Back to Tomorrow

I haven’t been home in 7 years. I didn’t exactly leave on a bright note, either. I’d left back then with a mind set and solidified for independence, for freedom, ready to chase my heart’s truest desires.

My family might as well be strangers.

I would reach out to my parents for the holidays, seeing how life had been treating them throughout the year, and similarly with my siblings who were basically non-existent to me that last year in my hometown.

I wouldn’t say my childhood was the worst or the most traumatic, I had two parents, a set of siblings who I got along with. . . well, until I started “losing my mind”, that is.

Or, at least that was always how they chose to see me.

I was the black-sheep, what do you expect?

I was the baby amongst a total of 3 girls, my two older-sisters were practically twins if they weren’t technically a year and a half apart.

They did everything the way that my parents wanted for us.

To be God-fearing, modest young ladies, who would save themselves for marriage and never be tempted by any “worldly” desires.

Please.

If you ask me, my parent’s religious rhetoric was always diabolical. Quite the freaking paradox.

I mean, who sets out a rule-book for how their children ought to be when they grow up? And if you thought about questioning it? God, you wouldn’t hear the end of it until you agreed.

But, that was always my shtick. I’d be the one to always disagree. I was the outcast, the disobedient scapegoat, if you will.

I embraced it for some time, until I became a teenager and high-school wasn’t any better.

Yeah, I was usually the kid in class who was always being sent out, I’d lost my virginity way too young, and you could probably always catch me with the stoners skipping in the bathrooms.

So. . . I mean, not really a shocker right? I had been born into a rigid family that quite literally strove for perfection.

What kind of delusional world are they living in? And, why on Earth, if I even had any say on choosing who my family is before being born, would I choose to be in this one?

Look, I’m 24 now, I barely graduated high-school, it was a total surprise for everyone in my family, even some of my closest friends from back then that are total strangers now, but the truth is, I always knew what I wanted, ever since I was a young sprout.

From the time I was in diapers until maybe when I began hitting puberty, my parents would take my sisters and I to church every weekend.

I’m not talking about no occasional “Sunday Worship”, no I mean, both Saturdays and Sundays, we would be forced and practically manipulated to believe if we were anywhere else in the world but church on these days that we would face a life of cursed sin ahead.

Until one day, when I was about 10-years old and had had enough of my parent’s religious spew, I’d taken off all my clothes in front of the entire ministry and streaked throughout the entire congression.

Pastor Mike barely even got through his sermon.

My parents were too busy worrying about their image, and how’d this little act from their youngest daughter would make them “look”, so we stopped going on Saturdays, and eventually, once I hit 15, and had used any lie that I could come up with, I stopped going Sundays, too.

My sisters barely would acknowledge my presence as their younger sister at school. Let alone when I would do any of my rebellious acts to “deliberately” make mom and dad mad. As they would always say.

What a bunch of babies.

Once I turned 14 and got to high school, I went straight to the guidance office and applied for my worker’s permit, got my first job as a baby-sitter and saved everything I could until I was old enough to get a better job at a local fast-food joint and save even more cash.

By 18, I had saved enough money to move away.

I was dedicated, what can I say? Most of my earnings always went to my savings if not on food or pot.

My parents thought I had always spent my time with my pot-head “loser” friends, but the thing is, that’s what I led them on to believe.

Every night when I’d get done working at the Burger King, I’d change into some spare clothes and find my friends afterwards.

Yep. My parents never knew that I was saving up for anything, because I always wanted to prove them wrong once I got old enough to move away.

It had literally been the day of graduation, when we all came home and I stripped from my cap and gown into my room, only to be seen coming out with luggage.

“What do you think you’re doing?” my mom shrieked,

“Lance, come see what your daughter’s doing!”

“Clotilda, what on Earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, yeah. . . I forgot to mention, I have an apartment in Milwaukee that I’ll be moving into tomorrow.”

Ha! Their eyes practically popped out of their sockets. My sisters would come running down the stairs groaning about how I did it, even questioning my parents why I was moving out before they were.

“They had nothing to do with it, you twats. I earned the cash for the past four years while you two were busy being God’s perfect angels.”

“Anyways, I’m 18 now, so I’ll be moving out voluntarily and won’t be back until Thanksgiving. Thanks for the memories.”

