Too Many Mes

 

 

            We get scared sometimes.

            Day after day while we spill piece after piece of our soul onto paper, there are always awkward moments when we start to wonder. We wonder about our future for one thing. Where are we going to be ten or twenty years from now? What are we going to be doing ten or twenty years from now? Who are we going to be ten or twenty years from now? If we were to pass our future self on the street downtown today, would we be able to recognize ourself? Would our future self be able to recognize us? If so, would it be with a vain pride, or with a dismayed grimace? We wonder.

            There are days when I am the kindest and most compasionate person around. I give myself a mental pat on the back when I think about all of those times when I’ve stopped everything I was doing and tried to help someone in need – a lot of times, someone that I didn’t even know. I can stand outside of my house, look up at the sky and just get lost in how blue and wonderful it is, or sit up at night mentally pawing over some of people’s problems that I’ve encountered during the day in hopes of having a solution for them the next day. Somehow, I’m going to ensure that they’re smiling tomorrow.

            Life is good.

            Of course, there are those other days when I wake up and I feel as if completely incinerating the planet and everybody on it could do no wrong. I turn on the television and see footage of a Middle Eastern village being obliterated in a flurry of uncaring flame, and I wonder how many innocent people were “in the wrong place at the wrong time” now ceasing to exist. I look at a newspaper and see a picture of a pitifully pleading little girl holding up a sign at a protest begging for her mothers to be allowed to married, and it renews my hatred for religion; I hate the way it tears our society apart. In fact – I hate a lot of things. Some people have told me that I have problems controlling my anger, but in all honesty, I find it to be more fun my way.

            Life is a bad joke.

            My mother pretty much single-handedly raised two children by her lonesome with nothing but a high school diploma and a dream. I wonder sometimes if I’ll be able to raise a family as good as she has. She has had to deal with back-stabbing relatives, mercilessly arthritic knees that refuse to cooperate, and two husbands who walked out on her and left her with a daughter the first time, and a son the second; yet, here I am fretting over the ‘C’ I got in Geometry! There is no comparison between her and me. How am I ever going to grow up to be an adult with that much patience and determination? Whenever my mother promises my sister or myself something, she does it somehow – most of the time at the expense of doing something nice for herself. I don’t remember her going on a vacation or even taking a night off from her office job, or her job of being a single urban parent in the sixteen years I’ve known her. I’ve also never recalled seeing her with some new jewelry or a new CD, yet I have a brand new Playstation 2, an awesome Dell PC, and somehow she gets her hands on the new Harry Potter books during their first week in stores for me – five years and running . She’s such a wonderful woman...

            Mom is cool.

            But then again, she really can be quite a pain in the you-know-what if you get my drift. My sister tells me that the reason why she started to drink and smoke was due to the stress she incurred as a result of my mother raising her. The woman has good intent and all, but I still wouldn’t mind living in another household. We’re talking about a woman who chased a man at three o’clock in the morning with a metal shovel barefoot on the cold concrete. Fact: this is not normal no matter what the circumstances were. GOD! I wish that for once I could have a normal mother who would try to comfort me when she finds out some girl wouldn’t go out with me to the movies instead of clinging onto one detail – that she was white – and then yelling at me for about an hour about what a disgrace I am to the African-American race, that I’m the cause of unrest in the female African-American community because I refuse to confine my emotions to one race of people. So, I have a thing for white women. So what? You know you could support me “mother” instead of wasting your time making excuses for why your sorry boyfriend sold my bike for money that God only knows what he did with, or kicking my sister out of the house every three months for not cleaning her room! THIS IS WHY I CAN NEVER TELL YOU ANYTHING!

            Mom isn’t that great.

            ____ is nice at least. In fact, it’s the biggest school I’ve ever been in with loads of friendly and interestingly diverse people. After a lifetime of being in schools where teasing me was considered some kind of cruel game that anyone could play, it’s comforting to sit in this beautifully designed school with qualified teachers and good friends who really and truly value my friendship as if it were a spot of platinum in a poor village. It’s nice when someone actually gives a damn about you.

            My friends are great.

            Actually, I’ve sat around many a night on Instant Messenger for hours upon hours without receiving so much as a hello from anyone on my buddy list – oh, and I have eighty-one people on my buddy list mind you. That’s the world for you folks. The only time anyone will ever give a damn about you is when they need something from you, or when they feel sorry for you. Some “friends” (oh – and that’s sarcasm by the way.) I never get invited to anyone’s parties, and when people see that I’m depressed during the school day rather than be a “friend” and try to help me with my problems, they’re likely to instead start to harass me online about how much me feeling like a steaming pile of crap ruined their day! I’m usually not one for French, but: what a bunch of inconsiderate BASTARDS! Never mind the fact that there have been hundreds of times when I’ve gone out of my way to help them or tip-toed around their feelings. I ruined their day, so I guess I’m going to have to go hang myself with a noose made out of rusty barbed-wire now as a penance (again with the sarcasm.)

            I hate my alleged “friends.”

Sigh. You know ....Things really aren’t that bad.

            Oh yes they are.

            Well, at least there are people out there are people out there who care about us...

            Doubtful.

            No, Guaranteed.

            Whatever.

             We get scared sometimes.

            Day after day while we spill piece after piece of our soul onto paper, there are always awkward moments when we start to wonder. If we were to pass our future self on the street downtown today, would we be able to recognize ourself? Would our future self be able to recognize us? If so, would it be with a vain pride, or with a dismayed grimace?

            The answer: we don’t really know.

            It takes a bit of both worlds – the positive and the negative – to make a good well-rounded person. If we were negative all of the time, we would never be able to see the beauty of life. If we were positive all of the time, how would we ever appreciate the beauty of life? We have to have a bit of the bad things in life to know a good thing whenever you see it. Ten or twenty years from now, we can’t guarantee our success or our perfection. We can only guarantee one thing.

            That I’m normal.