Learning to parent myself
I sat on my suitcase and forced the zipper over the last few inches of its perimeter. It was hard to fit my life in a Travelpro Maxlite, but I had become a pro at being a minimalist — which happened to be trending in 2017.
A few shirts. A pair of jeans. A Seals & Crofts record. Some rings from great grandma’s jewelry case. Some mismatched tube socks I’d gotten at a Menards sale. That’s all I needed. My suitcase was light, but I lifted it up, feeling the heaviness of my emotions. Be brave, I thought.
My loft bed sat unmade, the black and white floral sheets in a mess with my Curious George stuffie staring at me longingly. The shelf next to the windows sat dusty, filled with books and odd knick-knacks acquired from curiously low eBay biddings. On the wall above the TV hung a small thermometer tethered to a piece of yarn. “78°” it read.
I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw the bookshelf and the dangling thermometer, and that my bed would remain unmade for the next few years, gathering dust and bits of vermiculite from the ceiling above.
I lugged my blue suitcase down the dirty carpet of two staircases and slid on my Minnetonka moccasins with a hole on the big toe. It wasn’t too long of a walk to my mom’s, only about a quarter-mile. The air was crisp with spring warmth, and every few minutes, a minivan or Cadillac Escalade would speed by. It was weird. Walking with a suitcase in a suburban neighborhood that is. I sometimes wonder what people thought of me as I walked from house to house with my bag trailing behind me, making noises as the wheels moved over each gap in the sidewalk.
Click, click, click. I probably looked like a runaway, which may or may not have boosted my “mysterious grungy girl” complex. Sometimes I’d even listen to Lana Del Ray on my Skullcandy earbuds. Not today though, today my body buzzed with anxiety and anticipation, the whirr echoing in my ears. Did I do the right thing?
That summer changed me. Gosh, I sound like the beginning of a terrible coming-of-age movie, but it’s true. It did. I remember getting into the local production of Bonnie and Clyde. I was thrilled to be acting, let alone with my best friend of 7 years. That didn’t go too well. After the final curtains were pulled across the stage, our friendship ended in a spectacular show of lies and deception.
Not only was this the summer I broke up with the only friend I’d had since the first grade, but it was also the first time I got noticed by a boy. I was thrilled. My entire childhood I was “one of the boys”. The concept of having a crush on someone and them liking me back was about as outlandish as Red Bull claiming it can give you wings. I should’ve been sued for it too. Obviously, I was a ticking pubescent time bomb amongst hundreds of other ticking pubescent time bombs. Attraction was bound to happen.
Perhaps I let it get to my head though. One night I woke up to a knock at the plastic siding of the house, directly against my bedroom wall. I groggily got up to open my blinds, my bedhead catching in the shutters as I pushed it up. I opened my window to see the boy I had been texting for the last few months staring back at me, a few rocks in his hands. He wore galaxy sweatpants and rectangular glasses that would have made any other Tumblr-using teenage girl swoon in a mess of MacBook head-hearts and mustache Band-Aids.
“You never texted me goodnight.” He whisper-yelled into cupped hands.
That was the beginning of the summer I lost a parent, and in that began to parent myself. Albeit terribly. I’d spend late nights playing Forza Horizon on greasy Xbox controllers eating Costco taquitos and microwave chicken sandwiches. Biking home at five in the morning, and then sleeping until 5 p.m.
One night, bad parenting meant that I got into a car with a drunk driver. I could’ve lost my life. Bad parenting meant that I got into bad situations with bad people. Did bad things at bad times.
Losing my dad was losing a parent, but it meant that I found one in myself. I’m glad that I’m here today, and I’m glad I learned to take care of myself.