And. . . like that. . . I left and kept that promise. I would come back that Thanksgiving. . . not with open-arms from any of them of course, but just making more money as a manager now at a different Burger King in Milwaukee.

They fumed and judged and did what they all knew what to do best, there was only one thing I could say to all of this bull.

“Well, you won’t be seeing me for Christmas after this.”

And left with three plates of leftovers.

I was 19, and kept my word to this day.

They’d receive birthday cards, letters, phone calls if any one would dare to not send me to their voicemail but it wouldn’t be until today, the day of my mother’s funeral, that I would be voluntarily returning back home.

I work as a graphic designer now, I got out of the food biz years ago after saving enough for my freelancing dream.

But, when I got the phone call from my Dad last week about my mom’s sudden passing coming late one night from work and getting into an accident that would take her life. . .everything sort of. . . stopped.

“Clo. . .? Are you still there?” He’d said to me through weeps.

I was never the emotional type. The last time I felt something so sudden like this that would make me question my entire existence wasn’t since I fell out of love at 16 years old.

What a stupid tragedy that was to this.

I’d been living a life laser-focused on escaping my family, and doing anything I could to move ahead, further and further away from who I really am.

“I gotta go, I’ll see you guys there next week,”

I’d never cried that hard. All these years, I’d been loving my independence in Milwaukee, I was growing as a freelancer and really becoming something, but of course, there were the relational issues, I couldn’t keep a significant other if it killed me, and truth is, I rarely tried to. It was always just temporary for me, just like everything else in my life had been perceived as. And yeah. . . it's gotten lonely.

I’d spent these last few days emailing clients back letting them know that their work will have to be postponed or that they may need to consider services elsewhere because I couldn’t shake the confusion that spun inside me.

Sleep was out of the picture, all I could think about was all of the times my mom would desperately try to read Bible verses to me before bed without a fuss or leave pamphlets for Youth Groups and other religious B.S. on my nightstand as a subliminal way to change my ways.

I’d really given her hell, but she was my mom, after all.

She’d be the one to pick me up everytime I’d get suspended, we’d go for milkshakes every time, even in the Winter, to cool me down from whatever nonsense I’d gotten that day, “Consider this a rare heavenly treat,” she’d say, looking at me through her rear-view.

“You say that every time, mom.” I’d roll my eyes.

“Clotilda, I’m serious, if you don’t get your act together you’ll live a life full of curses and sins.”

I’d mouth every word she’d say like I was studying for a role in a play.

She was persistent, but cared. And, I never even got to say goodbye.

Tomorrow is January 7th.

My parent’s anniversary, and the day of my mother’s funeral.

I always made fun of the fact that they chose to wed during the new-year, like who on Earth does that?

“Clotilda, lots of people get married in the winter.”

“Yeah, okay Dad.”

I’m running on maybe 2 hours of sleep from these past three days, at most. Maybe I did sleep longer and my reality is just warped with all this grief and confusion, making time seem slower than it really is.

I don’t know, it sure feels that way.

What I do know is that I’ve got to catch this train by 7:45 AM tomorrow to Chicago.

My parents always thought Chicago was a god-awful city.

“Where the sinners lurk, Clotilda?!”

“God, you guys need to get out more.” I’d moan to them one Sunday dinner when I ranted about an art museum I had wanted to visit at the time to them.

Dusk turns to night here in Milwaukee, my graphic tee of pikachu stained with my morning’s coffee shines in the moonlight by my bedside, a cool breeze comes through as I try to sleep for the 50th time today.

Nothing seems to do it.

No meditation, or ASMR, or relaxing rain sounds, or phoning a friend, or breaking down and crying and releasing it all seemed to give me the necessary rest or peace with the knowledge of my mom being gone now.

Suddenly, a heavy weight overcomes me.

Like an elephant stepping over my chest,

“What the hell?”

Oh, I’m having a panic attack.

I’d have one of these before, but never this bad. Never this intense.

I got up and walked the room, my cat Furby following wherever my feet went.

“Furb, please”

I cued for him to leave me be. I looked back over my shoulder with tears in my eyes to see his chubby orange behind jump for the windowsill where the January breeze came through.

