Watermelons from Lemons: Writing to Make Sense of My Brain

I was halfway through putting together a futon my momma found on clearance when the thought hit me. Some people spend their entire lives planting lemons and somehow expecting to harvest watermelons. It sounds ridiculous when you’re talking about fruit. It becomes a lot less ridiculous when you’re talking about people.

Today’s project was putting my momma’s new futon together. I flipped it over, attached the legs, tightened every screw, and stood it upright. Then that familiar wave of panic hit me. Nothing had gone wrong. The frame was solid, the screws were tight, and I hadn’t made a single mistake. The panic I felt wasn’t even about the futon. It was about what would happen if anything ever went wrong with it.

It is a strange thing to be a 45 year old college sophomore with children and a grandson, yet still feel like a helpless child standing in her parents’ living room, waiting for the next blowup over something that hasn’t even happened yet.

My momma has the means to buy quality furniture if she wants to. Instead, she bought a cheap futon and a $40 clearance TV stand from Walmart and expects them to look, feel, and last like a $2,000 designer set. When your expectations are completely detached from reality, someone else ends up carrying the burden. If the fabric rips, or if my grandson so much as bumps into it too hard, it would somehow become my fault. Nevermind how cheap it is; I’m the one that should’ve protected it. That’s when I realized I’ve spent most of my life trying to perform miracles for other people’s expectations. I’ve been trying to grow watermelons from lemons.

Looking back, I think that’s a role I learned very young. Being the only girl in my family came with a loneliness I didn’t understand until I was older. My oldest brother was the undisputed favorite, getting all the freedom to be whoever he wanted and all the nice, name brand things. My twin brother faced heart breaking struggles from birth. He was born brain dead and diagnosed with mental retardation back in the early 80s. My momma devoted almost all of her time and energy to him with a tough love to make sure he grew up self-sufficient. My dad completely ignored him out of guilt, feeling it was his fault my brother was born that way. My twin was loved in a different, deeper way. He needed momma the most. Today, unfortunately, I hardly ever see him.

I was the quiet one. I learned how to live alone. I got comfortable disappearing until I was called on. I wasn’t actually alone, but that’s what it felt like deep down inside. I learned to fade into the background because my brothers took up all the space. I was the one who needed the least because it felt safer and less guilty than asking for anything.

I remember when I was around ten years old and my momma finally took me shopping for a pair of name brand jeans so I wouldn’t get bullied at school. I remember feeling so special; my parents never really spent one on one time with me and my clothes were usually handmade on a sewing machine. But, that rare bonding moment we were having while standing there in the mall came to a confusing halt. She told me she never would have had more children if my dad hadn’t begged her to. “Especially not a girl,” she said. Maybe she didn’t realize how much those words could hurt a little girl’s heart.

For years, I told myself I just didn’t remember much of my past because it didn’t matter. But standing in that living room, I realized it was my brain protecting me by blocking out trauma. I didn’t even know what narcissism was until ten years ago, while healing from a toxic ex-boyfriend (who is dead now, killed by his new wife’s brother-in-law). I spent years trying to figure out what the fuck I had done to attract that monster, only to realize I was programmed to accept the unacceptable in the home I grew up in. Living in a toxic household can feel like a lifetime sentence in Guantanamo Bay. You’re constantly on edge, hypervigilant, and waiting for the next interrogation.

While all of this was running through my mind, my momma walked into the kitchen, saw my laptop sitting on the table, and immediately barked, “What are you doing?”

Normally, I would’ve shrunk. Today, I didn’t. Instead, I asked, “Why? Why did you ask me like that?”

She blinked. “Huh?” Then she changed her tone and asked again.

“Just typing,” I said.

“Oh… are you doing schoolwork?”

“No.”

“Checking emails?”

“No. Just writing.”

She walked back into the living room and started calling out questions about the futon. “You stopped because you don’t understand how it goes together, huh?”

“NOPE,” I yelled back.

The truth was, I had stopped because I was mentally trying to predict every possible complaint she might have once it was finished. Was the couch in the right place? Was the TV stand too close to the wall? I realized I’d been doing these mental gymnastics my entire life. Trying to keep the peace. Trying to turn a cheap futon into something it was never designed to be.

Later, I heard my mother talking to my oldest brother on the phone. As long as his spirits are up, hers are way up. He teased her about buying cheap Walmart furniture, and she laughed. “I bought it cheap so I wouldn’t get angry all the time,” she admitted. Then she said something I wasn’t expecting. She said she was trying to “let go and let God”. She said my grandson deserved to be a child in peace, and that she would buy more expensive furniture when he got a little older.

I just sat there quietly for a minute, realizing how much I love my parents. Writing honestly about them doesn’t mean that I don’t. My own children will probably have stories about me one day. I raised three kids on my own, including a blind son and an autistic daughter, just trying to make it through the thick fog of depression and anxiety. My kids say they had a normal childhood, but I know I got things wrong too. That’s part of being human.

At 45, I am running a business, a grassroots organization, and surviving my sophomore year of college. I am officially hitting the reset button. I can’t spend the rest of my life pretending parts of my story didn’t happen simply because the people in it are people I love. A few months ago, my overthinking convinced me to delete 11 whole chapters of a 15 chapter book I was writing. I won’t ever do that again. So I’m gonna sit here, and I’m gonna write.

I want to write exactly what my brain says. No matter how it sounds, how it feels, how bad it is, or how uncomfortable it makes me or anyone else. Every time I sit down and tell the truth as I remember it, another piece of my life starts to make sense.

But that’s enough for today. My brain is just too tired from putting this damn futon together.