The Daily Durvy

I spent this past weekend at home in LA. The whole time I was there I was desperately trying to think of something to write about.

This wasn’t my normal case of blogger’s block. In fact, while I have had a dry spell of ideas as of late, this weekend I had nothing but things I wanted to write about.

But my problem this afternoon has come in the form of humility. It’s not what I want to say that is so important at this point, but how I want to say it.

If I were in the mood to avoid what I really want to talk about, I would make another speech about politics, and probably rant about McCain’s flippant use of “mother’s health” (his air quotes, not mine) in the 3rd presidential election.

However, there are many, much more eloquent blog posts on that particular issue already, so I suppose my best bet is to simply say what I mean to say.

This weekend was my sorority’s Family Weekend, a lame, cheesy, horribly awkward weekend full of events that I didn’t care about and dinners my parents didn’t want to attend. So you know what happened, they didn’t attend.

This weekend was picked out early last May, to give parents adequate time to plan. I struggled with the decision to even tell my parents about it. My parents are not the recital-going, flower-giving supportive type of parents. They are more the wine-drinking, scream-at-the-top-of-their-lungs-in-public-places type of parents.

(For those of you chuckling to yourselves at home, try to remember that that is not exactly a good thing… my senior year of high school, my parents left in the middle of a musical that I was a major part of because they were bored. Needless to say, I didn’t get any flowers like the rest of the kids.)

I finally decided that I wanted my family to come for Family Weekend, and at least give the image of a normal family. And they said, to my shock, that they would come.

Thursday night, the night they were supposed to drive up to Davis, I called my mom’s cell phone to make sure everything was going to plan. My little brother picked up. I asked him if he was excited to come to Davis, and he didn’t know what I was talk about. My parents never told him that the family was supposed to be in Davis for the weekend.

After I hung up the phone, I was hurt, angry, pissed, cheesed, sore, tired, and crying. I cried for hours. My dad kept calling back, apologizing, blaming everybody but himself, citing logistical problems, my sister’s volleyball tournament, and my mother’s inability to be in the same care as my father for more than a couple of minutes. He asked me to come down to LA for the weekend.

I agreed. I wish I hadn’t.

I’m not supposed to hate going home. I’m not supposed to deal with my alcoholic mother, foaming at the mouth, screaming about how my father doesn’t give a “fracking shit” about her or me or anyone else, about how I’m crazy and she’s going to take my college tuition away because I don’t deserve it. But it’s those words, “fracking shit,” disgusting and slurred, are sill fresh in my mind, haunting me as I write them. “Frrrrrracking (spit) shiiiiiit! (spit)”

I’m not supposed to be told to “get over it” by my father, because nothing upsets him. Except for the things that do upset him, in which case he is allowed to swear and yell at everyone in sight, drive around the neighborhood drunk, and then come back and yell some more. And then he’s totally justified. But I’m not allowed to be mad that my weekend was ruined because my family actually just doesn’t really care.

I feel like I’m trapped in a life that I don’t want. I’m not going home for a while. A long, long while.

Not until those words get out of my head and I can take more abuse and new words that will haunt me as I write them. Because right now, I’m kinda full, mom and dad.