Insert Family Here *

I wrote my mother an email about a week ago. For some reason I got all into it and actually wrote like I'd write to a friend about my frustrations and other random things and stuff. It was way longer than I've ever emailed any kind of family. Maybe she was so shocked. Maybe I insulted her. She hasn't written back. Maybe she didn't get it.

I sort of figured maybe it's about time I got to know my parents. I mean I grew up with them, and yet I sometimes wonder who they really are. Kids are so decieved by the names Mom and Dad. Servants to carry out their every whim. Who are these strange people who made me and love me and pay for me to live, who invest in my future and revel in my acheivments? Why would anyone do that? Am I ungrateful? Insensitive and naive? Sometimes I'm jealous of my brother who is at home with them still. He still has dinners with them and reality TV and take out and left over spaghetti. But I know he hardly takes advantage of that time. He's always gone or barracaded in his room attatched to his computer. And they barely know him like he barely knows them.

Communication in our family is dead. I used to think of our family as just four people who happen to live together. We carry on sepparate lives. Like maybe a shell of a family. Cuz sometimes my friends say they love my parents and that we seem like a great family. A shell indeed.

I suppose I will go back home after I graduate. We will continue as before. Someimes my Mom gets crazy angry. Sometimes my dad curses and throws things. Sometimes my parents yell and scream at eachother. Rocky lives we lead. I watch our miscommunications with some interest and yet cannot think how we might fix them. If we want to fix them. It has been bred into my brother and me. Home is like a strange prison of love and anger. We hardly say that we love, and when we do, there is a glimmer of connection in there.

Can it work to finally wonder who my parents are? To ask about their lives and share my thoughts with them. Confess that yes I am stressed and I have no idea what to do with my future. That I'm scared I will make horrible mistakes. That I don't want to go home because I don't want them to see me fail.

Perhaps. I don't really know.

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