She calls.
Seven times.
She leaves three voicemails:
"WHY are you so hard to get ahold of?"
"What are you DOING? Call me back!"
"Aaaaaaggghh, you NEVER answer your phone!"
A Facebook message.
She calls on Skype.
I'm in the shower.
The Skype chime rings, and rings, and rings.
I get out of the shower. I call back.
"THERE you are! God, you NEVER answer your phone! What have you been doing all day?"
"Same thing I do every day, mum. School. Work."
"But you're never around! I call and call and you never pick up!"
"I'm at work, mum. I have to go to work during the day."
"We just never hear from you, that's all."
We talked for over an hour three days ago.
"Mum, what's up? You called a bunch of times. Is it something important?"
"What does Travis want for Christmas? Can you make me a list?"
"Sure, Mum. I'll send you one tomorrow."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm doing my homework."
"What kind of homework?"
"Nothing, ma. It's just notes for class."
"What else are you doing? Are you ready for Thanksgiving?"
"No. I haven't shopped yet."
"What do you mean you haven't shopped yet?"
"I haven't shopped yet. I'm going to do it tomorrow. I haven't had time."
"What do you mean you haven't had time? It's Thanksgiving."
"I haven't had time."
Silence.
"Well, I guess we'll just let you go, then." Her voice is pathetic, Eeyore-like. She turns the corners of her mouth down, stares at the floor. "We don't want to take up your time. We know how busy you are."
Is that why you called seven times?
"No, ma, it's not that. I want to talk, I do. I just don't really know what to say."
Frown. "Just say what's new!"
"Nothing is new. I do the same things every day. I just told you earlier this week everything that I'm planning to do between now and next weekend."
Silence.
"Well, that's sad for you, then, I guess."
Silence.
"I guess so. Sucks to be me."
Silence.
"We just want to talk to you, you know. We just want to be part of your life. I know there isn't much room for us any more."
Silence.
She talks to fill the gap. A friend of hers I haven't seen in ten years--she ran into her at the Fred Meyer, isn't that incredible? She has a ninth-grader, loved seeing pictures of the boys. She talks about parent-teacher conferences. She tells me my eyes are too dark underneath. She tells me all of this every time we talk.
Am I a bad daughter?
I'm leaving that word because it's the first word that came to mind, and maybe that's more telling than I want it to be.
Daughter.
Her daughter.
Her little girl.
"What have you been doing? Why didn't you answer the phone?"
"Where have you been all day?"
My job.
Being twenty-six.
Being an adult.
Writing a journal is stupid. I don't know what else to say about any of this.
My shrink calls it "emotional inertia"--a spring that snaps back to scare me away from real progress. Says that every time I start to feel something, to think something for myself, I wake myself up. I say "I don't know" because it's easier than working. Depressed people do that, she says. They become so detached from themselves that all they can say is "I don't know," "I don't know."
"You have to move," she says. "You have to work. I want you to feel something."
I want to feel something, too.
But I don't really feel much of anything.
I feel like a handbag.
I feel like an attachment--a vacuum hose, a PC peripheral.
Like I'm here to get a job done.
Like maybe I'm just here for display purposes.
Like my job is to feel her feelings, not mine.
You selfish bitch, you selfish bitch, you selfish bitch.
I don't know if I'm talking to her, or to me.
