The Beginning

My New Reality

I sat starring out my window probably longer than was polite. I looked to the sky for some kind of reassurance that was currently not present in my life. I was hoping for a sign or proof that change was going to happen. I could hear a muffled voice next to me calling my name but the strength to answer or turn seemed beyond my capacity. So, I continued to stare at the colorless sky without thinking of much or feeling much until a hand grabbed my shoulder. I turned slowly to face the owner of the hand without any change in facial expression or thought.

“It’s about time don’t you think?” Said the man looking at me.

Without nodding or even hinting that I had heard what he said I looked back to the colorless sky that was now beginning to feel oppressive. I then heard the man sigh get up and walk out of the darkly lit room, whose window seat I had occupied for the past four days. He was right though, it was time, a beginning was about to be recognized.

After he left I could hear in the distance the hushed sounds of a conversation that was meant to be private. I turned my head to listen for a minute or two intrigued by the fact that for the first time in a long time I held a since of curiosity.

“She won’t come I’ve been talking to her for the past hour and it seems she hasn’t even heard me, should I call the school?” Without straining I heard the other voice respond, “No, no she stills has a bit more time, there’s no need to rush her.” By this time in the conversation though I had, like many times before, become uninterested and turned back to face the sky; nothing was different. The reality of the situation, however, was actually quite tragic, and in order to understand I must start at the beginning, the only logical place to really start.

For 16 years I lived in a one-story ranch house in the Cherry Creek region of Denver, Colorado. The originally red brick of the house was hidden beneath taupe paint and further hidden by a colony of trees, which to my satisfaction, and the satisfaction of my family hid the house away from the street. It had a backyard of roughly two acres that was always in impeccable condition thanks to my dad’s past but not forgotten dream of becoming a horticulturist. We had a pond, bridge and a gazebo to match all painted a dark green and placed so perfectly in the yard that it seemed almost poetic. The house itself wasn’t large, but it didn’t have to be. For 16 years it was just my dad, my brother and I and I was fine with that.

I really do love my mom, but she wasn’t around much and my memories of her stretch no further than the weekly hour-long phone calls we have and the various, but few, holidays she has spent at home. I like to think that even though my dad pretty much raised me, a significant portion of my mom’s personality resides in me. She is somewhat eccentric, but easy going and loving. She looks like me, I’ve been told, but with a rounder face and wider eyes. Her hair is an auburn color and cut short above her shoulders.

She was nearly 30 years old when she had me but she may as well have been 16, based solely on her maturity level that is. My brother, Tyler had been conceived three years before, our birthdays both being August 10^th. By the time she had me though, she came to the unfortunate conclusion that, while she loved us, settling down in the Coloradoan suburbs could never be her future. So, instead of creating a life that she knew she wouldn’t be happy in and a life where her feeling of oppression would inevitably invade our own feelings, she decided to leave when I was only 5 years old. Her plan and dream was to be a photographer, and that is exactly what she set out to do.

Of course my father and brother were devastated as I was as well (even though I just barely remember her leaving), and I suppose there is still a part of my dad that will never forgive her for what she did. Still though, he loved her too much to keep her from the life she truly wanted and so as simply as she made up her mind to leave, he made up his mind to let her.

She called frequently and tried as much as possible to be a part of our lives and even though her and my dad had made their divorce official roughly a year after she left, everyone knew it was simply for practicality not because they stopped loving each other. As the years passed however, my dad grew lonely and as much as I feared a new addition to our family it pained me far more to see my father in the position he was in. So, when he met Lily at an art show and proposed to her only a few months later, I only protested silently. My mom, to my surprise, was extremely understanding even with her lack of a boyfriend, and so my dad, Thomas, married Lily in the spring of my sophomore year and my brother’s freshmen year of college, which he was spending at the University of Denver.

At the beginning life remained almost the same. I went about my ways, trying to finish off the school year with decent grades and concentrating on my own social life. We still lived in my house on Garfield St. and Lily made an honest effort to become my friend. I never had any ill will against her, in fact I genuinely liked her, the only issue was that as her presence in my house increased until her eventual moving in, I found that my dad wasn’t as readily available as he once was.

I suppose that was all fine though, because in all honesty a 16-year-old girl is fairly content with minimal parental interaction, it just took some getting used to.