Just Business as Usual

Tonight I took an hour and a half drive that should've taken thirty minutes to my aunt and uncle's house to have dinner. I had to listen to my busted GPS reroute every five minutes even though I was doing exactly what it said and couldn't have taken a wrong turn considering I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I had a headache coming on an I was getting frustrated, and it didn't get much better when I actually did fuck up following the directions. Regardless, I can safely say going to eat there was the only way I would have wanted to spend my Friday night.

At their house all we did was have dinner and watch TV for a little before I went home, but it was great because their family is normal, functional. They have two kids, the oldest is in eighth grade, and I feel happy for them because they don't have to deal with parents who are morbidly depressed and on the verge of a mental breakdown. They don't have parents or parental figures that need to use kids as a trampoline to bounce their emotional problems off of. We just sat around the table, made small talk, watched television, and had some much needed good laughs. Sometimes I need to be reminded that adults can be normal and in touch with society. I see it with my friend's parents from time to time, I saw it in my own family members tonight.

I never had that, not even once, at least not until I went to Israel. The routine I'm talking about. I never got to sit down with members of my immediate family and just have a typical, Friday night dinner. Sure, I've had holidays and whatnot that have been enjoyable but what sticks with me is that the dinner I went to tonight is an everyday thing-- something they do because they want to not because of some arbitrary obligation to gather based on a fictitious story about how some people left Egypt two thousand years ago.

The other day I graduated from high school and my step-father, the only adult I'm living with right now, didn't stay for the reception or the lunch afterwards. Later I asked him why and he said, "You graduated. Big fucking deal, why should I have to go to lunch? I had work." This is the guy I've lived with for the past nine years. I'm not surprised that we never eat dinner together, in fact I eat 90% of my meals alone, and it depresses the shit out of me. He's extremely cold when he interacts with people, he takes everything personally, and I'm realizing now how much of that has rubbed of on me.

This is why I can't wait to go to Israel, because I'll have what my aunt and uncle and their kids have. I'm not trying to snub my family here for my family there, but I think I have the right to get to know them since I never did growing up. There's also the sense of adventure of going to a foreign country, and also hopefully breaking through the terrible habit of laziness that I have. I can't go to college with no work ethic, it's not worth my time or my grandparent's money. When I consider all this, and as I write it down now, it seems crazy for me to not take a hiatus from college to get my personal shit together and hopefully not feel for sorry for myself all the time and maybe even be truly, genuinely happy. How the fuck could someone say that's less important than going to college for four years so you can get a piece of paper written that has your name written on it in pretty calligraphy?