SO my unemployment has been great thus far this summer. I had such an awesome past week. I went to Brigantine with some friends and had an awesome few days. Booze, kings catch phrase, AMAZING time. Then I came home and went to the city for the weekend. Went out with Brookeso and met up with some friends with Pitt, having one of the greatest nights of my life. But now that I’m home and still not working I sit at home and watch old episodes of Tyra and try to guess whether the 34^th man a woman is testing on Maury is or isn’t not her baby’s daddy.  I decided to break up the monotony of my daily routine and watch old family videos. I found a video of my family vacationing in Myrtle Beach and then Disney World. 

The year was 1990 and I was barely three years old. I watched myself playing with my new beach friend in the sand. And by play with I mean repeat pushed the child over and threw sand in his face. Fast forward fifteen minutes and we’re in Disney World on the same vacation. I looked at the little boy I used to be and didn’t even recognize myself. I was so blond and so happy. The entire time I had the biggest smile on my face, whether I was climbing up the slide railing or hugging all of the characters. I looked at this child and I wondered how that same adorable happy boy could be the person as the cynical sarcastic person I am today.

Before I go on my rant, I have to say, I have the most amazing and generous parents anyone could ever ask for. But I think sometime parents are so overly concerned with doing it right and protecting their children that this in and of itself is a huge mistake. When I was little I loved soccer and I loved drama. When I went to middle school the drama club teacher was terrible and she wanted to put on a show where everyone could be a star- bull shit. Her idea of this was to put on a lame ass show with the musical stylings of the beach boys and other summertime tunes, I quit. At the same time the traveling soccer team I had been on for three years changed coaches and I had been cut as the number of team mates was reduced.

I found myself having lost two of the things I loved to do. This began the period of my life I now refer to as my fat years. Chips and dip and soda were my best friends as I sat at home everyday watching tv after school. The skinny little kid who had been so active and full of life was becoming a slug who’s highlight of the day was a bag of shop rite crinkle cut and French onion dip drowned in root beer soda topped off with a new episode of Judge Judy. I didn’t have many friends and the fact that I was easily one of the heaviest kids in my class didn’t help. Everyday I would go to school and be taunted by the same group of kids. Names like “Jelly Rolls” and “Dennis Donut Eater,” were my new nicknames. The latter was especially bothersome considering I don’t even like donuts. In fact anyone who knows me, knows I am not a huge fan of baked goods.

This whole time however my parents were out working. For as long as I could remember my mother worked three jobs and my father worked at his job in Trenton, an hour and a half commute each way everyday. I was that “latch key kid” who they portrayed in public service announcements about kidnapping and never making it home from school. But who was I kidding I sure ass hell wasn’t walking my fatass home when the school bus dropped me off right in front of my house, bringing me home to my cool ranch foodgasm even sooner.  Even so we had a whole routine, if anyone called I was to say, “sorry my mom was in the shower.” Because clearly kidnappers call the home of the child they are about to abduct to make sure the parents aren’t home, and furthermore this whole “mom’s in the shower” smoke screen is quite the stellar cover up, because alerting the kidnapper that said mom is isolated away from the child in a shower where the child’s screams would be muffled by the running water is enough to keep any dateline NBC predator at bay.

Essentially I was Matilda, but much less literate. Instead of Herman Melville I had Sally Jesse Rafael, and instead of homemade pancakes, I tried to see how many skittles I could fit in my mouth without choking. It was quite a feat. But I digress. So in the years that followed “the fat years,” I became so wrapped up in this cycle. I wasn’t active and I was a non stop eating machine. I had no friends and my surmounting obesity wasn’t helping that, and the things I once loved to do weren’t even enough to motivate me to get up. As I said my mother worked three jobs which meant she didn’t get home til after 10 pm each night, and my father was never home before 7:30. I don’t blame my parents, because I know they worked this much out of necessity. Raising four children is no easy task, and when there is college to pay for and bills and other crap, family time falls to the wayside, and instead longer hours and work filled weekends take its place.

Being the youngest of four, I often felt like things were always just followed by going through the motions. There’s so much fear when raising a child on the part of the parent. Don’t let a boy play with dolls, they’ll be a sissy. Singing and dancing is for girls, real boys play football and grow up to be strong men. So despite a somewhat absent childhood, my parents had a good idea of what they didn’t want me doing. They knew I loved performing and yet they never pushed for me to go anywhere with that. My parents are so practical. They need to know that there is a plan for everything, and to deviate from such a plan would simply be foolish. So my life was exactly that, a plan, their plan. I believe this is where much of my cynicism comes from.

I see my friends who are in musical theater or voice, and I’m so jealous. They say it’s never too late, but I think this is an instance where it is. My friends who are all so unbelievably talented, have been singing and dancing and performing since childhood. Their parents have allowed them to feel free to follow their dreams and to express themselves how they want. While I would never change my parents for the world, I sometimes wish they had this trait. I wish my parents would have seen my love for performing and allowed me to pursue that in my childhood, but they didn’t. Instead they stressed school and Boy Scouts and other extracurriculars that would “look great on a college resume.” I wish I could go back in time and somehow convince my parents to take me to voice and dance and acting lessons, to help me find a passion of my own.

So where does that bring me. I have one semester of school left, after which I’ll have a degree in something I despise. If my parents had their way I would be off to med school to become a doctor just like my three older sisters. I’m bitter and jaded and unable to let go of anything in the past. I push away those I care about and am never satisfied. Why? Am I afraid of getting hurt, of the unknown? Am I afraid of falling into a path of monotony? A path that I have seemingly followed all of my life, but was not of my own choosing.

I’m sick and tired of always doing what other people think is best for me. I’m sick of people telling me what my career choice should be. I’m sick of people always comparing me to my sisters. I’m sick of my sisters (as much as I love them to death) having zero confidence in my ability to make my own decisions and stand on my own two feet, to take a chance unlike any of them have ever done.

I need to start living in the moment and saying I am doing this for me. I move to Orlando in a month and three days. I have had some amazing times and met friends I know I will have for the rest of my life, especially in the past year. But I know I need to leave Pittsburgh. I have so many not so great memories and so many unresolved issues that I know will never be resolved. There are so many reminders I see on a daily basis that remind me of shit from the past I need to forget about, or about the life I have wasted in school for an education I never wanted. I need a fresh start, I need to live for me. I’m excited. I’m terrified. But I know, no matter what the outcome, that I am doing something for myself. Something I have always wanted to do. And there is nothing that anyone can say or do that can take this away from me. This “first half” of my life was one that had been decided for me, but that is over. I’m in the driver’s seat and I’m taking the wheel. Come what may, the good and the bad, I want it all. And I’ll drive over cones, through red lights, hang a Louie, and stop at nothing, til I have the happiness of my own choosing.