Final Fight
“You don’t do anything here anymore and your never home.”
“Ever? So I just sit out all night, I never tell you what I’m doing, where I am, who I’m with?”
Words were coming from me faster than I could understand them. For everything he said I had a comeback, we had gotten good at this. Fighting and yelling is what we do best. We had always fought ever since I was about 13. Disagreements were the norm for us we couldn’t even decide on what color to paint my room, but this fight was different it changed everything for me and my dad.
My day had started out like any other; I was getting ready to leave for school with my brother. Mom and dad had already left for work, so I and Jake left; we locked the door to the house and got in my car. When my day was done I walked out of school and could smell the crisp fall air hit me with the mix of warm sunshine, the bluffs in front of me with the beautiful colors of reds, browns, yellows, and golds. It had turned out be a gorgeous day. I walked to my car and went to pick up my brother. On our drive home we talked about school and how Jake hates his art class. We talked about how nice it was outside as we pulled up to my house. We walked in to the house and strangely my dad was already home. My brother and I could just tell he was already in a bad mood so I told Jake what chores to do around the house and that I would do the rest.
I thought back to all the other times that my dad and I had fought, small little arguments that meant nothing and some bigger ones that really didn’t change anything after a couple of days. I relived those fights and remembered how easy they were; words flowed from us like a waterfall. Everything we said woven together perfectly until we were satisfied with the damaged done.
“You were 10 minutes late last night!”
“I know I had to drop of Chelsea, she lives on French Island and I had to drive across town.”
“I don’t care; you can’t do anything for the next week.”
“It was only 10 minutes and I just told you why I was late…”
“I don’t care.”
I snapped back to what was going on at that very second and the fighting resumed where it had left off.
“You always depend on us for everything. Learn how to do things on your own and maybe you won’t be such a spoiled little b!tch.”
“Because me getting a job at 15 ½ , paying for my car insurance and anything that goes wrong with it, buying my own clothes, doing my own laundry and dishes really means that I’m depending on you and mom right?”
“You don’t even know what responsibility is and you hardly do anything here…your never home.”
“Maybe I’m never home because I work 4 or 5 days every week and I do like to spend some time with my friends. I’m here every night and I always do the chores that you ask me too.”
“Jake does more then you, its ridiculous how little you help!”
“I help out and do more than what you ask of me. What else do you want of me? I try as hard as I can, I work 4 to 5 days a week, I’m going to school, and I’m taking some college classes.
“But you’re never here to do anything! You come home and go to bed.”
“Really?! On the days that I don’t work I’m home for hours normally, don’t tell me that I always just come home and go to bed without doing chores and helping.”
“No, you’re never here to help. Maybe you should just leave.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and thought to myself did he really just say that? I felt like I was a dear in headlights. I didn’t know what to say, but something had to come out. With how much was racing through my mind you would be surprised to find that for what seemed like a lifetime nothing was coming out of my mouth, but finally something did.
“Would that make it easier for you? Because if it does then the day that I turn 18 I can move.”
“Yeah I think that would be best then maybe you can see that it’s not all fun and games. I give you three months then you will be back here.”
“We’ll see, I know I can do it and I’m not going to need your help.”
“Ha Ha, yeah I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“I’m not worried I know that I can do it.”
You get into a motion when you are fighting, like a slalom racer moving swiftly between the large bumps in the snow. But no racer is perfect and they fall at some point in time, the deciding point is how quickly they get up and try again. This time I wasn’t trying the fight again I decided to move to something new.
I walked away from that fight knowing that what I had done was what I needed to do. I had no doubt in my mind that I was in for a lot of work, but it was going to help me in the long run. It would be hard, but moving to live on my own was something that I had to do for me. I needed the fighting to stop so I could move on with school, work and my life in general. In a way I’m happy that we fought, it pushed me to grow up faster and to become independent and be able to live on my own. There are a lot of people waiting to see me fail and it only makes me try harder and work to not fail.
