The problem with a family is that it always becomes a tumbling pair of cards and ignorance which always seems to be fluttering with ignorance and snarky remarks, because if you don’t fit the misery a person wants you to achieve in their heads, they will always ask how does it feel to have it. It’s like if they give you a plant and you told them you threw it out, they will ask how is the gardening, because they cannot see you as anything else other than a gardener.
We drive past a huge house, all snow neatly put in piles with sledges outside, windows opened to revealed the rich inside and I would tell myself one day and houses like such always reveal women in the kitchen, hairs in a sloppy ponytails pushed down by housework and I always wondered what emotional value do they even hold and would the house be just an excuse to accept life and such houses end up reminding me of Alison's how you exterior will look lovely but looking inside at the end of the well you'll always see misery of a working or not housewife and I don't even know what to say to such women until my empathy is gone and I recall their heated speeches and child abuse. Jack glances back at it and then back at me. He holds my shoulder. I should really stop rambling somehow. The nicest house on the street will always belong to the one with the most misery. And will end up looking down upon the rest for the rest have not sold their soul for it.
I wondered if I could ever be honest with myself. If I could look at her in the eye again and how would it even feel, knowing that the ground beneath me would never make her happy, that she would always look down and how bitter she will be once she will finish sucking on her regret to tell me that she hates my hair, how I should look more masculine and how I should finally find a woman because the family wants more children as if her being a nursery isn’t enough.
And it’s not just her who suffered at the divorce and that Christmas becomes something in two households with puppet shows of me being alone and then crying under the covers to Jack, it’s not the first Christmas he’s been over but it’s the first where we stop lying and at a higher age. And I’d manage to have toxic relationships until Jack picked me up, forgetting what even divorce was by the time I woke up and I knew what I’d be doing with the man besides me and that I had been gay apparently.
Not only it holds with Alison being the abusive sister but it ends up being a card game with the rest of the family, who I have no idea how would they even react of me locking lips with Jack before telling or not. Jack being calm becomes even more annoying because he doesn’t worry with his family being sorted right now and mine is the one with all of them on the treadmill as if we’re running somewhere.
When it comes to even discussing it in your head, it becomes torture even playing it backwards. And we keep driving as I don’t even know to properly jumble all my feelings together, watching Jack and even wondering how does the world even properly work, not even trying to think much of the family, which some had had their suspicions and everyone just remained hush, at least dad did, stating that it’s far best to keep this from my sister at all costs, since then Alison would blame everyone for even having me much later than her that it was all the root of all problems.
Worrying wasn’t helping as it just seemed everything worse and tiring, as if I were there already. And it wasn’t as if I was the only one, just that people prefer not to talk about it, people think if you’re white and gay you’ve got it easy, but it’s far from that, but hey what’s not trendy won’t be talked about and people will forget all the hunts and tragedies about being a gay bloke. No one talks about how the conversation will be raised and no one talks that not everyone accepts and some just ignore those programmes which should be beneficial to one to understand that being gay is okay. I still don’t understand how people find it to be okay, as I open the window and me and Jack don’t speak for a good while, as he allows my inner turmoil to be eaten away by the caterpillar of fear, before he’ll end up killing it with conversation.
I am thankful for the silence, as I know everything he’s thinking and so does he. I wish we had an open car I could climb out of, but instead there is nothing but the AC barely working over the heater and it becomes far too hot, and we end up quickly stopping in the middle of the woods, opening every single window, nagging that we should’ve fixed it before, speaking of inner turmoil slowly, how it seems to start crossing my mind that perhaps it’s far from the best of ideas. It becomes fun to see all the trees become naked and throw inkful patterns on the skies, slashing it, giving it a dead eerie feel, as I would be on a sledge, my dad dragging me when I was a child, before my parents had divorced and I wondered if I could ever put all of this to paper and become a Xavier Dolan somehow, nagging about said family and I even wondered how much would I even change. What would I even tell? I could barely form sentences as we drove even further and the woods were peculiar but all I would do was concentrate on the music and know how deep dipped in the night everything always was here.
We end up making it there by deep night when it’s just a bit past six o’clock and the house is more than a sole reminder of what Christmas is like and as we were approaching, Jack suggesting stopping to even discuss everything more, but I had wanted to get over it more than anything to see Alison and my parents as soon as possible and find the right words somehow to utter and even sell.
Walking to the door becomes a small nightmare from all the fallen snow, even if a lot of it was taken care of, the night still brings it tucked in as if candy canes which no one wants by the end of February with their classic peppermint flavor, no one wanted the snow anymore maybe besides Santa and my own mother. I end up knocking, seeing mom and dad pull me into a harsh hug, Alison still not seen as I feel my body slowly start shaking and all I can mutter is that indeed, Jack will be here.
“So, Jack you’re spending Christmas with us, again, then?” My dad grins and I wonder how forgetful can you be when I came out as queer once and so had Jack been mentioned in this sly conversation I once had the guts to even utter. All was regretted from my end and apparently forgotten from his.
“Yeah, I will be.” And he quickly glances at me, as I quickly shrug and nod, allowing him to say anything since Alison is nowhere to be seen anyway. “Yeah, me and Jamie do spend Christmases together always.”
Jack quickly grabs my hand for my dad to quickly see, before I discard it, as I start hearing a baby scream and Alison appears in the doorway, already cooing at me, her little brother. I feel my whole body even shake, recalling her words, locking the door and calling me a faggot and I know that if Jack doesn’t speak we will end up kissing each other on the cheek under the mistletoe and silently opening crackers because I didn’t have the faith for even Jack to say something. All I can think is of her glossy fake eyes.
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I guess I not only found it hard to write because it's rather personal even if I've twisted many details around and around, but I've been ill so my energy has been drained, but even when you're ill you have needs for your sanity and mental health and writing is one of them for me. I kind of really wanted this chapter out, so I ended up realizing that it's not November and there are no word wars going on, just nanowrimo sprints which are fab. By the way I'm always up for a word war if you're up for it xD So I ended up doing those whenever any of them were on twitter, so yeah, so everyone needs some facilitation from while to while really:)
There's a big house if you walk down our neighborhood and it's a lovely house and what stood out was seeing a literally destroyed by life housewife with nothing glamorous about the house and that kind of struck a familiar cord to me, kind of going back to those discussions if money can actually buy you happiness, because that house is gorgeous. And that inspired me since that echoes with what I write about and my own personal experiences and I remember I was listening to Interpol writing that paragraph as I was walking back home. I get a kick out of walking in neighborhoods and seeing stories unfold really.
This story has always been personal, so there's not much to add and it's odd to state but I do want to sometimes hold back on this story and state what is based of real events and what is not, like the emotional abuse is based off my own since I had to keep my mouth shut for years and since people erase female on male abuse, so yeah.
So unfortunately the back story is short here, because I'm so vocally explicit here on everything and I don't want to go saying, oh, I thought of that, I based that off real events because everything mostly is, the parents not as much, but it is a focus on siblings and that's what I wanted to address.
Jack is heavily based off Callie here and her reactions, attitude towards me, not always, but I guess what for me is a supportive partner and how she sees everything unfold. So there's that.
I hope you enjoyed it and thank you
<3
Jamie
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