There’s more than enough beauty in the world. My mother told me that. But what did that mean to me as a six year old? We’d be sitting outside in the yard after me and James had played in the little blow up pool. He got bored with me and disappeared. But Mom would sit near the pool on a low chair and I’d be wet and resting in the grass. She had that look on her face, now I’d say soft and kind. As a kid, that look worried me because I felt she’d gone away and that terrified me. But her voice was soft and sing song-y and she’d talk about big things. I never knew why or what or whatever, but the sound of her voice calmed me. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, still half wet from splashing around, to the song in her voice.
There’s more beauty than we can ever touch. She’d say stuff like that. Thinking about that now, I can only imagine she was hurting inside. We weren’t enough for her, or was that really it? Looking back on her, probably something was wrong with her. Probably today there would be a name and a drug for her. But she just went through the motions as best she could. Me and James have talked about that lately. She tried.
But they say that parents do their best, even if it isn’t enough. That’s bullshit. What about the ones who torture their children or abuse them in other unthinkable says. They are not doing their best. They are giving into something evil. And we all have a say about that. We might not have a say about how things turn out for us, but we all say yes or no to the darkness.
And I know this. I might fuck up, I might die as a result, but I’m not giving in to the really evil side of me. My decision. I’m not going to kill somebody to score. I’d steal, I’d lie. That’s so easy. I’d slime my way around truth and goodness, but never would I go down that dark tunnel of no return. Those murdering parents aren’t trying their best. They’ve entered the evil side and there’s no going back.
But for my mother, she just saw the beauty and that hurt her. That’s the best I can do right now to figure her out.