Between Love and Hate

Most people either love their parents or hate them. If it's the former, even if their parents drive them mad or do insane things, in the end, they still love their parents and want to always keep them in their lives. If it's the latter, even if their parents try to be nice and compassionate, they know their parents won't really change and will always let them down.

I'm stuck in between.

My parents take care of me. They've always taken care of me. They try hard to make sure I get to work every night, to make sure I have something to eat every day, that I have the Internet to entertain and preoccupy myself. They want me to be happy, and they try to make me happy.

My parents also lie to me, mislead me, and make such a mess of their own lives that I get dragged down with them. They can't make themselves happy, they don't even understand what happiness is or how to get it, and they don't have any idea what to do to make me happy, or what they need to allow or force me to do in order for me to be happy.

Let's start with something very simple: If they died, I wouldn't know what to do. Sure, most people wouldn't know what to do because it'd be a quagmire, with a ton of decisions to be made. But I'm not talking about not knowing how to go about having them cremated or buried or what to do with the house. Quite simply, I wouldn't be able to survive without them, not at this moment. My brother could, because he's lived on his own before, he has friends on whom he can depend. But I'm not really close to anybody (in the state, at least - there is one person in the state, but I'm not close to her family, and I couldn't impose on them), and I have no idea where I would go. But it goes beyond where I'd live - I wouldn't even know how to live.

I don't know how to drive. I don't have the first clue about driving. Furthermore, I'm so bad with directions, and have never been forced to learn where things are, that I couldn't even get to my job without help from a GPS or someone that knows the way. Hell, I couldn't get anywhere, really, because I don't know where anything is. Then there's the fact that I simply don't know how to do simple things like paying a bill, or getting service set up in my name, or how to set up a bank account. I don't know how to do anything! I couldn't live on my own right now because I wouldn't know how to do anything! I could take care of myself, sure. I know how to do laundry, I know how to cook the stuff that I eat, I know to bathe regularly, etc. But that's simple. What I have no clue about is, how do I pay my electric bill? How do I pay my water bill? How do I set up cable? If I live in a place with a landlord, do I just complain to the landlord every time something breaks? If I don't have a landlord and am buying a house or trailer or whatever, where do I send the money every month, and what happens in my water messes up? Do I just call a plumber? To put it succinctly, I don't know how to live on my own. My parents have not prepared me for life on my own at all.

That's scary. That is scary as all hell. The world already terrifies me; the thought of having to face it alone, without knowing the simple rules to life, elicits a feeling I cannot put into words.

So, I'm mad at my parents for not preparing me for life on my own. But I'm also glad that I didn't have to move out at eighteen and figure it all out by myself. I'm glad that I was taken care of. Where do I end up? How do I balance being appreciative for all my parents have done for me, providing me with food and shelter for years without me bringing in a dime, and being mad at them for not making me learn how to live on my own? How can I acknowledge that I owe them for raising me and not treating me like shit, yet also acknowledge that they're the primary reason I haven't accomplished anything? How can I be glad that they didn't mess me up by getting into fist fights with one another or beating me but be angry that they did mess me up by owning a hundred cats, wasting all our money, having gigantic fights, doing drugs and getting arrested, and having episodes where they were so suicidal or angry that I almost couldn't stand to exist in the same world as them?

It's hard to keep loving them when they, either individually or together, do or say things that make me despise them and see how little has changed over the years. But it's hard to hate them when they bust their asses to keep us alive and fed. It's hard. It's just hard.