***
I’m not quite sure where to begin with explaining something that cripples my small branch of the family. It’s not drug-related, unless you count collecting as a drug. It’s not exactly abuse but is a sort of repression/oppression. And, it’s almost eerily apparent in a literary way. My parents have a habit of displaying figurines, dolls and busts elaborately dressed in suffocating spaces. Most unsettling are the busts and little angel figurines displayed in black metal cages. One is a bird cage housing a woman’s head made of plaster. Another is an obelisk housing three little ceramic cherubs which curl into balls on the floor of the structure. Caged life. Imprisoned feelings/desires. This is the symbolism my parents choose to consider art and perfectly normal in their home. Now, if I was to craft such things and think them normal, I would whole-heartedly expect someone to object and question me. But, if I address my parents about their decorative style, they will brush my thoughts aside until I walk away. [Well, so much for time with my parents.]
I bring this up because it’s like a bit of tragic literary genius, a means of turning how I have matured/aged into a metaphor. [And, if you know me, you know I enjoy metaphors.] Yet, I take no pleasure in writing about it and have no plan to craft a “bestseller” around this; there will not be another “Flowers in the Attic.” But, that’s how life has been with my parents, trapped, caged, restrained and crippled with fear, intimidation, false information and deception. All of our blessings and potential is trapped in a pitiful state, unable to flourish.
Any success we may find is quickly clutched and sucked back down into disappointment by a mother who can’t handle something outside her vital control. Anything my mother doesn’t personally direct and document in her files she will tear apart; she will bring it down because she doesn’t understand or benefit from it.
My father spends every moment torn between his own creative and social desires and avoiding the wrath of his chosen life partner who throws a fit every time he steps away from her to be with someone else. My mother lives in a box and chooses to be oblivious to the rest of the world; yet if you tell her she is oblivious or in denial, she will throw another fit and deny everything as if she was under interrogation by an FBI unit.
What’s additionally tragic is how the ways of my parents have imprinted themselves on us, their children. While other families might see their kids grow up and take off on their own to break the chains their parents may have worn, my siblings and I don’t do as well. A few are lucky to have found mates who helped financially distance them from the curse. But, the relationships have not exactly been solid and/or reassuring. The rest of us (myself included) struggle in many ways to take flight and feel comfortable in our own skins, at a time when people like me are being slighted by the insane amount of focus on abused minorities and people going through sexual migrations (and deviations).
The rest of the world has these people on a stage, receiving TLC and every avenue opened to them. I have never fit in a particular noteworthy group but–classified as plain “Caucasian”–I seem to be expected to fall in with a wealthy crowd who makes their own way through family connections, through legacies. Well, there is no grand family legacy nor role models to give me wings.
So, if you were to meet me and wonder why I don’t achieve more or have more in my life, and if you didn’t so quickly become uncomfortable and drift away, you might see and understand…and maybe even pity my situation.
And, on that note, I stop writing because I don’t have a good way of ending this piece. I feel compelled to just ramble. And, I’ve done enough of that in my life.
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