tape it up, walk it off

I started grad school today.

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Earlier this summer, mom asked, "Are you still using your purse these days?"

"Yes."

"Well I was going through your backpack and your wallet’s in there.”

I texted Karen: Why was she even going through my backpack?

And Karen texted back, And then what happened?

And then nothing, I said. And then I was quietly mad about it for however many days I stayed mad about it until there was something new to be mad about and then I was quietly mad about that too.

“Everyone knows it’s difficult for adult children to come back to their parents’ house,” my dad said. We went back and forth about that lot: it was normal for everyone to be upset all the time; it wasn’t normal and there was something wrong with me; it was just to be expected; it was unacceptable.

I went out with friends from high school and a girl who I hadn’t really been close with before but who I very much liked now said, “It’s like after a certain point, parents regress. Like they’ve raised us and now that we’re adults, they can be kids again.”

Her parents had gotten mad that she’d tried to eat some of the dip they had been making for their own dinner. That night, she’d slept at her old place in a nest of blankets because the rest of her furniture was already gone. She was moving to another city for a new job.

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I slept at my parents’ house last night because the seagulls keep me awake.

When I decided I was moving back, I didn’t know where I wanted to live. Then I found this place right across the street from the ocean, and it was like, oh, yes. I’d missed the ocean. Toronto is not a beautiful city. It would be hard to leave, but it would be okay because, look, I would be living across the street from the ocean.

And then the flooring was delayed two months. The painter finished 90% of my condo but not the rest. I lived at my parents’ house while the work was getting done, except it seemed like the work never would actually get done. I bought a dining room table and delivery has so far been twice delayed. After that going away party, I didn’t see any of my high school friends for the rest of the summer. I looked at the pictures they posted on instagram of themselves partying. Somehow I had forgotten that the entire time I had lived in Victoria, I never had real friends. Before I moved, my brother who lives in Vancouver said that I could come visit him, but then he got a girlfriend and I didn’t hear from him all summer. My parents fought constantly, claimed they were going to get a divorce. They didn’t. I told my brother about our parents' fighting and he didn’t respond.

I felt trapped and miserable, but all the friends I still had in Toronto said it would be okay once I had moved out of their house and into my condo. I just needed to wait until school started.

In the beginning of August, suddenly my knee started hurting. It was like that pressure that comes before you need to pop a joint, only my joint would never pop, or it would, but that didn’t make it feel better. Sometimes the pain was sharp. It ached when I lay in bed on that side.  

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A couple of weeks ago, my mom was mad at me. After giving me the silent treatment the entire day previous and then yelling at me that morning, she said that the thing she was really mad about was that I seemed so scared of her and Dad. She wanted me to stop acting like they had traumatized me.

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I had slept at my parents house the night before school started because mom thought it would be easier for me to sleep there. They lived on a mountain where there were no seagulls. I brought the cat over. In the morning, Mom made me scrambled eggs and toast and saw me off, which was nice.

Then, while I was at class, she emailed and said that I needed to come back, get the cat right after class, and sleep at my apartment from now on because her and Dad were fighting. When I came for my cat and my chargers, it felt like I was getting kicked out, never mind that I already lived somewhere else. She sent me back to the condo with leftover meatloaf and chicken breasts she had made just for me.

I got back to the condo and did homework, because I already had homework. The program seemed hard and boring and was full of people I didn’t like as much as the people I already knew, only I didn’t live in the same city as those people any more.

Before the sun set, I crossed the street and went for a walk along the ocean by myself. There were two fit girls running away from me, but then they doubled back and ran toward me instead, except it wasn’t the same girls after all, just two different sets of fit running girls that looked identical. When they passed each other, it must have caused a glitch in the matrix. There were a couple of guys lingering at the rail, talking about how high the tide had risen. The waves sounded very slushed where they were hitting the boardwalk. The seagulls were loud.

I looked at the ocean and thought, This was supposed to replace everything else.

I was mad at how thin the waves sounded. School had started.  I was living at the condo. Officially living at the condo for good, now that I’d been kicked out of my parents’ house. I was in front of the ocean. The sky got dark, but I couldn’t see where the sun had set.

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When I got home after the walk, my mom emailed and said that Dad had left her and was now going to Vancouver. My brother called to find out what was going on for the parents the first time that summer, finally worried now that Dad was going to be coming to see him in Vancouver. Dad called as he drove to the ferry and said that I was supposed to go over to their house that night to look after Mom.

I stayed at my condo, called my mom, twice, but didn’t go over. I fed the cat, made a cup of tea. This blog post is now longer than the pre-assignment that is due tomorrow. It took a lot less time to write.

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When I went into the massage therapist about my sore knee, she said she didn’t know what had happened because knee pain usually came from a trauma, and mine had started out of nowhere. She said I could tape it up when I walked, like in the shape of a U or an X.

She said it would get better, but that, as I knew, knee pain held on for a long time.