It was the “Fun with Marjorie and Eric Show” again today. Otherwise known as my parents’ weekly visit. Seeing them wasn’t high on my list of preferred activities for today, but I didn’t have much choice. It was that or, well, nothing.
The theme of today’s get together was Why? As in, Why did Jeff do what he did? Again, not really something I felt like discussing, but it wasn’t up to me.
Apparently Cat Poop had talked to my parents before I came in, because the three of them seemed to have some kind of plan for getting me to talk about what happened. First, Cat Poop told my parents how well things had been going with me. Then he asked my parents to tell me how they’d felt when they found me that night.
My mother immediately turned on the waterworks. She said she’d come upstairs and seen blood all over the floor. She said at first she’d thought I was playing a practical joke on her, and she’d laughed even though she thought it was a mean thing to do. When I didn’t respond, she apparently totally freaked out, because my father heard her screaming and ran up to see what was wrong.
I’m not saying she was lying or anything, but I do want to point out that she’s always said that if she hadn’t become a lawyer, she would have been an actress. Seriously. A couple of years ago she even performed in this completely tragic community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. She was actually pretty good, which is why I wouldn’t put it past her to make things sound more awful than they really were. I mean, finding your kid almost dead is bound to ruin your night, I get that. But it’s like she was trying to make me feel even worse about it.
My father didn’t cry, but he said that seeing me on the floor like that was the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to him. Then he described how he’d made these tourniquets using some torn-up sheets from my bed and held me until the paramedics got there. He said he kept telling me how much he loved me, over and over, in case hearing it helped me stay alive.
That got to me way more than my mother crying. My dad never says sappy stuff to us. He’s the kind of guy who can sit through a movie that has everyone else bawling like babies and all he’ll say is, “Can you believe how big Julia Roberts’s mouth is?” I’m serious. Nothing gets to him. He’s like one of those cowboys in an old western.
Listening to my parents talk about that night, I thought about the time Sadie asked me who had saved me. She was right that it was my mom and dad and not the paramedics. If my mother hadn’t come up to see me, and if my dad hadn’t known what to do, I really would have died. Three weeks ago, that’s what I thought I wanted. Now things seem different. Not totally different, but different enough that I guess I’m glad they did what they did. But I wasn’t about to tell them that.
Then Cat Poop asked me how I felt about what my parents had said. What are you supposed to say to something like that? Gee, I’m really sorry I freaked you out, and thanks for making sure it didn’t work out? It just sounds so stupid, like the big moment in one of those cheesy made-for-TV movies where the kid who ran away from home and became a hooker does a giant boo-hoo after her mother fights off her pimp with an umbrella to get her off the street. I couldn’t say those things, even if I was thankful for what they did. And I was. I mean I am. Thankful. Sort of. On good days.
What I did say was that I was sorry for making them worry. That seemed like a good compromise, right in between the stony, uncommunicative teen-ager and the cry-till-your-nose-runs breakdown I could have gone with. I said I was sorry that they were afraid for me and reassured them that everything was okay now.
I should have left out that last part about everything being okay now, because that’s one of those statements the doc jumps on like a cat on a mouse.
Sure enough, he said, “What’s different about how you are today from how you were that night?”
Oh, man. He pushed me right into that one. Here we were back at the big Why? I was supposed to show how much I’d learned about myself, and they were supposed to get some answer to explain it all. But like I keep saying, there is no big reason.
I had to say something, though, so I said, “I guess I’ve learned that no matter how bad things get, there are always people who love you.”
I won’t blame you if you stop to go throw up right about now. I know I would. But it sounds pretty good, right? If you were my parents, you’d buy it. And they did. I felt a little bad when I saw the look on my mother’s face. She seemed really relieved, like she’d been worried all along that the reason I tried to off myself was because I thought she didn’t love me. But that was never it. I know she and my father love me. This was never about them.
I think Cat Poop knew I was handing them a big pile of crap and calling it a present, because he pushed me even further and said, “How would you handle things differently now, Jeff?”
What I wanted to say was, “I’d lock my door.” I was getting tired of having to make everyone feel better. I’m sorry I freaked everyone out. I’m sorry my parents are sad about it. But it’s over. Can we all move on?
I thought for a minute or two until I wasn’t quite so steamed, then I said, “I’d talk to somebody.” I didn’t say who. I just said I would talk to somebody. That way they could each think I meant them.
It was the right answer, I guess, because Cat Poop finished with the third degree and moved on to some other stuff. It wasn’t anything exciting, so I won’t go into it. Basically, he talked to us about better ways to communicate. Blah. Blah. Blah.
I was really thrilled when it was all over and my parents went home. I was even more thrilled to go back to my room. Let me tell you, writing a report on Lord of the Flies, which is what I was doing for my English class assignment, is way better than spending an hour with the doc and my parents. Given a choice between discussing the symbolism of a pig head on a stick and discussing my feelings, I’ll take the pig head every time.