“I’ll never be what you want me to be, mom! I’m not Veronica or Vanessa, I’m your crazy messed up child with a weird name, and weird dreams. You never once gave my dreams a chance. You didn’t give me a chance, mom!”

“Clotilda, enough!”

An awkward silence had filled the kitchen all those years ago. My sisters and my dad had been out for an after school youth seminar with the Church.

I had never seen my mom so exasperated, yet so vulnerable, too.

Her face had changed in a way I never seen before as if for a split-second she began to consider what I said.

“Mom?”

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, opened her mouth, then closed it and scurried out of the kitchen with the tea she had been brewing that day.

I heard her footsteps go up the stairs and her bedroom door close behind her.

I had gotten to my mom that day. I was only 12 years old, but I knew.

She never once cried in front of me, and she never explained what happened after that, either. Everything was business as usual after that moment in our household as if it never happened. But deep down, I always knew.

I knew that she realized. . . I was right.

The chirps of the morning birds outside began to echo through the neighborhood, and then I sat up right with a haste.

“Holy shit, what time is it?”

I checked my phone, buried underneath the mountain of unfolded laundry that laid on my bed for the past week.

6:55A.M.

I threw the phone down, stripped naked and hopped in the shower. It’d take me half an hour to get to the train station, I had no time to waste.

Once out the shower, it was already 7:15A.M.

“Shit!”

I grabbed an overnight bag and threw a bunch of clothes from the bed without looking inside, dashed to the bathroom and filled it with toiletries and other things I’d need and ran to my nightstand for my car keys and train ticket.

I kissed Furby on the head,

“Bye, Furb, see you in a few days, shit wait, will you have enough food?”

My head spun to the food bowl by the bathroom door, filled to the brim.

“Oh, yeah. I overfed you last night. Okay, gotta go.”

Half-dressed, I practically jumped through the door, down the hallway to the first floor and made my way to my Camry.

As I started the car, the time showed on the clock:

7:29A.M.

“Oh, mama”

I didn’t wait for my car to warm up, I didn’t even check my mirrors as I backed out. I’d make it to that train station and to my mother’s funeral if it was the last thing I did.

Traffic was its usual flow this morning, people bustling in, and I whizzed through any way I could see fit. When I finally got to the station and paid to park my car for the time I’d be away, my phone showed the time as 7:50A.M.

I was running 5-minutes behind and still needed to find my train. It would take me all day to travel to Chicago and make it on time for the evening service.

After asking for help from a nearby passenger I’d overheard trying to make the same train, they pointed me in the direction of where it was beginning to take off.

“It's no use, dear. It’s too late.”

My heart sank,

“No!”

My legs moved faster than my thoughts and my overnight bag jolted with every step I took,

“Wait! Please!”

The train’s speed went from an idle hum to a loud, fast-moving pace. The carts whizzed past me in my peripheral as I stared ahead to the locomotive hoping the conductor could hear me.

My breath was frosty, and the tears coming down warmed my face.

“Please!” I pleaded.

I stood for a moment in the station, not thinking about what I’d even do next. The next train to Chicago wouldn’t leave for another three hours, and on that schedule there’s no way I’d make it to the service on time.

I’d always make it work, I’d always make it on time, what on Earth was happening to me?

My mind danced to a moment in the past, when I was 6-years old, enraged by my parent’s lack of understanding as I had tried and tried to understand the homework given to me. I was in tears.

“Clotilda, honey, there’s no need to get upset. You are going to understand this material, you just need to be patient with yourself. Let's do it again, dear.” My dad cooed,

“Math is stupid! I’m stupid!”

“No, Clotilda. You are not stupid, and do not ever say that about yourself ever again.” My mom had turned her mom-voice on and I began to perk up and listen,

My dad put his hand on my mom’s shoulder and they both looked at me with earnest eyes across the kitchen table,

“You, Clotilda, are as willful as they come, you never give up and that’s why we know you’ll go far in life. Mom and I are always here for you, no matter how hard things get, or confusing, like Math, you won’t always get things right, even if you did before. You are going to make mistakes, and that is okay.”

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and came back, looking down at my phone: 8:01A.M.

I took a deep breath in, and exhaled like I never have before, and put the phone to my ear.

It only took two rings,

“Dad? Hey. . . I need you.”