twenty-something

After a 20-minute pit stop I’ve just gotten back onto a Megabus headed to DC.

While I’ve taken this route many times, this has been the most enjoyable ride so far. Not only because the bus is at half capacity, but because the cashier in the convenience shop made me feel like I was in high school again- like my traveling alone between cities could still be viewed as an adventure, rather than mundane.

When she found out I was not going to DC for a few days, but for the summer, and had been visiting “home,” (Is it still home if you’re only there 2-3 months of the year?) she asked if I was I excited - I hesitated - “or nervous?”

I said I was a little nervous, because I am, even though I have lived in/around DC for years.

She wished me good luck and smiled.

stranger danger

I was home for three days. One day more than planned, and three days more than I thought I wanted. This morning, saying goodbye to my mom, I didn’t want to leave the strange comfort I had experienced in Pittsburgh.

The problem when I go home- when I cross the threshold of my childhood house- is that I revert to the person I was three years ago.

When my mom asked me if I intended to take a bus to DC today or yesterday, I yelled:

“Well, I’m trying to decide if I’m more stressed being here or by returning to my SHITHOLE APARTMENT!”

(a sidetone: my apartment is very nice, but prior to my moving in, my roommates left it as if they had to evacuate campus.)

She laughed a bit, because by that point in the visit my anger had taken on a self-awareness.

But I wonder, are such incidents truly a reversion to my “high school self”? This conclusion makes sense for thought grounded in the past, but looking forward, maybe returning to our families and childhood homes is not the homecoming of a child but the introduction of a stranger.

My stranger self was volatile and nostalgic. I began to think (very simplistically, if not outright incorrectly,) that as a teenager I was more hopeful because true adulthood was surreal and utopian. I felt old. It also seriously crossed my mind, I think for what was surprisingly the first time, that I will likely live to see my parents dead. This thought surprised me less after considering how fixated I’ve been on understanding and trying to improve my relationships with them. I think if they died tomorrow, I would regret staying angry at my father, and allowing the toxic behaviors I inherited from him to circulate within me. I would regret hurting my mother like he does.

mourning clothes

Realistically, the photos my mom and I took of each other this weekend turned out the way they did because neither of us fully remembers how to shoot on manual but did anyways for pride’s sake. We went out to the park around sunset, and posed around the trees and boulders with flowing, cream fabric. The original idea was that I would take some nice pictures of her, but she loves photography and took some of me as well. My idea to do this originated from anger at my father.

He laughed at the new outfit my mom wore to attend a wedding with him. I wanted to try and make her feel beautiful. And less nobly, enjoyed doing so by way of an activity that excluded my father. It was especially unkind because I doubt he’ll connect the dots of my spite.

It’d be satisfying in a way if the photos we took somehow revealed the anger they were borne out of. They did not. However, my mom’s insistence on experimenting with monochrome, combined with my twitchy hands and insistence on posing with a sheet, produced photos that were otherworldly and haunting. We looked like ghosts caught on film. There was a part of me, and of us, that had to be honored before it could die.