Sometimes I Make it Hard to Breathe

When I was young I got to spend the month of August at my grandmother's house. I forget how old I was when this began. I don't think Mickey ever did, but my older sisters spent summer months there. Gayanne went up right after school was out. June is her birthday month. I remember how happy I was when I got to go up. There were initial concerns about me becoming homesick, but those were completely unfounded. It was such a relief to be away from Mother's constant yelling. Mother hated her life and blamed her children for it. She told us over and over again how much better her life would have been had we not been born. Eventually, she changed that to "just the last three". I was second-to-last.

Helvie got go up afterward, in July, her birthday month. But Helvie DID get homesick, which completely amazed me. The first year Grandma and Grandpa brought Helvie back. That year I got to go up early. It was great. After wards, I would always go up early so Helvie could stay the whole month. She was able to make it if I was there. Not that I was great or anything. I think she just got bored with grandma. I never did.

Well, that's not entirely true. Grandma liked to visit. At least twice each week she would travel around the county visiting her friends, spending about an hour or two at each place. One or two other days her friends would do the same, and on those days it was a regular parade of people. Them visiting Grandma was fine. Grandma visiting them was a drag. I had to go along. Grandpa found it boring, too.

One year my uncle asked if his little boy could come and stay at Grandma's, too. I wasn't keen on it, despite the fact that I liked Drew. But I liked having my time alone. It was mine. I didn't want to share it. But I knew better than to say so. So Drew came and stayed, too. He only stayed two weeks, so I still got some time alone. Just not as much as I wanted.

Drew is younger than me by perhaps three years. I forget. Haven't seen him in so many years I couldn't venture to guess how long. At least twenty. Anyway, he looked up to me and followed me everywhere. At first, this was cool. I felt important. But it didn't take long for me to realize that with Drew around, my only private times were going to be when I was in the bathroom. He was everywhere I was. I couldn't do anything without him, and some of my imaginative games required no one be there to bother me. And sometimes I just wanted to be alone. I never could.

I started letting my frustration show in various little ways. Drew either never caught on or chose to ignore the hints. I would use my advantage in height to walk fast and put distance between us. But Drew would just start to run in order to keep up. Finally, one day I couldn't take it anymore. We were walking around the house and I just stopped and told him to go away and leave me alone. I wasn't nice about it at all. He thought I was joking, so I impassioned my argument until his face fell and he ran away.

Didn't feel good about that. Now I was alone, but I felt guilty. Kind of got over it and kind of enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Then I went into the house and met Grandma. She was so clever about this. She sat me down and told me how impressed Grandpa was with me. "He thinks it's just wonderful that you let a little boy hang out with you like that. Most kids wouldn't stand for it, but you do. You're so nice to Drew, and Drew so looks up to you. I just thought you should know that."

I wasn't completely fooled. Clearly, Grandma had been standing in the dining room and overheard my verbal assault on Drew. She was trying to make me feel guilty about what I had done. It worked. I found Drew and offered to play. Only it was never the same again. I had hurt him, and he wasn't going to open himself up to let me do it again. A year or two later he quit coming to Grandma's in August. He and his sisters would come at the end of June and stay until near the end of July.

I feel bad about Drew, but you may be surprised to learn why. It's because I think I am Drew now, and I know what I do to the people I care about. I smother them with attention so that they just want to get away at whiles to breathe. I don't mean to do that. It's just that I still tend to be selfish, and I forget how annoying I can be at times. Even with Spouse. Sometimes I just can't let go, and so I get pushed away.

I've had a couple of people do to me what I did to Drew, too. Since then I try to keep myself in check with people, but it's hard. It really is, because I have a hard time gauging when I'm too much. I've backed away from some people only have them conclude I don't care about them at all, and they bail on me. Others decide it's no fun playing with flypaper. Can't say I blame them.

Don't know why I posted this. Supposed to have posted about animals and nature. Just got to thinking about Drew for some reason. But he was mild compared to Denni. That's who I've really become.