Sitcom

Part 1: The Memories

Honesty's never been a problem for me; I am known to have too much of it sometimes. Which is funny, because there is not a single person in my life that I have not lied to. Atleast once. Nothing major. I just like lying. I like getting away with it too. Maybe "like" is too strong of a word. I'm not addicted to some percieved rush of getting away with lies. I'm just used to it to make sure everyone is happy. That everyone feels like they got their way. It makes me feel good, knowing I can orchestrate situations in a way that people leave them feeling like nothing is wrong. Everyone but me. Because with honesty I also have a belief that I can cope with any amount of sadness, regret or trauma. But not the people around me. The people around me are glass objects that'll shatter if I let them down. Which again, is funny, because there is not a single person in my life who I have not let down. They just don't know it yet. Maybe through this memoir they'll find out. Maybe the only way I know how to be remembered is to taint the memories people have of me. By being honest, perhaps too honest.
To make this make sense, I have to start from the start. Though not the very start, I have no memory of the start. The first memory I have is my 1st birthday, then my 13th. Actually, not 13th. I don't know which one. 13 is just a random number I tell people because it makes sense not to remember anything before that age, right? But if I have to be honest, as I promised to be, I have no idea what my first memory is. I have no idea whether it's good or bad. The last 22 years of my life have all been a blur; I start over again and again, every single day, as if something is different. But nothing is. Only I am.
So, the start. The start, or what I vaguely remember it to be was an eager-to-please kid who had too much of an imagination and, even more emotions. More than her little body or mind could handle. I have various "first memories". The reason I say that is because the memories I have depend on the circumstances I'm in.
Every panic attack, my first memory is of how I had to sit on the floor of my parents' dresser because my mind lost perception of perspective and speed. That dresser was a safe space. Deep inside my house, the very end of the apartment, I could hear atleast four doors open before I had to get up and act like I just went in to look at myself in the mirror. Four doors is a lot of time. Enough time for a six or seven year old to cope with her first anxiety attack, apparently. I say six or seven but I mean any age under that of ten. Because at ten I lost my safe space, lost my four doors, we moved away.
But on happy days, my first memory has always been me turning either one or two. Sitting on my dining table, the same house that had my safe space. My mom bringing in a homemade cake, with gems spelling out the number I was aging to. I was upset. My brother blew out the candles meant for me. The dining table at that point in our lives was just a board of wood we used to pull down in the middle of the kitchen. Or was it? Or was that my dad's elder sister's table. I believe it was both. It's fuzzy. But I will never forget my mom, young and full of love in her eyes. Looking at me as if she'd never let anything hurt me. (She never did, she never knew I was hurt, I never told her.) Bringing in a cake bigger than my face. No kid in my family has to do this alone anymore. They're always surrounded by fifteen family members, doting at every gag and giggle. But not my mother's daughter.
Though when someone asks me - how come you don't remember anything from your childhood? Were you abused? Did something happen? Is there anything to unpack? There might be. I wouldn't know. I was raised by two people who loved me and eachother so much that I would never have a reason to complain. Though they never learnt how to show me that they loved me. Well, not them. My father. He never learnt. But then, which ones do? My father is an enigma; to others he is an enigma because he has no pattern. To me he is an enigma because of how closely he follows the pattern I have predicted of him. The man I'm most like, and the man who has never once told me he loves me. Never once hugged me outside of our ritualistic "family hugs". The man who has only ever shown me affection through my mother or through his bank account. An enigma of a man who raised a family, built a house and kept us safe but also, never attempted to raise me, keep my mother emotionally safe, or let my brother make a single autonomous decision.
This chapter is probably as much of a mess as the web of memories in my mind. Maybe that's why I'm doing this. I have a habit of doing this. Consistently hiding behind a screen so I can talk for hours without percieving anyone as "annoyed". I like my personal life written down. Makes me feel like it has value. I like reading the things I write, over and over; almost to the point of narcissism. Because what I don't remember, the internet does. The internet never forgets. And I know that all too well.
But starting from the very start, I am a twenty two year old girl, living at university, raised in a family of twelve people, excessively loved and excessively hated. A girl with too many opinions, and her own moral code. And I'm writing this for myself. And maybe the two people that may read this. I'm writing myself into a Sitcom, because that's how I've always experienced life.