation from my work. I have been pondering how I feel about this trip, as I came to visit my mom and my old home here in Texas. Things have clearly changed. When I moved out of the house, my parents had divorced and the house was in major distress. It didn’t help that I was in my depressed mood and was angry at my mom for divorcing my dad and for making decisions that I didn’t respect. Now that I am back for the second time, after not seeing her for what was almost 2 years, I am quite impressed with the modifications that my mom and her new partner have done. The house looks lived in and hospitable instead of the empty leaky house we had lived in for almost 4 years while I was in highschool. But I guess all that is secondary for what really made me write this post.
Coming here, I feel jealous. In florida, I share a house with almost 7 people, and most of them are full grown men. Here, I have only my brother and my mother and her partner, and they are as quite as mice. I went to bed today, and had my own bed, my own bathroom (I share it with my brother and it is spotless), and no one else. There is no one making a smoothie at 11 at night, no one bringing random people over to the house, and no unnecessary garbage littered around the house. There is no kid crying in the middle of the night, no dudes obstructing my path to the shower, and no random guy using my food bowl I bought at target. My favorite part about all this is that the house is spotless. My mom has always been a very clean person, and I still can’t used to communal living for those reasons. People just aren’t so serious about cleanliness as me. Especially in the house that I share.
And yet, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to me if I had moved back here or never left. The place feels wonderfully comfortable. TOO comfortable. And all those days of living in what feels like squalor hardens a man and lowers his expectations. I have had to work my tail off to get a good position in my job. To find success. When you are alone, no one makes you do anything. You must pick and choose what you think is best for you. Decisions must be made and no longer is your mother or father around to opinionate on your life. Partly why I have done so well, why I am so driven, maybe even why I tend to do well in my job is because I must. If I fail, I lose the progress that I’ve made. No one has my back out there, and no one is going to ask me if I am doing well.
I see my brother whom is living with my mom, and as much as I love him and wish him always the best, know that he has not truly faced some of the harshness of the outside world. Shit maybe I haven’t either. But I know what it feels like to feel like you have to do something because it’s better than just quitting and trying to find something else. Here, one feels like life is not serious, it isn’t scary, and people are all in their own bubble. And I think that every man has to face the world and all it’s harshness, it’s tragedy and everything else it brings to the table. I remember my old self and all the things I would be mindful of or embarrassed off or nervous about and I scoff at who I used to be. I still see some of it in my brother. But there is something inside me that likes things this way. For me to be the one who takes the brunt force of life if it means my brother and everyone else around me may rest easy. If I can be a sort of facilitator, a guide for my people and maybe the future off spring of us as to how to do things even if they are hard. To have that impregnable will that will do whatever it takes. As my former boss used to say, “people like you and I don’t go hungry.” This is very true.
But for now, I am enjoying my time here, and quite frankly wish I could move back. My living situation in Florida is not to my liking and I don’t find it worth it to rent an apartment out there as I grow weary of being by myself out there. I miss my family. I know that strength is built by neccesity, I just wish there was a compromise.
