A Fall Felled Forest

I would be in this state of uncertainty between denial and facing my harsh reality for three more years. If leaving a bad marriage is hard, think about trying to leave your entire family.  Think about telling your mom that you love her, but you can no longer be in her life.  Think about going against the one person you have never dared to disobey.  Think about facing the reality that your brother, who you once built tree forts with, had reached a point of instability that put your sanity and well being at risk.  Think about losing your entire family in one fowl swoop.  This is what my reality was comprised of. This was my path to freedom.

I would return to my family two more times before finally making the choice to walk away from them forever.  Despite my awareness of who they really were and how detrimental they were to my mental well being, I couldn't bare the thought of standing alone in the world.  Our families give us a tie to the earth.  They are the reason we exist.  Willing or not, we take on their past and become their future.  Family is the most fundamental form of community.  Without a family, I pictured myself floating around the earth with no line of connection to anything.  I would be a house with no foundation.  If a big storm appeared in my life, I would simply crumple up and blow away.  Where would I be without my family?  Nobody would ever be there for me unconditionally, nobody would pick me up when my life fell to pieces.  My life was falling apart and the people that were supposed to be there to pick me up were the ones pulling it apart piece by piece.  I had no where left to run.

When I returned from France, my dad was in the process of leaving my mom for the umpteenth time.  Every time that he left, he would peel away giving the impression that he would never look back.  I never saw my dad cry.  He was a stone wall.  He approved or disapproved, but never loved.  I figured he was incapable of the sentiment.  Sometimes, I would get an email once a month checking in and giving me a status update.  The last two times he left, the only communication I had was a two sentence email on my birthday.  While he was gone, I would comfort my mom telling her that she deserved better and could start over without him.  Every time, I would hope that it would be the last.  Every time, he would show back up broke and lost, and she would let him back into our lives.

This time, I was sure it was going to be the last.  He had taken leaving to a whole new level.  For months, he had been planning his perfect escape.  He created a secret bank account and was slowly moving money from my parents mutual account into his own.  Once he had completely drained their account, he left everything in my mom's name and refused to pay any of the bills that they had shared; the mortgage, the business loan and the car loans.  He moved to St. Louis Missouri to fly planes and left my mom to deal with all the open ended disasters he had gotten them into.  His last words to my mom were, "I never loved you, this was my plan all along, I just needed a way out."

I remember walking outside while he was packing up his car; the only thing that he was loading in was his old record collection. He looked at me with hollow eyes that reflected his soulless body and muttered, "I'll miss you."  He drove away without looking back.