The Dangers of Growing Up Too Quickly

I woke up Friday morning at 4:00 am with a horrible case of pink eye. This, of course, was more than alarming to me because I am in college; pink eye is simply an excuse to skip school when you are in high school. I rushed into the bathroom and flipped on the light, blinding my good eye for an uncomfortable half minute. When my eye finally adjusted I could see my matted, swollen left eye. The sight freaked me out, causing me to immediately go digging for a rag. I ran it under extremely hot water, rung it out, neatly folded it, and held it to my left eye entirely too hard, as if the pressure would change the image I was seeing in the mirror.

Normal Eye

Pink Eye

I put the lid down on the toilet and just sat there. In the quiet of the night my mind began to get off track, and pretty soon I was remembering the last images I saw of my parents together:

For the first time in a very long time, my family all went out for dinner together at a Chinese restaurant. I was in a hurry to get out of there because I was going to stand in line to get one of the first copies of Breaking Dawn, a book in the Twilight Saga. All my friends were going to be there and I didn't want to be late. I chowed down and rushed away giving my love to the entire family. Even though the book release was very eventful, it didn't end up mattering in the end. By the time I got my book and got home it was 2:00 am. I tiptoed through my parents room to  use the restroom before bed. I caught a glimpse of my mom wrapped around my dad with her face resting on his chest, and his arm was wrapped back around her. This sweet image has been burned into my memory ever since. I thought to myself, "They must really love each other. If I could find someone who loved me that much, I would be happy... I would be happy." 

I stayed up until 4:30 reading and then went to bed. 

In the morning, around 7:30 my dad came into my little house and woke my sister and I up claiming that he had something to show us and it was really important that we got up right away. I sluggishly crawled out of bed and changed into some normal clothes. My older sister had moved out nearly a year before and my youngest sister was school shopping with my mom, so it ended up just being my and my little brother and younger sister. We drove about 45 minutes into a neighboring town and pulled into an apartment complex. We all hopped out of the truck and followed my daddy into an apartment on the first floor of the building. The rooms were small and the carpet was an awful, faded christmas green. I could hear the people in the apartment above us pacing back and forth through their home and a baby crying in the distance as a dog barked.

"I've been thinking about what to say to you guys," my dad started out, "And I still don't have the right words, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you... this is where I'm going to be living from now on." With every syllable my dad was pronouncing, I could feel my heart rip a little more as all the blood from the pain seemed to resignate in my throat, making me want to vomit. I could feel my eyes filling with warm, salty tears that soon began to trickle down the contour of my face. My siblings seemed to have disappeared in my memory, despite the evident presence of their sobs.

I began to back up against a wall and slide down, until I was in as compact of a ball as my thick self would let me be in. My dad began to speak again, but this time with a less stable voice, "I'm going to need some help moving some furniture in because I don't have any friends. All your mom's and I's friends aren't talking to me."

He then realized none of us were going to look him in the eye and became silent. I felt so deceived by the image of my parents from the night before burned into my head. 

As I sat on the toilet, remembering the treachery, my good eye began to fill with tears and it suddenly became hard for me to breathe and my body started trembling. I wept for a good 5 minutes before gaining my composure. I was embarrassed by myself for loosing it over a matter that happened over 2 and 1/2 years ago. I realized that that was the moment I grew up, a moment when I was merely 16 that the weight of my world was no longer held up by my parents but by me, a child who had never been trained to be alone and unprotected from the world. 

I wiped my eyes down again, ran the rag under more hot water, and took it to my room where I laid in my bed with it held to my eye, just looking at the ceiling until my alarm went off at 8:00 am.