This Can Be Like Your Own Apartment!
While my dad and I were driving back to Pittsburgh, my mom was building me an apartment. My upstairs bedroom was moved to the basement and meticulously decorated so that I had a quiet place for myself.
My parents worked hard to make my homecoming both welcoming and kind. They weren’t force-feeding me expectations; they wanted me to feel at home, but not obligated to take part in the Brady Bunch atmosphere of my childhood. They gave me space; they gave me the essentials. And they asked for absolutely nothing in return.
Which is exactly what they got.
When I saw my new home, I whined. “It’s cold and dark. There aren’t even any windows down here.”
“But you have your own separate entrance,” my mom said, putting a positive spin on things, as usual. “This can be like your own apartment!”
I had no kind words for the woman who had daily kept me entertained at my doldrum job. Suddenly she was just another authority figure who hadn’t done things the way I wanted, though I truthfully had no idea what I wanted.
“I don’t even have my own bathroom!”
“But you have a sink,” my mom said, gesturing. “You can brush your teeth down here, and you can use the powder room upstairs for everything except showering!”
“I’m going to have to climb two flights of stairs just to take a shower?” Only a few months earlier, I’d been sharing a shoebox with three people and a bathroom with no door.
Maybe living in my parents’ house wasn’t going to be the soft, warm place to fall that I’d imagined. In my view, I was not only crawling back to my parents for help and comfort, but I was being banished from the family into the basement.
Both thoughts irritated me immensely.
Illogically, I wanted someone to take care of me, so I didn’t have to learn to care for myself. And I wanted total independence so I could do whatever I wanted. This in-between stage felt completely wrong. I wanted to go back to being coddled and warm, while also wanting to bolt from where I’d just arrived and never come back.
I have no idea if this is how all young adults feel; this is the only experience I have with growing up. I only know I was a complete alcoholic mess.
My dad pulled the U-Haul around to the back of the house to unload my stuff.
“I don’t even want my stuff in here,” I said. “If you want to put it in here, you can unload the truck yourself.”
My exhausted dad, hearing this response to my new digs, finally blew up. “You are going to unload the truck alone! It is your stuff,” he said. “And I can’t even fathom how you could possibly say anything other than ‘thank you’ for what your mother and I have done for you.”
“Whatever.”
Dad took a breath, ran his hands through his hair, and then looked me dead in the eye. “What exactly is it that you want from us?”
Finally, my parents wanted to know how I really felt, what I really wanted from them. Finally! So I told them.
“I want you both to stay out of my way until I can figure out a way to get the fuck out of here!”
My dad got quiet. My mother blinked. They stood at the bottom of the stairs for a second.
“Okay,” my mom said.
And they walked upstairs into their warm, safe, beautiful home, leaving me alone.