Childhood's End

It started with a bass pedal, cracked three-quarters of the way down. Perhaps symbolic, perhaps not. A reminder now of a day I'd rather not remember now.

From then it moved to how I take things for granted or how I hold money in such low regard or how I'll turn out like my uncles. It's always about the faults I have and never about how I was raised. Always about the here-and-now and never about the whens-and-hows or the whys-and-whos. It was about money. It's always about money.

And then a confrontation. They'd take it away had I not defended it. How stupid that was. Why defend plastic? Why silicon? Why metal? On their own they are nothing important. Together, they are why I am not motivated. They are why I sleep the days away, why I never finish my homework, why my priorities are so messed up.

I defended it and I goaded them the whole time. They came to take it away but I defended it as a mother would defend her child. How stupid. Why defend a cold chunk of metal with your life? Why not give away that which causes you strife? I should have been asked this before. I acted irrationally, acted without thinking of the consequences. I justified it by thinking that I was not compromising, thinking that saving this would uphold my motto of "never compromising". And I never compromised, but I lost it all.

It still goes downhill from here. The words came in flurries and they pierced and I bled. The words resounded and stabbed with much more than I had felt. The truth hurt. "Live your life the way you want it but don't come crying to us if you fail," or "When you've proven yourself to not have screwed up your life, we'll be happy," or "It's your life and your problems."

They were harsh critiques, strong words. I knew they were true and I knew my life had been problematic for some time. The procrastination, the sloth, the failure to realize that I had been helped. They were all there, but I did not move towards fixing this. Perhaps the ignorance was too blissful. Nonetheless, the cold bliss came crashing down when I heard these words.

It was abandonment. To lose the support, however minimal it may have been, you've had all these years. To have those who raised you abandon you like some rejected child. I've not experienced true loss in my lifetime and as such, it is something I fear. To be deliberately abandoned like that, to have been designated a lost cause deals all the more an equal, if not worse, blow. To be the one lost is the pain.

I question myself now. Am I a good son? Have I ever been? If I had, then this never would have happened. This could have been avoided if I had known were i stood. Am I a good brother? I never would have lost influence if I had been one. Am I a good person? God knows why I act so differently sometimes, without regard or without care, and then compassionate other times. Do I deserve to be here? I could have easily been raised in poverty. What of my friends? They would not understand the magnitude. What then of me?

I'm too fucked up to even try to reconcile.