While my computer was off being fixed, I badly wanted to write. But something about the unfamiliarity of my mom's laptop's keyboard felt wrong. I just couldn't do it. It was like exposing secrets to an untrustworthy acquaintance instead of a close friend. I know this computer is impartial, all computers are. But I couldn't write anywhere else.
I tried paper. But paper felt too serious. The only time I've written on paper is in a black, silver-studded journal that I kept beside my bed to help with my insomnia. Having prohibited myself from looking at a computer screen, yet still imprisoned by the thoughts rolling in my head, I turned to the journal to empty my mind so I could sleep. But that felt wrong too. The paper felt like middle school anxieties, remote and immature. I wanted my computer.
And now I have it and now I can write. The driving force behind the desire was a fight with my father, the exact details of which don't really matter. The whole problem is that I can never fully explain my frustrations to him, or anybody else it seems. They belong solely to me and this computer screen.
I used to be okay with that, mostly. There's this whole part of me my family doesn't know, or care to know. They probably wouldn't like that part of me very much. But often, I think it's the best part, the most precious part. I'm no longer sure if I think so because it really is or because it's been only mine so long that it just hasn't had the opportunity to be colored by the opinions of others. Whenever I dare to expose a bit of me outside of what he is so familiar with, my dad reacts terribly. (I just realized this sounds very much like I'm talking about my sexuality, which I am not. That's a very telling analogy though.) Usually such discussions end with him telling me "to get over myself," which is his answer to anything that he doesn't understand.
What he doesn't understand are the things I'm most passionate about. He doesn't understand that reading isn't just a hobby, something I do when I can't sleep. He doesn't understand how a book or even a single sentence can be so beautiful you want to cry. He doesn't even really understand what I'm studying or what I want to be. He doesn't know I write anything besides term papers, and he doesn't even know what they involve. I am actually pretty curious as to what he thinks I study, and sort of sad that he would never make it through one of my school essays. He'd find it boring, extraneous, unnecessary--the ways he finds any book that isn't about golf.
Sometimes he surprises me when he delves into some sort of philosophical concept, but he regards me skeptically still when I voice my opinion. He seems sort of surprised I even have one.
I love him more than anything, and I wish so much that he knew the part of me that lives on this blog, in my bookshelf, in my mind. The one that's stored away in files on my computer. But it makes me sadder that he doesn't want to know that person. But that's not who he is.
Something in my parents' composition resists passion for anything more important than their golf games. Artistic sensibilities, strong political motivations, just passion. If I have those, I "need to get over myself."
I fear that one day I'll end up loving a man that loves the part of me that they don't know. They won't understand our relationship, they won't like him, they'll think he "needs to get over himself." But I can't spend my life with someone who doesn't understand my passions, but I don't think it'd be any easier to spend my life with some one who pushes me away from my parents.
I'm destined for conflict and this is only the beginning. But I cannot choose between my relationship with them and my relationship with myself. I don't need to get over myself because I care about this world, about art, about politics. I remain the silent and obedient girl they want me to be in their presence, but I know what I believe whole-heartedly, and I need so much some one to share it with.
It can't just be mine any longer.
