All That and Then Some

MAEVE

MY GRANDPARENTS ARE COMING to dinner—all four of them. This morning, Mum had one of her "therapy" sessions with that new-age yogi weirdo and came home all touchy-feely, talking about family being our strength. So she called up all the grandparents and invited them for a family dinner. Being old people, of course they had nothing going on. They're all eagerly tearing down the Don Valley Parkway as we speak. Except for Grandpa Ed, who prefers to bike everywhere, even in winter, because he finds modern cars too technical.

I know why she's doing this. My mother can't stand not knowing things. She seems to think that, just because she birthed me, she has the absolute right to know everything I think, feel or do. Like we're still connected by some phantom umbilical cord. I thought moving out would sever it, but apparently, the cord streeeeeetched all the way to Kingston. Now that I'm back, it's all loose and floppy and feels like it's winding around my neck. She's determined to squeeze out every little secret even though I've told her as much as she needs to know. She figures the grandparents (universally known to be totally without boundaries) will help her dig out the dirt.

I'm considering just not being here when they show up, but I can't make up my mind where I'd go. I'm not sure I have the energy to get properly dressed anyway. I've been wearing the same clothes since I left school. Sleeping in them even. I definitely need a shower. There are flakes of black nail polish scattered across the bedsheets. It seems I've fallen into a deep, quicksandy pit of melancholy that isn't helped by obsessively stalking Jules' Insta but at the same time makes it so that's the only thing I seem to have the energy to do.

Ugh.

Jules and her stupid, perfect face. Her perfect clothes and always-a-good-hair-day hair. Her stupid bed that she never makes even though she knows I like things tidy. Her stupid make-up everywhere, and her little, lacy bralettes strewn all over every surface. Don't even get me started on her stupid boyfriend, who could not be less deserving of someone as perfect as Jules.

It occurs to me that they're probably having sex on my bed right now, happy as anything that I decided to leave and (maybe) never come back.

Ugh, again.

I cannot tell my family any of this. They would jump to the conclusion that this is about something it isn't. An unrequited crush or a friendship soured. And while maybe it is a little of both, it's also neither.

I try to imagine explaining to them that somewhere between the day they dropped me off at campus and the day I decided to get the hell out of there without telling anyone, I lost myself. I lost my direction. I couldn't remember why I ever wanted to be there in the first place, pursuing an economics degree so I could — what — be an egomaniacal corporate CEO one day? Count my money while the world burns? Not give a shit that the generation after me will have to think twice about even having kids because nobody wants to be John Cusack in that end of the world disaster movie, trying to keep children alive while everything falls apart.

Just the thought of that is sucking me even deeper into my depression-hole.

It wasn't all bad at first, of course. At the beginning, I was excited just to be there. Away from my family and our tiny house. To be a part of this big, beautiful, historic academic community. I've never been good at making friends, so I tended to avoid the big residence parties that went on for the first full week. While everyone else partied, I went for walks down to the lake and dreamt about my new life. Maeve MacKenzie, university student. Then, later, Maeve MacKenzie, brilliant, innovative businesswoman. Then, eventually, Maeve MacKenzie: successful, rich, glamorously dressed, powerful... lonely, unsociable, purposeless.

For the first time, I realized I didn't entirely like the sound of that. I found myself conflicted. Can a person be a success in business but still live with purpose? I thought of my mother and her struggle to escape corporate life. She walked away because she's an idealist. She opened her own business and used it to house and employ street kids, giving them a future they wouldn't have had otherwise — applause from the bleeding hearts — but realistically, the cafe is always in the red. You can't make real money AND do good in the world. That's just not how society is set up.