I Don’t Think We are Going to Make it

Heartbreak was never really something mom and I talked about. I guess after three divorces you might start to get numb to it. I never really brought that up.

I should’ve known though, that Charlie and I were doomed from the start. But young love breeds repulsive optimism, even after the same argument began for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I feel like you never care about my problems. I try to talk to you, and you basically tell me to suck it up.”

He would say something like this to get the fight going.

I would usually respond with “so you want me to feel sorry for you” or, “how is me giving you options to solve your problems me not caring?”

He always hated this, me bluntly restating what he actually meant.

Not as much as my grandmother hated when I slouched, though.

You think you are going to make a good impression sitting like that? You think if I spent as much time sitting as you did then I would have been able to purchase my first house when I was younger than you?

I knew to sit proper, to speak especially clearly when I was visiting with her.

Working for her was a little different. I was her eyes and ears in the restaurant. I was young, people were careless around me. They thought I wasn’t listening, that I was too focused scrubbing the pans to see the money they were stealing.

We bonded this way.

I didn’t make many friends though, I was the owner’s granddaughter, after all.

“Sometimes I just need to complain and I can never vent to you. You don’t say it will be okay, or that you know it sucks, or that I should rest or anything. You just start trying to fix the problem. It isn’t your job to fix my problems.”

I agreed with him. It was his job to fix his problems. But he wasn’t doing that, so it seemed the next best able bodied mind would be responsible (this was me).

See, he was stressed about school (he had to get nearly perfect grades to keep his scholarship because he had been slacking), but also needed to find a job to afford his car payment.

Fair stressors.

Life could be a lot harder though, I thought. He didn’t want to work fast food, but nowhere else would hire him, and he found it necessary to get a car with a higher car payment than he could reasonably afford.

Foolish.

But he didn’t want me to tell him that money was money, regardless of where it was coming from.

He definitely didn’t want me to tell him that he wouldn’t be this stressed if he had worked a little harder earlier on in school, or would’ve chosen something a little cheaper to drive.

I remember when my mom told me I would have to pay her $250 a month to use her old car when I turned 16. At that point, I had a retail job making minimum wage that was only part time (since I was in school). That would’ve been all of my money. I just couldn’t afford it.

Charlie’s mom told me I could use their extra car. It was when we were getting pedicures, which she insisted on. She liked to do girl things with me since she had all boys.

My mom didn’t approve (of both the car, and the pedicure)— I shouldn’t take, not ever.

“Your problems aren’t going to be fixed by complaining about them. They only exist because you didn’t work harder. I am trying to help you work harder now. I am trying to help you relieve your stress.”

He never understood this. It was like he didn’t want his problems solved, because then he would have nothing to complain about.

I tried to be supportive, but I could never stand to baby.

“I am not working fast food. I will let my parent’s help out before I work fast food.”

I wanted to blame him. I did. But how much could I? His mother, his wonderful, gracious mother, had only wanted him to have everything he ever wanted—everything she never had.

And so he got it.

“Have they not done enough for you? You took on this car. You need to figure it out”

After having this argument for the fourth time in one semester, I started to wonder about the shit and the sugar. It was a saying from my grandmother, one of her life mottos.

If the shit don’t outweigh the sugar, it ain’t worth your time

I wondered when she picked that up, I found it equally clever and true. Maybe it was when her mother abandoned her. Or when she grew up in foster care. Maybe it was when she dropped out of high school because she got pregnant with my mom?

I’m glad my mom outweighed the shit.

“Who are you to say my parents can’t help me? How is that your place??”

His mother, too kind, would help him to the ends of the earth. I knew this. She was good to talk to, even when Charlie and I were fighting. She was always understanding, always sympathetic.

“I know it’s not my place, but they deserve better.”

I knew I shouldn’t be saying it, it really really wasn’t my place, but my frustration overcame me. He was being selfish.

I was trying to calm down, it was out of my control. I had only heard that a thousand times in my life.

Mom and I had dinner together every night. It was usually take out, and at about 9 pm because that was when she got home from work. Regardless, we would always sit down, no phones, no tv, and talk.

I think that was how she became one of my best friends.

She was very repetitive though. Anytime anyone was annoying me, her response, tried and true, would be “now what do I always say Morgan? You can’t control others, you can only control how you react to them.”

I typically rolled my eyes, because by now I thought she would come up with a new response—something a little fresher, just a little less predictable.

Yet here I was, thinking about it at this very moment.

Moms are so annoying.

“So I’m just a piece of shit now?”

*inserts sarcastic tone*

“Wow thanks babe I’m so glad I have you to talk to.”

I had a bad habit of my sarcastic switch flipping the second he would give me any ounce of sarcasm in his tone. That was probably why these never went anywhere.

“Aw you’re welcome, happy to help.”

“I am not doing this with you anymore, I’m sick of it.”

“Then I’ll solve your problem.”

That’s when I left.

Sitting in my car, I started to think about us. I thought about me, the values that had been instilled in me, and those that he was raised on. I loved his mom, I really did, but in that moment, I was especially grateful for the hard lessons my mother and grandmother had taught me.

I knew I would never be held back in life. I knew I would never stand in my own way.

I called my mom right then.

“Mom, I don’t think we are going to make it.”