Sebastian Gone Blanche

"No wonder you smoke marijuana, I never knew your life was that way."

Her words hit me harder than I wanted to let her know.  The truth of it was that most of the time, I smoke to numb that sharp feeling that life isn't supposed to be this way.  It helps me remember that there is something out there, out beyond the world that this house has become.  Once you step into this house, you're in Africa.  Out there is America.  You're not American, you're African.  Said without a choice, no room for argument.  There was no or, no room to grow or decide.  Two steps in the wrong direction and the entire "family" knows.  Your life circles the globe and the tutting and the judgments can be felt before you know it.  The anxiety of "What will people at home say? Like they've forgot that this is the only home you've ever had, and home doesn't even feel at home because who you are doesn't fit in this "home."  The house you live in is less of a home and more of an empty building for the stuff that don't really matter, a place for people to stare at the space you fill, to interact with a cartoon version of the you that you are.  You're part of the scenery, a pretty picture on the wall of someone that might have been.  Smile pretty and be quiet. 

Someone I know from school once posted on Facebook "Its odd to see even the most outgoing person shut down." And that was only from too much Tylenol with Codeine.  What happens when that same person comes home and shuts down because they're meant to be seen and not heard?  What happens when that same person shuts down because being too ambitious makes them "crazy?"  But what do they know?  It happens. Sometimes I just don't have enough energy for you and for me hun.  Sometimes I just want to be that way.  I can't be who you want me to be for you and be who I need to be for me too.

I guess I'm crazy, that's apparently what my family told everyone.  That's fine.  I'll be crazy in the corner.  I can live with that.  Being crazy means they all look past me.  They just point and laugh.  "Her? She's nothing, just a pretty face in the corner, such a shame, she should be married by now, but she's just a tad loopy, we'll never find anyone to marry her."  What does it matter?  The weed is good today, spurred on by the hash I added to it.  What does it matter?  On my own it all makes sense.