I'm Not Perfect

As I write this I will probably cry as this is very emotional for me.

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, we were talking about how I don't know if I want to be a cosmetologist, I think I might want to be a secretary, even though everyone expects me to be a cosmetologist because I have known that it was going to be my job since I was eight years old. There has never been any doubt in my mind--until now. Now I feel as though I don't know if that's what I want to do. As of now I am a senior in high school, I've worked my butt off to get here and I'll still have to wait until summer to graduate. But what then? Cosmetology school will cost close to twenty three grand. I don't want my parents to pay for that, my family lives on a retired fireman's pay, which is not all that much. My father has offered to pay for that, but that is so much, I don't know if I can ask that of him. 

My friend proceeded to ask me "Who says you have to choose now?" It made me think "Why am I so hard on myself?" My response to myself was: "Because everyone expects so much from me." Why? Here's a little background on me. When I was a baby (nine months) my biological father gave permanent legal custody of me to his parents, since then they were my parents. My biological was a drug addict and an alcoholic until recently, so keep that in mind as you read the rest of this explanation. My uncle was very close to my "mom" (grandma, but I call her mom) and he all but stopped talking to her in recent years. Both of these men put gaping holes in my parents hearts. Then along comes little ol' me. I filled that hole with all the joy and bed stealing a baby can do for aching hearts. I was a good student until 4th grade when I was taken out public school because of my illnesses and homeschooled, then after a time my mom could no longer carry on my studies as it was often too hard to get out of bed [Melissa reminds me a lot of my own mom] and so what would any kid do when their parent can't make them do school work? "NO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!" and not do it (my pop left my schooling to my mother even though he knew I wasn't being schooled past this time). So therefore, I had no schooling until last year when I was put into a charter school. My mom still expected me to get A's and B's even though I hadn't been in school for so long. I ended up getting mostly C's and D's, just enough to pass; even now, I couldn't tell you a single thing I "learned." 

The question still remained: Why am I so hard on myself? I was expected since I was young to be the best I could be. But if I feel like I'm failing, how can I be the person I'm expected to be? I know you're thinking, "Why don't you talk to your parents? They should understand if you just talk to them. But you have to actually talk." I've heard it a million times. But here's the thing: one parent tries to fix everything, thinking that a shrink or something of the sort would help, even if I say I don't want it. The other? She blames herself, sounding much like Melissa in her post entitled "Guilt." Now, tell me this: would you still talk to them knowing you're going to get the exact same response every time? I wouldn't. So I don't. I am expected to be the one who's different. The one who makes everyone proud. I feel as if I don't do something that I'm expected to do, I'll let everyone down. I came to this realization Monday. I try not think about my problems or what they're caused by, so when I do it's usually because someone has prodded me into thinking; which is not my favorite past-time. 

I am supposed to be the one who doesn't break their hearts again. I'm supposed to be the one that, for lack of a better term, is the perfect child. Has this been said aloud? No. No, it has not. But a girl can read between the lines. When last years final report card came in with mostly C's and D's, my mom was upset, she wanted A's and B's like it used to be. My pop was more or less more so understanding. I told a friend about my report card, and what he told me, made me feel worse. "That's amazing considering where you started. Just imagine if you'd actually had an education like the rest of your peers." He was one of two people who knew my educational background other than my parents. That small bit of praise from someone other than the people who live with me was a hard pill to swallow. I realize that I'm not, and won't be, perfect. But I still feel as if that's expected of me and I hate letting people down with a passion no one could ever understand. I'm not the perfect best friend, I'm not the perfect daughter, I'm not perfect; I screw up, I get confuzzled (my word for confused), I have a hard time with things, I get hurt, I hurt others with my words because sometimes I say the first thing that comes to mind and there's no tact. 

I hate feeling like this, but I can't change it. I can't say "Hey! I think I am just fine the way I am and if someone doesn't like it, they can shove their opinions into a deep dark corner and I won't care." No, I can't do that. That's not how this works. This works by making me want to crawl in bed in a dark room and stay there for a month ignoring everything and reading books to escape reality. Do I want to be the person I am? No. The person I want to be is in a fictitious novel who gets a happy ending with the perfect guy, who has perfect kids who has the perfect life and has teeny tiny problems that Mr. Perfect helps me over come and "Ladeeda, life is beautiful!" Do I have that? No. Will I have that? No. And before you say "You'll find the right guy, I promise, it'll get better sweetie." For the time being, I'm not dating, nor do I want to. I can't have those perfect kids because of my back and I want to be able to walk for the rest of my life; most guys eventually want kids of their own and I can't give them that. 

Also, my family is predisposed to be alcoholics and drug addicts, my biological father took the easy route and let himself give in to those temptations. I promised myself I would never be like him. But if I'm brutally honest, there are times when I think of all the medication my mom has to take, the pain pills that I have because of all the dentist work that's been done to my mouth, the fact that my mom has quite a few unopened bottles of brandy because she likes the bottles (she has a thing for pretty bottles). There have been times when I've stood there staring at the bottles and wondering if I'm strong enough, if I have enough self-control, to not let the liquor take me over for a while to escape. There have been times that I almost took the bottle and locked myself in my room and drank as much as I dared. But I haven't and that surprises me that I've been strong enough to last this long.

I'm really sorry for the long post, but this is a part of me, it's who I am and I felt as if this is an important part of my life and writing out my feelings is a lot easier than talking about them. So here you go! Now, I will crawl under my covers and ignore life for a little while.