My Heart Hurts

It’s 3 o’clock in the day and I’m still in bed. Naked and lonely. For some reason I feel like I’ve grown roots in this bed. Whatever I do, it always bring me back to this bed. This bed is absorbing me, making me sink in and is not letting go. It’s 3 o’clock in the day and I’m still in bed.

My hair hasn’t been brushed in days. My hair still wet from the shower I took two days ago. I can feel the tangles forming with every budge I make. My hairdresser texts me begging me to make appointments, but she doesn’t understand the struggle to get these tangles free. The energy and effort to get the tangles out. It’s a knotted mess just like my life. My hair hasn’t been brushed in days.

I’m off from work today. Every day that I’m off, they try to call me in, knowing I hate it there more than they do. The people I work for are retired, successful people. They are used to feeling like they are better than the “lower class.” I’m a 19-year-old college dropout, of course, they are better than me. They act like that they haven’t done anything in their life to disappoint their parents. It’s also filled with sickness and death. They are the elderly. What can you expect? You’re just killing yourself when you look at them like they’re your grandparents because tomorrow, they might die. I’m off of work today.

I’m getting tired of living paycheck to paycheck. I want to travel the world. I want to see the Grand Canyon and I want to see the Jesus statue in Rio, Brazil. But I’m stuck to where I’m not even living paycheck to paycheck. It’s more like I get paid, I pay whatever bills I can and then I struggle. It’s hard keeping up a boyfriend in college, a house and bills, and only getting paid $10 /hour. Not even 40 hours a week. Everyone says, “Get a better job,” but they don’t understand that I don’t want to go somewhere new, learn something new, and meet new people. I can’t leave my favorite residents or my friends. I love my coworkers. But I’m tired of working paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t know what I want to be in life. I know I want to go to college to have a career. I know I need to do that because I don’t want to struggle like my parents do. I want to do something I enjoy, but do I enjoy anything? Can I ever figure out what I want to be or do for the rest of my life? What if I want to become a doctor? My transcript from high school wouldn’t be enough to get me into a good university. I couldn’t afford it anyway. Do I want to teach? Or be a therapist? But how can I help people with their problems when I have too many of my own? I don’t know what I want to be in life.

What is family? Finding out I have a sibling every five years because my dad was a whore. Is it finding out that you have a little sister or big brother, either in the next town or next state over? Wondering why my dad didn’t want to take care of them when he took care of me and my other siblings? There’s five of us now. Aubrey, Tyler, Josh, Alli, and I. Or is it? I only see Aubrey on holidays and she only texts me when she needs something. Tyler and I have never been close. Josh has a family of his own and the dad he grew up with just died. Alli, sweet young Alli, is in Georgia. The newest and youngest one. Youngest is hard to say because for 19 years I was the baby. I was the youngest and I was okay with that. But not anymore. Because Alli only being 16 that means she is the youngest to our clan. I would say family but what is family?

My mom and I have never been close. Even though she’s the one I’m closest to out of my family. We have our fights and arguments, but all my life I feel like I’m having to help her. Every time my parents fought, they would call me, make me take a side. If my dad gets into it with my brother Tyler or sister Aubrey, my parents call me. When Alli decided she wanted to meet her family, she messaged me. I had to tell dad and when it was the right time, we had to tell mom. And guess who went to go check on her after she stormed out and left? Me. Why am I always the middle man? It wasn’t me who went and got all these women pregnant. I didn’t live the double life so why do I have to pay for it? My mom is a mess. Her life is a mess. She is the smartest person I know but she’s also the dumbest. My mom and I have never been close.

“You’re the only normal one in your family.” They say that but they don’t know what’s in my head when I’m driving to work. Or when I’m laying in bed at night not being able to go to sleep. My head is full with dark ideas. I wonder who would care if I drove into the other lane. Or would everyone be to busy fighting with one as other. Would they cared if I starved myself? Or start doing drugs? I don’t hurt myself because I cared what people think. I remember when I was 13 or 14, my mom and I got into a fight and I had muscle relaxers for my back. I took seven. If I never woke up, I would be fine with that and if I did wake up in the hospital and they ask me why I did it? I would tell them “My heart hurts.” Would they care if my heart hurt now? Can I ever tell someone that my heart was hurting? “You’re the only normal one in your family.”