I don't remember what all the hubbub was about, exactly. We just had a screaming fight. It was the usual, I'm sure, I'm sick of this and I hate you and looks on her face like she wished she'd never given birth to me.

I found this between two pages as I was reading. Just holding it made me remember. Sigh. Oddly enough, I thought I'd bought this at Waldenbooks. Memory is a funny thing, though. You'd think there'd be a better design for humans by now, but then, I don't think that we'd accept it. (Remember in "The Matrix" where Agent Smith told Morpheus that the AIs had built an idyllic world for the humans at first, and we couldn't accept it? So they built a replica of the late twentieth century for us to live in. I think we really do thrive on misfortune and sadness.)

I was too pissed to deal with it, so I got in the Cutlass and just left. Usually, being in a car with no AC in the middle of the day in Houston is considered a Bad Thing�, but it wasn't terribly warm that day. (May 19, 1996. I can remember the date even without a reminder.)

I didn't know what to do. I just wanted out of there. I needed away, but didn't have a lot of options because I had all the money I had in the world on me, a princely sum of maybe thirty dollars. I got in the car and drove around a while, ending up at the Best Buy at Almeda Mall.

I spent a bit of time walking around the store, and finally left when I realized I really couldn't buy anything. Upon opening the door to the Cutlass, I realized something - the dome light behind the t-tops didn't come on.

Just perfect. That figures.

I got in, turned the key, and nothing. The damned battery was dead. I checked it, and it had water in the cells. Then again, I hadn't really driven the car that much lately (who could afford gas?), and the drive to this dying mall area wasn't too far, so I bet the battery didn't charge much...

In disgust I abandoned it and walked across the street to the actual mall.

After buying the book on a lark (I'd liked Snow Crash, so of course I wanted to read his new book, too), I walked around until I found a bench near one of the exit doors and started reading. It was one of those "the eyes see the words, but the mind doesn't comprehend" things - it wasn't working as escapism, by a longshot.

Around 6:00 I left the mall and walked back to the car. It still wouldn't turn over, so I went to Burger King, got some food and read a bit more. Nearing dark, I tried several times to call my father at work to see if he could sign out a car and come give me a jump start, but of course, he was out working an accident scene and wasn't in the office. (This is testimony to how desperate I was to not have to deal with my mother.)

In time, around dark, I called home. I got the third degree; she came and berated me while I jump-started the Cutlass off her Delta 88; once we got home I endured the usual criticism and emotional abuse while I tried to zone out, and spent the next three days sleeping all evening when she got home, rising in the night to read a little or try to answer some email, going back to bed around 4:30 so I'd be asleep when she woke up, and spend the daytime hours doing things so I could get back to sleep before she came home from work.

I'm in this place again. It's remarkable how things never really change. Then again, so many say that we live in Hells of our own making. The problem is that the people that are closest to us get a taste of that Hell.

I'm tired of being trapped in my family's private Hell. They made their lives this way. My life was going okay, and I get dragged into theirs over and over. Now I'm awash in it.

My life is spent being sabotaged, cut down in my tracks, lied to, hurt and dragged down. I can't get out of the misery pit with so many people hanging on to my ankles trying to drag me back into it. Life isn't supposed to be this way.

Is it?

I used to think that the world needed saving and people needed my help. Now I am starting to appreciate something Trinity said back then, and realize the truth of it. All you can do is save yourself. Let everybody else live in their private Hell.

Let them spend their lives in misery and suffering. Let them do the same things over and over, knowing that the same results will come of it, the same anger and divisiveness they've always known. Let them live in anger and taste their own tears and bile.

Just... leave me out of it, okay? I don't need you cussing me out, telling me what a worthless person I am, or telling me that I'm not the only one in the world with problems. I don't get off on being told that if I didn't exist then maybe your life would be better, or that it's no wonder nobody could care about me.

I can't deny it. I know all this already. My own private Hell.

restlessmind