The week of July 4th was when everything fell apart. My family was having a reunion out on Raystown Lake from that Tuesday through Sunday. My parents and brother were going for the entire time. I had to work Monday and Tuesday. The original plan was for me to go to State College to celebrate Independence Day (on Wednesday) with G/my friends and then drive down to join my family afterwards. Unfortunately, it all went horribly wrong.
Monday night before my parents left, we got into one of the worst fights of my entire life. I couldn’t even tell you what it was about, because the issues with my family are deep seeded and have been going on for years. My father is addicted to whatever he can to numb his pain. He calls it back pain, but it’s really the emotions of having divorced parents that didn’t love him and being a Vietnam War veteran. At this point he is usually so high on whatever (narcotics, weed, alcohol, etc.) by 4 pm that he doesn’t remember anything I say. Our relationship has fallen into a state of nonexistent ever since he started giving up on life. He’s a shell of a man that I can no longer respect.
My mother is a different story entirely. We both have extremely strong personalities. She thinks that because I’m her daughter she can say whatever she wants to me, no matter how rude or insensitive. We fight a lot, and she’s a large part of the reason why I left home at 16. The only reason I live at home now is because of my internship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I would never come back here without a really good reason. My main issue with my mom is that she is too cowardly to leave my dad or lay down any ultimatums that will force him to change. She’s told me she has no connections with him and barely understands him, yet she continues to do nothing about it. She is miserable, but too afraid to confront him. I can’t respect that either.
All of this makes my house a horrible place to live. There is constant tension and conflict. No one is happy, and no one says anything about it except me. That is why we got into such a huge fight that Monday evening. It was so bad that I was essentially told I was unwelcome at our family reunion. Luckily, S is a good friend. She was planning on staying at the fraternity house with Bryan at Penn State during that time, so she made arrangements for me to stay there too. There’s a lot of empty rooms in the summer because so many brothers go home. I was hoping to just forget about my troubles and have some fun with G and my other friends at school, but that didn’t go as planned either…
G was supposed to be staying at the frat house as well from Tuesday to Friday. However, when I got there on Wednesday he was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t heard from him. He essentially disappeared. One of the other brother’s overheard me talking about it with S and told me he had driven G to a tailgate not an hour before I arrived. He said G was in State College, but he had no idea where he was staying. This was when everything started coming out. I guess some of the brothers felt guilty for all the lies he told me, but I slowly started to piece together a story of deceit and G doing a lot of sleeping around. I officially decided I was done and would never speak to him again. I also consummated that decision by hooking up with one of the more attractive brothers. Not my best move, but at the time I just wanted to feel good. As far as I know, G hasn’t found out about that.
*This is only Part 1 of my story. I’m going to split it into two parts so it isn’t extremely long.
Make Life Orange 