I remember

I'm only updating because I happened to already be logged on from leaving comments elsewhere. Otherwise I probably wouldn't bother. Why? Oh, I don't know. I just wouldn't.

I have been having some trouble lately. T & I ate dinner on the floor last night (at my insistence) and I confessed to him that I am freaking out lately. (As if he hadn't noticed.) As we were talking, words tumbled from my mouth and it is as if they landed brick-like on my toes, startling me into realizing their full weight. "When I grew up, I was kind of always waiting for everything to completely fall apart." Duh. I really was. I remember standing at the window of my parents' bedroom, watching my mom walk through the snow to her car and drive away after a loud, frightening fight. I remember being afraid, like she was never coming back. I remember sitting in the coat closet with the girls in my 5th grade class, mentioning that my brother and I felt scared of my dad coming home from work. I remember them laughing at me. "Scared?" one girl said. "Of your dad?" They laughed louder. I remember being tucked in by my mom and asking why they couldn't just work it out. I remember telling her that they should just sit in a room and talk about it. She said, I remember, that it was a good idea. That they really should do that. I remember saying to her, "Yeah, and I could help you talk to each other." I really thought I could. I remember she said, "Oh, no, honey." Something about how I couldn't be a part of that conversation. I remember being upset. Why not? They obviously couldn't figure it out without me. It was all so obvious to me. If they could just SEE what I saw, they could get along. It was so stupid, all their anger and tears and sadness. Obviously it was all a big misunderstanding. Logic. That was the key. Sane logic and a 10-year old referee sitting in a chair between them to help them come to an agreement.

Is it any wonder I ended up in law school? Haha. Seriously, I've worked through my stuff for the most part. I love my parents and feel lucky to have had them. Big time. I couldn't feel more loved. Understood, maybe, some of the time. But more loved? Never. However. I certainly had no role model for marriage when I was growing up. What I learned was that family was close, family came first and family felt like living on a fault line: it wasn't quite a disaster zone, but I was never entirely convinced that the earth wasn't about to open up beneath my feet.

So yeah. As I tried to articulate to T why I have felt like an insecure train wreck lately, it occurred to me that maybe I am just working through something. Maybe I am just having trouble believing that I am standing on steady ground, or that this family, this life, is something altogether different from the one I once knew.