I feel as if I’ve opened Pandora’s Box. In allowing myself—or forcing myself—to delve into things I’ve long avoided thinking about, I think I am dredging up a lifetime of repression and avoidance. It makes sense, though. Mom and Dad were…flaky, and self-absorbed. They didn’t want to be parents. I think I’ve journaled about this recently, but I don’t care. They had Delta and then me, and got us to the point where we were mostly self-sufficient and that was that. Hands-off. They provided the necessities, but they had their careers and their friends, parties on their friends’ yachts and at their friends’ country clubs, bridge nights and bowling nights and book clubs and poker nights, and Delta and I were left to our own devices. Get our own lunches, get ourselves up and ready for school.

I remember being walked to the bus stop for kindergarten and first grade, and then in second grade I was waved at from the front door, and after that it was a kiss from the kitchen, and as I got older barely even that. It was just life, and I didn’t realize it was even unusual. Maybe it’s not, I don’t know. But…especially as I got into high school and Delta had left home, my parents and I were like roommates more than anything. They didn’t charge me rent or utilities, but I bought my own food because they ate a bunch of shit I didn’t like. They gave me Mom’s old black Civic, which she’d driven for years until they were ready to upgrade it. It was in decent condition, but they’d bought it used themselves from a guy who had smoked in it, so it was thirdhand for me and stank forever of cigarettes. It was mine, though, and I paid insurance on it and put gas in it.

So I grew up in a very odd, in-between place, I think. If the upper end of the spectrum is a fully intact, happy, affectionate, loving nuclear family and the bottom end is pain and abuse and abandonment, I’m somewhere in limbo between the three. I grew up with both parents, and they loved each other—I never doubted that. I grew up always knowing where my next meal would come from—but more often than not, from fifth or sixth grade on, I was the one who prepared it, or Delta when I was younger. I grew up being provided for, I had a roof, clothes, a safe neighborhood, all the safety and security boxes checked. And for that I’m grateful. But…

I raised myself, with some help early on from Delta, until she left to chase her dreams—which I have never and will never harbor any ill will toward her over; it was what she had to do, and I knew it then as well as I do now. I wasn’t abandoned, exactly. But close to it. It was kind of like I was given a house to live in, with this kindly older couple that lived there too, who I sometimes interacted with. By the time I was in junior high, I was totally independent.

I’ve never explored how I felt about all this. Not really. I mean, clearly I’m a little…disillusioned with my parents, at the least, since I rarely see them. But is that disillusionment? Is that anger? Resentment? Apathy? A mixture of all of it? I don’t know, I’ve never examined it. I just…went on with my life. Graduated high school, moved into the dorms in Miami, met Christian, married him…

God. See? That right there, that last line, it leads me down a whole different path of self-examination.

I was independent, yes, sort of alone, yes, but I never lived totally alone. I never had to completely provide for myself. This is where that in-between space pops up again, because I was putting myself through the paces of day-to-day life and survival from a very young age—the basics were always just…there. I got a job in high school mainly so I could buy groceries I wanted, but if nothing else, the basics were always there. I went from that home to a dorm, where room and board were included in the tuition. I was surrounded by other people my age who didn’t really care where I’d come from or what my background was. They weren’t deep or meaningful relationships, but they were friends I could party with, study with, hang out with; it was wonderful, honestly. It felt like a sort of surrogate family in some ways. And besides, what was there to be deep about? Chemistry class? Boys? The latest sorority party? It was college, and none of us were looking for depth.

I know I wasn’t. Not even when I met Christian. I certainly wasn’t looking for anything serious with him, either. He was just a hot guy I was interested in, at first. He was intriguing, very different from anyone I’d ever met. And it just sort of grew up around us, this love. I don’t think he was expecting it any more than I was. It just…happened. One thing led to another; hanging out led to sleeping together, sleeping together led to sleeping together regularly, which led to spending all of our time together, and then moving in together, and then getting married. It just all flowed from one thing to the next without much of an intervening transition or discussion. We never had a “what are we and where are we going as a couple” conversation. We just went from one thing to the next, and we both wanted it and it was fine and it didn’t matter where we were going as a couple, because we were together and the future was what it was, and would be what it would be.

Is that how we saw it? I don’t know. Like I said, we never really discussed it.

But Christian took care of me. I didn’t expect it, or even want it or understand it at first, but he took care of me.

God, I’m rambling. I know this is a journal, but it’s not like me to ramble with such little focus or direction.

Where am I going with this? What am I trying to discover about myself?

What questions do I have about myself? About my past, and my future?

Something to think about, I suppose, before I put pen to paper next.

All I know is, right now…I’m scared of letting myself grieve for Henry.

I’m scared I’ll never find Christian. And if I never find Christian, what will I do?

Who will I be?

God, there it is. There it is, right there. The $64,000 question. Who will I be?

Which begs a question even more difficult to consider…

If I don’t know who I would be if I never found my husband, then…who am I now?

The question, now that I’ve framed it in so many words, tolls inside me like the throb of a war drum.

God, I never used to be so melodramatic. I used to make fun of Chris for using similes like that, and now look at me, writing all purple prose and shit. Missing him so badly must be making his writing style rub off on me. Writing like him, trying to sound like him as a means of comfort?

That melodramatic prose is kind of fun, though.

Because dammit, I miss him.

And I don’t know who I am.

Have I ever?