It feels as though I’ve always been the obvious black sheep in my family. But now that I sit with it, breathing, I remember fitting in much better in my early youth. In fact, I was an integral part of the family. We were a carefully balanced unit. One of the most interesting things about my family is our perfect polarity. I am Taurus, my brother is Scorpio. My mother is Aries, my father is Libra. We all balance each other’s energy. Or we used to. It’s really a massive and emotionally withdrawing reflection of how it all came to be what it now, though. But then, it was love, imagination and games. We were all escape artists. A warm, full house with each member off in their own world. Mom, at the table reading a Nora Roberts book. Dad, downstairs, in the place I sit now, playing Max Payne. My brother, on the couch, playing game boy. I’m reading The Babysitter’s Club after finishing a good 4 hours on Pokémon Blue. I can see and feel this moment I’m describing on a cellular level and it is heavy in it’s ache. I long for and miss the simplicity of it all. Holy shit. I just ate whatever I wanted and played with my family and played games and dreamed of what life would be.

I dreamed of writing. I dreamed of dancing. Of being a painter, a poet. A lawyer or a politician. A paleontologist. I don’t know why but I remember sitting in the bucket seat of the old turquoise van and being buckled in by my parents, my brother next to me. I remember saying I wanted to find dinosaur bones like Jurassic Park- “a paleontologist”, my parents said. My brother agreed. As we drove off, Aqua played in the background as I began to wonder if there would be enough bones left for me to find by the time I grew up.

Nobody warns you about the casual slide through your twenties. No really, it’s okay, just take a year off, figure it out. Go out with your friends on weekends while they still live here. Stay occasionally focused and curious with yourself and your future. But mostly be social. Or be private. Netflix, snacks, self-induced serenity. Take weekends to the next big city. Have beers with friends in numerous locations.

But really, do it. I have no regrets. Sitting here reminiscing on being a child and thinking of what it would be to grow up is quite actualizing, though. I really thought I’d be exploring one thing after another- the arts, new culture and world travel, science, fashion, writing, live in New York, vacationing in Greece.

Instead, it was a string of minimum wage jobs and holding it together at the seams with passing friends, alcohol, and laughter. So much laughter, dancing, unexpectedness. I don’t regret it for a minute. But no one tells you when you’re a kid; that guy that works at the service counter or that one same girl at that supermarket would have been your best friends growing up. The people you learned and loved with. The lady on the beach with three kids was your favorite friend in art class. Back in the day. And it’ll all go from leaving art class to “back in the day” really, really quickly. It won’t feel like it at the time, but in hindsight. It’s been ten years and I still dream of those people that now fill the supermarkets, service shelves, mundaneness, ordinariness, and the extraordinariness, too. Wherever they all ended up… I hope they’re all so full of love and well. The people I passed in hallways on the way to memories that would store deeply in the fabric of my subconscious. Now how do I release them? Haha. Seriously though.

Can I release it all, and just be? Can I somehow still feel the shiny and new pack of Pokémon cards being slid under my door but not bear the weight of the reality that it is all ashes now. Ouch. My shoulders, my head, my heart. Does anyone else feel this? Does anyone else poke at these tender places marked “Do Not Enter”? Or is it just me? Am I trying to hurt or trying to heal?

Can I heal, without the hurt? Is there some timeline available, off the beaten path, that I never noticed before that I can take? I’ll believe it to be possible and true- there’s no harm in not holding faith of a distant vision of gentleness and growth coexisting. It’s a worthwhile bet, even if all the odds seem stacked against it. Of course, the lessons have been challenging until now. And that soreness is right there. But I’m sure something will come of it all. Something beautiful and worthwhile.

And while I’m at it, I’ll believe my family can heal, too. We can all be together in harmony again. My parents can be healthy. We can all just dance and laugh and hold each other and share awe at how crazy this whole life thing is. We’re in it together, after all. Sigh. The aching.

I release, I release, I release. I am my own family.