Code Names

            After my last blog post, I realized that you know next to nothing about me. Well, other than the fact that I have no one to confide in and that my mom’s dead. So this post will be more of one of the ice-breaker types that everyone hates doing.

I’m 30 years old. I just had the big three-oh a few weeks ago. I work as a lawyer at my father’s company, but that’s too boring to talk about. If I had as much talent as I wished, I’d be writing and performing songs. But all of the songs I write suck, and my voice, even with lessons, has remained mediocre. I can play piano pretty well, though.

When I’m not murking through business contracts and claims or playing the piano, I like to grab a coffee and walk on the beach near my apartment to just clear my head and think. The area I live in is a mix of old people who owned their homes in the 60s before the prices skyrocketed and wealthy people like my family who came into the neighborhood when it became “fashionable.” As a result, there aren’t a lot of people my age around here. Essentially there’s me, my sisters, my brother-in-law, and a few other trust fund kids who are now busy with whatever business they’re going to inherit.

While I’m going to be talking about my life here, I also have to keep things as private as possible. No one can know who I am or who my family is, because, well, we’re kind of the 1% people hate so much. My dad inherited his business from his father, who inherited it from his father, back a few generations, and even before the business started, my family had more than enough money to spare.

With the reputation we have, my family would be furious if anyone realized who we were from this blog. All of the names I use here aren’t going to be the actual names of anyone—except for mine. They’ll all be code names, like a military operation. Just much more normal than Eagle. 

There’s my dad who…well I’ll just refer to him as my dad. Then my older sister, Eliza. My younger sister, Marie. And Marie’s husband, Charlie. And of course, my godmother Ruth. If there’s anyone else important in my life, they’ll get a code name, too. But for now, that’s enough.

I hope that information was sufficient enough. If you want to know anything else, leave a question in the comments and I’ll try my best to answer them!

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Ending the Silence

Once, after living together for six months, my college roommate found out that my mom had cancer, and she said, “I just don’t get you suffer-in-silence types.”

It’s not like I enjoy keeping everything hurting me inside. But I don’t have many options left.

My father claims feelings are too effeminate for him to bother with. Now, if I wanted to discuss using the tanning bed in his bathroom, or the history of our blue blood family, that’s something that he would listen to with open ears, and then hijack the conversation with his own opinions. My older sister has much of the same concerns of my dad. Social standing and appearance—that’s it. I have a younger sister, too, but she is the opposite of suffer-in-silence. If she so much has a tickle in her throat or only got one like on her Facebook status, she will let you know. That tends to drown out anything anyone else might have to say.

Growing up, I had my mom to talk to about crushes and girls teasing me at school. But when I was fifteen she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I had to be strong for her. How could I bring up a C on a test when she was losing her hair? Or not getting asked to the dance when she had been sick from chemo all day? I didn’t want to bother her with my little things.

What about friends? Well, the friends I make seem to slip away from me. They move away, or get married, or their careers takes over their personal life. It takes me a while to trust someone, and by the time I do, they’re gone. I almost expect people to leave now.

I do have a godmother, who was my mom’s best friend and lived right next to me growing up. She still lives there, I’m the one who moved away. And when Mom was sick and after she passed, I would talk to my godmother about it. I adore her, and she loves me like one of her own children, but I’ve found lately we don’t see eye-to-eye on much. As much as I love her, she’s still like my father, focused on how things will look to people outside, and thinking that money and society will make me happy. Lately when I’ve tried to talk to her about things, her focus goes completely the wrong way.

So here I am, with a blog. I’ll probably just be talking to myself. But maybe someone will listen. If not, at least I have somewhere to untangle my thoughts.

But if I’m to do this blog, really go at it, I’ll have to be as honest as I can with you, whoever stumbles in and reads this. I have to say what I think, how I feel, what’s happening. Which, for people like my younger sister, isn’t hard to do at all. But for me, it is. It’s hard to trust anyone with what’s going on inside of me and not have it come lashing back in my face. I guess I have to trust the internet. Funny how that’s a better option than trusting my own family, but here we are.

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