Resentment

My coffee was cold.

Finally, he broke our comfortable silence, “I can’t wait to get out of this town.”

“Oh c’mon. You’re supposed to say that.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you don’t hate your hometown, people think you don’t have ambition. And no one wants to be with someone who doesn’t have ambition.”

“But I do have ambition,” he was getting a little defensive.

“Right.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot about my mom lately. And how it’s become the norm to resent your parents? It’s like, everyone complains about how they’re being taken advantage of by their aging parents. And they feel like they’re unable to live their own life. So then there’s this big epiphany when they realize, “I have to do what’s right for me,” or whatever. But it’s like, I don’t know, I guess I just, I feel this obligation to my family and I don’t resent that. I think, like, I want to help them. Like, I get a sense of fulfillment knowing that my family can depend on me and I don’t think it holds me back from who I am or who I want to be and the goals I have for myself. I’m still so ambitions but I just, I’m not myself without my family. My family is such a huge part of me. And humans are so clan oriented. It’s in our DNA to be around our family and support each other. It’s a little bit exhausting getting the same reaction when you tell someone like, “Yeah, I don’t want to move away” because they put you into this box of having a small town mentality. And that’s a reputation that’s inescapable. I don’t see my obligation to my family as an obligation. It’s a desire that’s fulfilling to me.”

“Well, yeah, but just because I want to move away doesn’t mean I resent my parents. I mean, they’e not even old. I don’t even have to take care of them or anything. I just want to get out of here.”

“And that is so great. Honestly. I think that if you want to leave, you should’ve left yesterday. There should be nothing to stop you from getting out of here. I’m just saying that I just don’t get it; the second I tell someone I don’t really want to leave, their entire opinion of me changes. You can be the smartest person in the world, but like, that’s all it takes. They think that there’s no hope for you and that you’re just, like, a waste of intellect.”

“Well I definitely don’t think you’re a waste of intellect,” he tried to reassure me.

“No, I know I’m not. And I don’t need you to validate that for me. Sorry, I’m just rambling.”

I could see the waiter approaching our table from behind where Mike was sitting.

“More coffee?”