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It’s not like any of it helped. I’m haunted by Ian. I could spend the rest of my life trying to forget him and he’d be lurking in the corners of my mind, hiding in the shadows of my heart.
My traitorous heart.
I tried so hard not to fall for that green bean, and look at me now. Behaving like a heartsick teenager because he fought for me and I ran away, like I always do. It actually annoys me how right he was about everything.
“These are real feelings . . . You feel them too, and it scares the fuck out of you.”
If I were a stronger person, I would have told him he was right. That I was scared, and I am scared. I would have apologized for not being the person he wants me to be, because he deserves better than me. He deserves a kind of love I’m not capable of giving him.
Ian needs someone who doesn’t behave likethiswhen things get too hard. Someone who doesn’t run. Someone who is more steady, like him. Someone who isn’t anything like me.
When my eyes fill with tears, I let them flow. No reason to hold back now—it doesn’t get any fucking lower than this. I don’t even recognize myself after tonight. Drinking shitty gin just to get drunk? Throwing myself at someone I didn’t even want? Who the hell?—?
With crashing clarity, I realize I do recognize myself. I know exactly who I’m behaving like.
“Fuck.”
I’m behaving like my mom.
I climb in the car, turning on the heat and laying the seat all the way back. I need to sober up before I drive, but even if I were sober, I’m not sure I’m ready to face Jessie and Mac yet.
Have I always been like this?
“Well, level one is, like, she gets rip-roaring drunk . . .”Jessie’s words echo around in my head.
Oh god.
I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be anything like my mother, avoiding love to avoid heartbreak to avoid being like her. And here I am, spending my Saturday night the way she would spend hers in my shoes.
When I was sixteen, there was this stretch of time where my mom was single. She’d been single for three months, sober for about a month, and we were watchingPride and Prejudice, the 2005 version. It’s one of our favorites. I remember turning to my mom, mid-grab for the popcorn.
“Why do you drink so much, Mom? After a breakup.”
At the time, I just thought alcohol was fun for a party. It made everyone have more fun, but my mom never had fun when she drank. She was fun when she wasn’t drinking. So why do it?
“Because sometimes it’s all too much, Jade-bear. I just feel too many things, and it’s too much. And sometimes a drink makes it a little easier.”
I nodded, but I didn’t fully understand. Sometimes I felt a lot of things too, but I just shoved them back into my brain and they disappeared. Why the alcohol then? Could she not do that? At the time, I slumped back on the couch and stuffed popcorn into my mouth. She ran a hand over my head affectionately, giving me a soft “you’ll understand when you’re older” kind of smile.
I hate that she was right.
I do understand now. I understand what it’s like to feel too much. Every time sadness or disappointment or grief or anger comes to visit, it feels like too much. But not because it’s too heavy. It’s like looking into the ocean and realizing that even if I swam down as far as I could go, I’d still never see the bottom of it. It’s the terror of thinking I’ve gone too far and I might not be able to resurface and gasp for air.
My mom and I have been avoiding the ocean altogether, scared of its endlessness, but there’s more to the ocean than its depth. What about the rush of the wave as it passes over me? The power of its force knocking my feet out from under me. What about the salty taste of the earth on my tongue and its residue on my sun-warmed skin? What about the joy of discovery when I see the life teeming underneath it? Crabs scurrying away, fish gliding to their next destination, shells hiding life underneath, and the darkness of the water concealing a predator from its prey. It’s overwhelming, but what if that’s the point?
What if the ocean is supposed to terrify and delight you? What if all of life is supposed to do that? What if I’m supposed to get lost for a while in my sadness?
And what if I get lost for a while in my joy?
My mom believed I would understand her when I got older because she saw herself in me. She saw my self-destructive tendencies, and instead of guiding me away from them, she just sat back and let me become exactly who she was. My belly roils. What should I have expected, though, from someone who can’t even see her own patterns and behaviors? This is a woman who won’t look in the metaphorical mirror and see what she’s doing to her own life.
Instead, she’s looking in the mirror and seeing my life.
And I’m looking in the mirror and seeing her.
But I don’t want to be this person anymore. I want to look in the mirror and see me, and I want to be proud of the person staring back at me. I don’t want to be the Jade who gets rip-roaring drunk when she’s sad, and I don’t want to be the kind of person who decides not to explore the ocean because someone else told her it was too scary.
I’m sick of walking miles in my mother’s shoes. My feet are tired, and her shoes don’t fit me anymore.
