Blog #163: Dear Jolson

Dear Jolson,

You're a pain in the ass to live with. You know this.

You don't do your dishes, you leave your clothes in the bathroom after every hour-long shower, and you don't take out the trash. Right now, as I'm preparing to go to bed before work tomorrow, is apparently the best time, in your opinion, to put on a record and start packing.

You're also my pal.

We've been through this Chicago adventure together, from the shitshow of a beginning to the Uncle M laughs and everything in between. Although we both know how independent of a person I am, I will admit that it was nice to have you by my side during all this.

In my original Chicago daydreams, you were a part of the picture. I would come home to our apartment, we'd play and/or write some music, cook some dinner, and do it all again the next day. When Mariel would come to visit, we'd put on my John Mayer record and let it play in the background as the three of us laughed and talk and sang. After not living together for over three years, we learned how to live together without fighting. At least, in my imagination.

When I think of the reality of us living together, images of you throwing a jar of peanut butter at me come to the surface, along with memories of me yelling at you for leaving old chipotle sitting around, and telling you a thousand times to take your effing clothes out of the bathroom. I'm sad about these memories, because they constituted a decent amount of our time together in this past month. It was our first time living together in a while, and who knows when we'll live together again. Why did we waste so much time bickering?

On the other hand, we did spend a lot of time laughing and joking around. Even when I was yelling at you to take care of your shit, and you said a lot of mean things back to me, most of the time we were both laughing through the whole thing.

What I do regret, though, is not talking enough about real things. I was looking forward to this being a time where we really bonded and got much closer, and I'm not sure I did a great job of making that a reality. After work every day, I found it easier to get frustrated with you than to sit down and ask you important questions. For that, I'm sorry.

We both have admitted that we are the most similar in the family, which makes it difficult for us to get along sometimes. We easily butt heads and get extra-angry about things we find annoying in the other, because we also find it annoying in ourselves. Additionally, we are both the type that need some poking and prodding to open up. Without a Mariel here to pry us open, we're both pretty comfortable staying fairly shut, and so we both just go on that way around each other.

Still, I want to be a person you can trust and feel comfortable opening up to, because it's something I wish you would do more. I care so freaking much about you, and I want to know what you're feeling/thinking/wondering. I didn't do a great job of this in this past month, but if nothing else, maybe we got a little more comfortable around each other again.

I also hope that you don't feel like I was trying to mother you the whole time. From the bottom of my heart, I was trying my best to not mother you, but sometimes it's tough not to do that when I care as much about you as I do. The mothering I did was not because I wanted to have some sort of power of you, but because I wanted better for you, and I wanted you to be better to yourself.

I guess what I really want is for you to have positive memories from this time in Chicago, despite all the not-so-positive experiences you had.

Again, who knows when/if we'll ever live together again, and with you going off to college and me graduating soon, who knows how much time we'll be spending together in the near future. If nothing else, I hope this month was a learning experience for you, and that you got to know me a little better through it. In five or ten years, hopefully we'll still talk about that one time we moved to Chicago together.

I love you, I only want the best for you, and I'm sad to see you go. Take care of yourself.

Love,

Kailyn