Core

I just received a letter I wrote to myself over the summer, while on a mission trip. I don't know if this sounds incredibly selfish or whatnot, but I wrote about how I need to learn to appreciate myself. That's one of the things everyone told me that week: to appreciate myself, that I don't appreciate myself enough.
So here I am, sitting in bed, in New Jersey, trying to appreciate myself. And I can't do it. I can't fucking do it. I got back here Thursday night. I don't call this place home. Colorado is my home. My mom has already spent two days yelling at me. To an extreme amount. How can I appreciate myself? She makes it clear that I take things for granted, she says that I think I deserve better than everyone else, she tells me that I don't do enough for our family.
I try so hard, but clearly my efforts are fruitless. I don't even know what to do with myself at this point, I'm stuck here for another three weeks. I just want to go home, home to Colorado. At the end of this trip I plan on threatening to not come back. I could find a job in Colorado or go home with a friend, I don't care. Honestly, I'd do anything to not be back here. They make me feel worthless. I try so hard and they make me feel like dirt or less than that even.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the core of the earth. So much is on my shoulders, practically everything, yet everyone tends to forget about the effort I put in.
Yesterday night my mom threw a fit at me. I got home from a casual coffee evening with two friends, came in the house, and went to my room. And suddenly there was my mom, shrilling. Her rude words pierced the darkness, I had yet to even turn on a light. "You slammed the door! Veronica's sick and asleep and you woke her up!" or something along those lines. It's gotten to the point where she sounds like a siren, the words lose their weight and she's just sound, going off at me every chance she gets. I knew I hadn't slammed a door but I accepted it and moved on. This morning my sister revealed that my mom's screaming had woken up. Well great, her waking up wasn't my fault, but my mom's screaming was still my fault.
Then this morning my mom asked me when I was going to get my hair cut. I was excited and said after we eat. This was less than fifteen minutes ago. She pulled out a coupon for Supercuts and told me I was going to pay for my hair cut. It's been almost eight months since I've gotten my hair cut, and yes, I was a bit upset that I had downgraded to Supercuts. My hair is a mess and I don't know how to take care of it and I wanted a good hair cut. So maybe I acted a bit childish saying that, but hey, if I'm going to pay for my hair cut, shouldn't I have a say in where I get it done? To which my head proceeded to explode from the sound that escaped her lips. "You're not an adult! You're not better than everyone else!" Thank you, mother... I do happen to be eighteen and I never said I was. Once again the words jumble together. At moments like these, I've realized, it doesn't even matter what she says. I guess that's why I suck at writing dialogue and can't put conversations together to write a play. The words don't reach my ears, they only reach my body. They attack me and beat me till I cry. "You have no sense of money! You think you deserve everything! I spend so much money on you and you don't appreciate it at all!!" I spent $80 on my mom's Christmas present. I'm actually broke because I spent about $300 on Christmas presents, and I've been very conscious of my money since then. I promise whoever is bothering to read this whole load of depressing, I do appreciate everything my mother does. I try so hard to keep her happy. And yes, it was childish of me to "want more," or really to voice my want, but if she says I'm not an adult, why get mad when I'm being my apparently childish self? I don't know.

I just want my mom to be happy. But it's clear I don't do enough to make her so. At all. So, no, I don't appreciate myself. I doubt I ever will. But at the end of this break, if not sooner, I am threatening to never come back. I will figure out a way to pay for school (even though, hey, I'm emancipated! Paying for college all on my own, with my own money, except that I never see this money/have no control over it/it only pays housing and tuition so I have to buy everything else, even tampons and toothpaste, with my own money/my money could be gone at any minute) on my own. I got offered a scholarship and I dunno. I just can't do this anymore.
I can't take shutting myself in my room to cry. On a daily basis.
I don't even have a lock on my door, so anyone could waltz right in and laugh in my face.

Great. If I'm the core of such a beautiful planet, what happens when I'm gone. Does everything fall apart? (with my family, yes).



I want to go home.