Hello Darkness, my old friend

Ignore the edgy title stolen from Simon and Garfunkel. This post isn't some "bluh my soul is black no one understands me" bullshit.

Nah homie fuck that.

This is a little post about why late night/early morning is my favorite time of the day.

In recent years, I've had to get used to being up all night. Stress kept me up. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't. But during the summer, when all the stress with school was gone, I still stayed up all night. Not because I couldn't sleep, but because the late hours provided me with something I don't get during the day.

Silence and solitude.

Even when I'm shut up in my room 18 hours a day, I don't get silence or solitude. People are up, making noise, trying to talk to me, or I'm out, and there's people making noise and trying to talk to me.

It's not like I don't enjoy being out with my friends, or talking to my family, but introversion is a powerful thing.

9 times out of 10, I would rather be alone, in my room, listening to music, or reading comics, or watching a movie, than out with people.

And the time when the world's asleep provides me with just that.

It's calming. It's a breath of fresh air when the air I normally breathe is polluted with things I have to do and people I have to see.

It's something I need to function.

Welcome back, and all that shit.

Whoopdie doo. It's been a while.

And boy do I got a post this time.

My house smells of cigarettes and poverty.

No, I don’t smoke. I made a vow that I never would because I’ve seen the way it slowly kills people while they knowingly shorten their lifespan with each puff.
My parents smoke like chimneys. My mom’s teeth are gone and my dad’s lungs are black and shriveled.

I smell like cigarettes and poverty.

The smell of secondhand smoke sticks harder than the smell of weed, and I’ve been around both plenty of times in my life. I don’t smoke weed either. I don’t even smoke e-cigs. And I won’t. I’m glad my parents only stick with cigarettes, because if they were also spending our precious earned government-given money on weed and e-cig… stuff, we’d start having to borrow tap water.

My dad can’t work. He’s disabled, on account of his shit lungs and his shit everything else. There’s not one thing about him that’s healthy.

My mom can’t keep a job. Personally, I think she just doesn’t want to. Hell, she dropped out of school because she didn’t like it, went to work, then went back to school because she didn’t like work. The last time she had a steady job was 2 years ago.

Yeah, I’m a drop out too. But I didn’t drop out because “lol fuck school”. No, I dropped out because the stress of school and home life was literally killing me. I couldn’t sleep at night. I would sleep at school and sleep when I got home. I was 11 credits behind. I couldn’t handle it. If I kept on, it would’ve killed me. I swear it would’ve. I’m gonna get my GED, and I’m gonna go to work, and go back for my full diploma when I’m ready. And when I get a job, I’m saving enough to get out of this house. I realized that I want out more than anything else last night, 4:30 in the morning, taking a break from a sleepless night reading comics to make a PB&J sandwich with what little bread we had left and trying to master the art of painting the whole of the bread with the sticky peanut butter.

This isn’t even a house. It might as well be the mayoral building of a Shantytown.

Tiles are cracked and missing. Doors don’t fit their frames. Heater nearly explodes every time we use it. Toilet won’t flush. Toilet seat is loose and almost snapped in half the last time I took a shit.

I don’t know what happened to this family.

We were doing great. Never above middle class, but we were living comfortably.

Then 2007 happened. September 2^nd, to be exact.

Fucked my whole life up.

My dad’s health declined. He couldn’t work anymore. It was up to my mom and my dad’s disability checks to keep us afloat.
And so we sank. From nice house, to okay house, to nice trailer, to shitty trailer, to run-down hovel.

We don’t even have food to eat.

And I’m aware of all my parents sacrifice for my sister and I. They sleep on the couch in the living room because we could only afford a 2 bedroom and you know how kids need their privacy. My dad won’t buy the prescriptions he needs just to function daily until we have paid rent, bought enough food to eat, and have enough gas to get us where we need to go. And that usually doesn’t leave us with enough to get him those prescriptions. He’s sacrificing his health for us. I don’t mean to sell my mom short, because she works as hard as she can for us. Sure, I think she doesn’t want to work. But I know that’s not the only reason. She has to stay home and take care of my dad. She’s stressed to no end. About our money, about my dad’s health, about us, about everything.

I can’t get a job because no one wants to hire an inexperienced drop out.

My sister can’t get a job because she needs to focus on school.

So here I sit, on my old shitty mattress, writing this with the few luxuries I have because I’ve had them before we had to take out loans to pay loans that we used to pay loans. My laptop, and the internet (Which is actually shut off at the moment, but I know my way around a router).

And I’m slowly saving up enough money to move out. My parents have done so much for me with the shitty circumstances life tends to throw us in.

So yeah, I’m getting out as quick as I can.

But I’m keeping the house key.