there's no place like home

today i feel: awkward
today i'm hearing: ben folds--the ascent of stan
today i'm thinking: home really is a place to visit

Being home is really, really hard.

I used to mock my brother when he would rant about how much he wanted to get out of BTown. He was so vehemently opposed to the place, so angry that he had been born here and not someplace 'cooler'. It became especially amusing when he took a job at a bank and moved into a house across town. Da and I still think he's never going to get out of the hellhole. And BTown, it's not that bad, really. There's a small but mighty art community, a little zoo, parks and swimming pools. There are little nooks that you can get lost in and some really groovy people. It's not a bad place to call home. It's not. I can see why so many people take up roots here and settle down for their families.

But being here? Being home, in this house with these two people I feel like I don't even know anymore, with this dog that runs rampant and those strange, dying people down the street? It's the hardest thing in the world for me right now.

My da and I are really close. It kind of happened in a rush about a year ago, but it did happen. We both woke up one morning and realised that we were actually people and not just strange figments of one another's imagination. And when it's just me and my da, it's brilliant. He's a really cool guy; I'm more than willing to tell anyone that. But when he's with my mum, he's not the same. He gets moody, and not just angry moody or depressed moody. Sometimes, he's really, really happy but you feel like it's a show, like he's pretending to be some joyous hubby or something like that. My mum and I get along, but it's very formal. She's still trying to help my tie my shoes and I'm still trying to run away. I understand my mother too well and that makes her a fictitious character. She's not real. Not to me. And when I'm away from home, that's okay. I can deal with my da's changing moods and have a really great conversation with him a couple days later. I can roll my eyes at my mother worrying about me and hang up the phone if I have to. But when I'm here? The furthest away I can get from them is the other side of town. And even then I have to take their car.

I told my parents a while ago that I didn't believe in Christ. I told them that being in one of his 'Holy Places' makes me feel like I'm suffocating, that taking communion is so fucking offensive in my mind; not because I don't believe in it, but because everyone else does. My da told me I'd have to stop eating bacon. My mum told me I couldn't ever tell anyone else.

My family still doesn't know about my beliefs. My mum's parents will die with the belief that I'm a good Christian girl: I go to church whenever I can, I date nice Christian boys and we never get further than holding hands, I don't eat pork because it makes me feel sick. I've come to terms with the fact that I will lie to them for as long as I know them, and while I really don't like that idea, it's one I can live with. The topic doesn't come up with my da's parents and that's fine with me. Don't ask, don't tell; that sort of thing.

My aunt went to Ireland a while ago; she's a music teacher and was there for a violin conference. She was married to my uncle Don, the one that died when I was nine. Aunt M and I are pretty close considering she lives in Oklahoma and I only see her every other year, if that. Anyway, when she was in Ireland, she bought me something and brought it home. I just got it today.

It was a little ornament: a Celtic cross with clovers on it. And when I saw it, it made me feel sick.

When I'm at school, I can act however I like about my family. I can put my mother's tendencies off to her raising and all the shit she went through when she was little. I can push my grandmother's Alzheimer's away and say that it's okay, she's old, she's got to die sometime. I can act like it doesn't bother me as much as it does, that I'm not affected by the lies that I have to tell and the facade I put up every time I see them or talk to them or spend any time with them.

But being here? Sitting in this room with the people I've known longest and pretending that I am the way they see me and not someone else? This is fucking killing me.