Grow up...

There she is, on the balcony with the aggressive punk music turned up full blast and pumping through the speakers out to her. Hunched over, angry, rebellious shoulders, fidgeting in her seat, and alternately pacing back and forth. This time she's not really smoking the cigarette in her hand. It just sits between her fingers as the tobacco and paper burn sending the sweet smoke to her nose. She didn't really want to smoke, she just wanted to have it in her hand. It's that familiar comfort, that brief "fuck you, dad, if you're not going to love me than neither am I" that she hasn't felt in over 10 years. Her face takes on the downward-looking, in-facing scowl and anyone looking at her would know she's not seeing much past her nose. This heartache is so old and familiar and even though she's grown past this childish reaction here she is anyway, and it was so easy to fall back here. Other new heartaches didn't bring her back here, she dealt with those maturely and learned and grew from them. But dad's abject refusal to learn and grow, to see how he could change the future and erase the power of the past pain for his whole family is so staggering... The same wounds and frustrations yield the same immature coping mechanisms.

And so they lied. They pretended they were okay because they didn't want to hurt their parents' feelings. The parents were children themselves. They pushed themselves to appear happy and well adjusted and go out with their friends and be normal... Normal kids who could not hold a job, who fell into smoking dope every day, who just could not figure out what the hell it meant to grow up. To cope with life, what the hell does that mean? And so what if they occasionally felt like their grasp on sanity was tenuous, at best? Would it have helped if they'd laid it at their parents feet, held them responsible? Told them to grow up and be parents? Looking back, she thinks probably not. So what if nothing scared them more than tomorrow, of the impending failures, of ending up just like their parents? Five years apart but the same path. She is the oldest, she made it through to become a functioning adult and pretty successful at some things. It was by God's grace that she was able to overcome the past, and now it's her brother's turn but he doesn't know how to ask for God's grace so how will he overcome? Does she have enough to spare him the pain he's feeling now, to help him find his way?

She comes inside the apartment, turns the music down. Goes into the kitchen to find the cream bleach and abrasive sponge to clean the sinks. And then to the bathroom to scrub the bathtub, toilet, sink. And she remembers the time she stayed up until 3:00am cleaning bathrooms and almost made herself sick from the noxious fumes. Partly because the violent argument with dad had happened sitting at the kitchen table at dinner and she'd stormed off without eating a bite. And so now she wonders if she'll ever grow up.