Manly

“I never understood why it was important for everyone in our family to man up.  To be manly.  My brothers were never allowed to cry.  Never allowed to wear clothes that could be described as anything but blue and a ‘working man’s’ clothes.”   

As I continued to write in the journal I had snuck out of the house, I wondered if anything would become clear.  My family didn’t talk about anything important, only how to look to the rest of the world.  Appearance over everything.  Even when we didn’t quite have enough to eat, we would still have the biggest car, the biggest house and the parties to prove we ruled over everyone else in the neighborhood. My parents did everything they could to keep up with and beat the Jones’. And every minute of it drove me crazy. 

I needed to get out of the house and out of this life I was stuck in. I knew if I just had enough to eat, I could make better decisions. If appearance wasn’t forced on me every second of every day, I would have time to learn about hobbies I enjoyed doing. If I could just get both of us out of this toxic house, I knew Jason and I would thrive. But I never expected what my mother did the day she found my journals. Burned them and burned my dreams along with them.