My father is a verbally abusive ass who used to 'discipline' my brother by punching him. My mother's spent my entire life telling me I'm 'not a delicate flower' and ignoring things like how badly I handle too many people at once or how everyone goes too fast when they explain math problems. One brother spends his entire time talking about drugs, alcohol, and sex; the other one screams at everything, including me, and calls me an idiot constantly. My sister is seven, and more like my daughter than my sister because no one can be bothered to get up from whatever they're doing without an hour of lecturing from me.
Normally, I can deal with this. I just sort of block it out, and not all the personalities play out at once, so if I keep my music loud enough, I can block it out. But I've had a rough week and got angry during dinner (being called an 'idiot' every five minutes gets really old), and my mind started drifting to my Girl Scout days. The clearest memory was one of a school opening, where we had a booth. I was on crowd duty--I went out into the crowd and told them to come to our booth. I didn't really understand yet that my mom was wrong and that, much as I enjoyed crowds, I had a limit, but I was starting to hit it. Almost the second I did, my leader, D, walked up to me and said, "Okay, honey, you've hit your people-limit. Time to sit down."
My leader and her daughter were my best friends because they did things like that all the time, without even noticing. They'd explain what they were saying, keep me from doing dumb stuff like going to parties, and make sure I didn't overwhelm myself. Total strangers were kinder to me than my own family is today, and knew more about me than my family ever will. They didn't want anything in return; this was totally normal. That's what family is like. And I don't have that, and probably never will, because I'm so jaded and untrusting that the only people I really, honestly talk to are online.
I just wish I could go back and live only in the minutes where I was with them, at Girl Scouts, and I was okay. Not the other times; just those Girl Scout meetings and outings where I had a family. And I want to pretend that my leader's family was mine. And it hurts like hell.
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Now if only I could think of a witty signature...