I debated the transfer for months. When I went home for the holiday break, I almost didn't come back for the next semester. Learning how bad things were over the phone was nothing compared to having to see it. When I came home, the Christmas tree wasn't up. The house was in shambles--like a gypsy camp. My father and brothers were eating fast food every night, while my mother ate only ice cream because there was no other food in the house. We all got a handful of cash for Christmas that year, because Mom couldn't get out of bed to shop and Dad was too tired trying to keep up with everything else. As a little girl, I'd developed a thick skin when something like this happened, but my brothers never had. As I watched them struggle in their public lives because of their home life, I couldn't even fathom leaving at the end of break to start winter semester, let alone going back next year.
I explained this all to my friend, and with a tone that told me he both did and didn't want to know he asked "So are you going to be here next year?"
"Yes," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere." I think it was the first time I'd said it out loud. At least, it was the first time it felt real, the first time the decision settled with me right.
That was when he asked me how it had all started--my mother's illnesses. Our friendship was a pretty young one. We were steadily attempting to make up for it as quickly as we could with long conversations about every subject we fancied. I'd asked him questions like "What's your favorite dinosaur" and "What's your favorite childhood memory?" So many questions I'd asked him, and he'd been so good to answer. When our friendship got stronger, I stopped asking questions. I wanted him to share things because he wanted to tell me and trusted me, not because I'd asked. I'm not the same way. I hide much and give up little. There are some things I'll only share if you ask. And he asked me this one thing, and I couldn't tell him. It was a secret and it hurt.
We decided to head back from our hike, and our conversation became light again. We were good at that. We never let a heavy conversation turn into an awkward moment. We chatted in our usual fashion, not forcing a subject but freeing it to the leisurely wanderings of whim. I felt particularly light-hearted as I walked back, prancing from stone to stone when we came to the rockier parts of the trail; and mirroring my mood in a dainty step and a bob of my shoulders.
For the first time in months, I was finally starting to feel okay about my decision to stay. I knew that back home, Mom was doing better--not great, but good. I knew that my family would be okay. I knew that I loved being here and that there was a purpose to my position. I also knew that no one had ever asked me that question about my mom before. No one had ever cared enough to ask, and because of that, he deserved to know.
"I think I'm ready to tell you about what happened to my mom now." And I did. I didn't cry. I didn't get upset. I didn't let the years of pain and disappointment and burden tell me I had to be sad about this. In that moment, it wasn't a secret that left scars. It was a fact. Simple and honest. I said it as if I were reciting a grocery list or remarking on the weather--not as if I was just giving up the family secret so hush-hush we pretended it didn't exist.
I haven't told anyone since then, and I don't plan on it. I didn't get over it that day. I still get upset when I think about it. I still blame it for most of my problems. But at that moment, it didn't matter. At that time and place, it wasn't a secret anymore. Sure, it still hurts like hellfire; but at least I know that in some place and time, it doesn't exist that way. I may only carry that with me as a memory, intangible and flighty, but since then I've recreated and reincarnated it. As I relive it, the purpose of things becomes more clear, and I've just begun to connect the coincidences and understand their functions as parts towards a whole. And that's all I'm really getting at--being whole.
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