Paper on Irony
As children we make many idle threats and angry promises, never realizing the impact they could bestow upon our lives. At the age of fifteen I learned that lesson the hard way. The words my mother and I had exchanged during common adolescent–parent confrontations were now my reality. I had no parent figure in my life, and I was on my own.
I remember sitting in the living room as she packed her things. I only remember bits and pieces of our conversation. I am not even really sure it would be considered a conversation, I think it was mostly for her benefit and her conscious. She told me how I was old enough to make my own decisions and that her new boyfriend needed her more. Besides, how many times had I said I couldn=t wait to be on my own. She told me she=d keep all the bills up and give me weekly grocery money. Even though the conversation lasted over an hour that=s all that I can remember except for her words as she walked out the door, AOh yeah, there=s a gun under the bed and it=s loaded. I=ll call you in a couple of days.@
The initial thoughts were that of a typical adolensce ; party, party, party, but then the first night began. I remember crawling into my mother=s bed thinking about the party I would have this weekend and the many weekends after. Then I heard it: something stirring in the house. I jumped up and rushed to the windows as I looked out my eyes were enveloped in blackness, and my ears were drowning in silence. That=s when I heard it; thump, thump, thump and I heard it again but faster. Fear was sucking the very life breath out of me. I grabbed the gun and ran frantically from room to room while this sound pursued me getting louder and faster. That sound didn=t go away that night nor for many nights after. I slept with a gun under my pillow hoping to scare the sound away, but I soon realized my heart beating alone in the silence wasn=t afraid of my gun, just the emptiness.
I never got used to having that big house to myself but it got more tolerable. I counted the days until my sixteenth birthday, I would no longer be a prisoner to my home, I would be free. My freedom finally came in the form of a 1986 Sommerset and my drivers license. My life was at least becoming a little more normal in the social sense. I no longer had to lie to my friends parents why I needed a ride to so many places.
When I turned seventeen, my life was pretty stable, I was a senior, had lots of friends, and I was mostly used to living on my own. I no longer had to worry about protective services taking me away and I had buried most of my thoughts of my mother in a deep lonely, angry place.
Finally after two years of turmoil, I had adjusted and become content in my life. I was glad I was on my own, and that I=d become my own person. The angry words I had exchanged with my mother no longer haunted me and the beating of my heart in the silence had become a comfort and no longer a terror. But, I think the final twist of irony came for my mother when she decided to move back in just before graduation. After she had been living there about a month she came to me and wanted to know why I didn=t want to spend anytime with her, after all I was her child. My only reply was, ANo, mother I am my own adult.@