My Dad has a theory about ghosts. In an attempt to reconcile his Catholic faith with the possibility of a supernatural world he has suggested that ghosts are souls stuck in purgatory. According to his theory, these souls must rewatch their lives to examine their sins and understand the impact they had on others, so that they may be truly sorry for their actions. After all, to move onto heaven you must be forgiven of your sins and to be forgiven you must have genuine remorse. My Dad first told me about his theory when I was in the ninth grade. My mother had walked out on us about a year before and I finally had admitted to my dad that I conceptualized her as dead. Since then my relationship with my mom has been imagining her as a transient soul forced to watch me. She was there each time I cried in my bedroom over her absence, late at night after my Dad had gone to bed, the shower turned on for good measure. She watched in horror at each stroke I took to my wrist with the fabric cutter she left behind in her sewing kit. She was speechless when my sister pointed out the cuts on my arm to my dad during lunch at a Hawaiian themed burger joint, my Dad shooting glares at her and smiling at me and barely touching his food. My brother intensely interested in the paper umbrella in his drink. She begged me to stop when I switched to my thigh with the blade I stole from my Dad’s razor. She regretted her infidelities when my Dad took me dress shopping for homecoming, prom, my sister’s wedding, and the marine corps ball. She thanked God for the man she had once loved when she found him googling “different dress shapes”, “types of fabric”, “hairstyles that go with formal dresses” the night before each shopping trip. She applauded and screamed my name at each show choir competition, frustrated each time that I couldn’t hear her. She was there and she was sad and so was I. Now alcohol is a funny thing. It’s a depressant, but I’ve always wanted it so badly to be a solution. My Dad thinks I tend to drink too much because I allow myself to cry when I am drunk. I think I drink too much because I have heard that alcohol is an antiseptic. Maybe it’s a myth, but I’ve even read that whiskey was used during the Civil War to treat open wounds. It was memorial day and I found myself sitting on the edge of my bathtub, my head in my boyfriend’s lap, my hands held by my best friend who kneeled in front of me. She was also raised by a single dad and a mother who enjoyed claiming that she had a part in how wonderful she had turned out to be. “You are not your mother!” Through sobs I argued with her, “I’m gonna turn out just like her. I can’t do this. I am awful. I am awful. She left, she left me, I must be awful. My mom, MY MOM, left! Who’s gonna stay? My mom didn’t even like me enough to! I must be shit. Everyone leaves. She just left.” She pressed her forehead against mine. A true friend (and a drunk friend) ignores the vomit in your hair and the smell of bile on your breath. “Our mothers are fucked up and have problems. And that fucking sucks, but that is not our fault. We are great. They left, yeah they left, but they have to deal with that. We are not our fucking mothers. Do not say that! Look at me; am I going to be my mother?” “No.” “Then neither are you.” “You don’t know that! Look at me! I am a mess!” “You’re drunk.” “Exactly.” But I was addressing my mother standing in the corner of the room. “I am making you food. You have to eat.” “You can’t do that you’re drunk. It’s fine, it’s fine.” “I’m not even that drunk. I’ve done this before. You have to eat. You got her?” “Yeah” my boyfriend yawned as he rubbed his face. She left us alone and my mom walked over to the edge of the tub to try and show him how to brush my hair with his fingers in the same way she did when I got the stomach flu during sixth grade camp and had to come home early, but his arms stayed at his sides. “You should go have fun with the rest of them.” He didn’t speak. I pulled my head off of his lap and sat up. “Seriously, I’m good. I can throw up on my own. There can’t be that much more.” “It’s fine.” “Go have fun.” He got up from the tub, stretched his arms over his head, and walked out the door. I looked up at my mom her eyes were moving back and forth between the empty doorway and me. We looked at each other with the green eyes she had given me. A mirror image. I puked.
ME MY WRITING BUT TUMBLR WON’T LET ME POST A TEXT BOX FOR SOME REASON
