Personal Essay 2nd Draft

It was the summer of 2014. The days lasted longer in Tennessee. I often felt like God wanted me to have more time to enjoy my days in the summer for this reason. The sunsets were beautiful, passionate illustrations put on display every night around eight o’clock. They had more texture when it had been raining that day. I always loved those days. I’ll never forget the summer of 2014.

My sister, Caitlyn, had just graduated from high school, and we got to go on a senior trip in celebration. She had always struggled academically, so this was an incredible accomplishment for her. My family and I went to Italy, a magical place that Caitlyn had always wanted to visit. It would be my first time ever visiting Europe, so I was excited, so excited that nothing could get me down, not even my parents fights.

When I think about it, my parents were always fighting. And it was nasty. Never physical, thank God, but always with pointed words. It was sometimes sadistic in a way, like they would go for a near fatal shot with what they said to each other, just to see the suffering that that they had the power to inflict with simple vocabulary.

My mom’s weapon of choice was often my father’s immaturity, resulting in his prolonged unemployment. This insecurity was easy to target and effective in her attack. Providing for his family is an essential part of a man’s identity, and my father always faltered in that department.

My father’s artillery was often supplied by my mother’s busy schedule. He attacked her validity within motherhood. Those attacks were saved though, well timed, and usually as a counter to her jabs at his unemployment. Who else would raise the children when you’re gone all the time?

This was what love was. It always was a war. It never had survivors.

But this war seemed to take a pause for me when we went to Italy for eight days in the summer of 2014. I dove into a sea of ignorance for a week to try and enjoy a magical voyage celebrating my sister/best friend’s achievement. And it was a fun time. We got to see Rome, Florence, Milan, and Venice. When my sister and I were together, it was like time stopped. The days lasted longer, the wine tasted better, our feet hurt less, we were happier, and we were excited for the next day. These days escaped our grasp just as quickly as we got hold of them.

On our trip back to America, my father became more irritable than he normally was. He was a smoker. My mother always reminded him of his failed attempt to quit – it was part of her armory – so I had put the increased irritability on the fact that he hadn’t been able to smoke in twelve hours. We got stuck in customs due to his belief that a house plant from another country didn’t classify as an invasive species violation. He cursed the system, saying it was all bullshit and pointless. Me, being the brilliant rising sophomore that I was, decided to provide a different perspective to him. I suggested to him that they have rules to keep us safe. That comment, in his perspective, warranted an assurance that he was the Alpha Male in our relationship. What I mean to say is that he looked me dead in the eyes, and said very clearly, that he was going to break my goddamn neck if I said another fucking word.

Love was always a war. And my father planned on taking no survivors.

I went on autopilot for the rest of the trip home. My body was numb, which my therapist suggests was my brain protecting itself from any traumatic experience that could’ve happened. I was on autopilot for a long time after that experience. Throughout my parents’ divorce, which was initiated a week after our Italian getaway, I felt nothing. Those Tennessee sunsets lost their beauty to me. “Passionate” was just a combination of letters and nothing past a word that I put on applications. When it rained, I only saw grey. It seemed that I could never focus on the dramatic pinks and purples that would occur if I could just watch for a little bit longer. I was on autopilot, flying through a safe and secure course of life. And I was okay with that. I was really okay with dying, but I couldn’t leave my mother alone during her life falling apart, so I was doing the closest thing to it.

One day, in the summer of 2015, I found a movie hidden in the crevasse of Netflix’s foreign films section. “North Sea Texas” is its title, and I’m not sure why I watched it in the first place. Perhaps because it looked unsaturated and dull, an aesthetic with which I identified. It was a story about a young boy coming of age, and I couldn’t help but sit up and stay awake. The story is nowhere near exciting. It’s sad and miserable. But for some reason, it took me off autopilot. This movie changed my life. My life became about capturing emotions. It became about seeing things in a different perspective, even if it was painful getting there.