But there are other kinds of wars, other kinds of illnesses besides the obvious. Private ones, personal ones that I rarely ever write about because I refuse to acknowledge that they taint my life as they do with their toxicity. But these days, it's become too much to bear.
While in Iraq, I'd been under the childish illusion that by the time I returned, my parents' marriage issues would have magically resolved themselves- or at least somewhat improved. Time heals all wounds, right?
Instead, upon my return, I learned firsthand that they- my parents themselves- have descended into madness. They are mad...And it's taken a mere- how long have I been home?- four days of living in this madhouse for me to suffer my own mental breakdown, all my resolve, strength, and "maturity" supposedly gained in Iraq over ten months crumbling into dust.
I believe they are killing me. Last night, I lay in bed screaming in pain and felt as grieved as if my own baby had jut died. Call me weak, call me over-sensitive, but does that matter what I am? I swear, my own parents will be the pre-mature death of me.
Their so-called "marriage" is no bond of love nor decency, but one of sickness and hatred like a rotting corpse, and it has infected the entire household- us poor kids- for more than two decades. In the present state of things, the day after I returned from Iraq, my mother threw a restraining order (against her, by my childhood friend's mother) in my face, and my own father stole $100 from me. I wish I could say I was kidding.
Well khalas, as they say in the Mideast. Enough. I am finished with their sick, humorless games. I used to play the good, kind daughter to my father, despite my knowledge of his numerous transgressions, but as of today, I loathe him and will not play nice. I used to sympathize with my mother and give her endless daughterly advice because in her eyes, she was the victim of the world and no one cared about her. But as of today, I will not pander to her self-pity.
Anyway, she's got it all wrong. In accepting all my father's daggers like an abused dog who stays loyally by her master's side all black and blue, she is only committing a tortuously slow suicide- unlike the quick burnings that 800 Kurdish women opt for every year. To sigh and admit that everything is "all my fault" is not the act of a selfless martyr as she delusions herself to be. No, it is an act of the most supreme utter selfishness to think- or claim- that you are the cause of so many ills, and to wallow in self-pity as my mother does.
And worst of all- as a mother- to imagine that she is the sole victim of the raining blows of their sick, rotting marriage is her biggest mistake. She has no idea how much we used to care, to agonize, to spill tears over her situation, all our advice falling on deaf, selfish, self-pitying ears for all these years. For all these years, it's been eating us up inside like a cancer.
Well Khalas- I am through caring.
