This was partially for the blog, partially for something else with work, but I decided that it fit well in both places, so here's a short story called I Waited.
I Waited
I waited on my twelfth birthday,
for someone to tell me that I was actually a super hero. I knew that there was
something different with me, and I knew that they had to know what it was. I
wanted them to tell me just what my super power was going to be now that I was
going into puberty, and I couldn’t wait to keep the family secret. I didn’t
care about the cake, the ice cream, or anything else that was wrapped in paper
and given to me, I was looking forward to my grandma’s traditional birthday
card to have something more than $20 in it, so that I could finally be the
super hero that I knew I was.
I waited until the last minute of
my sixteenth birthday for my family to tell me that I was adopted. I knew that
I was. They didn’t have to tell me. I wanted to have them finally admit to the
truth. There were never pictures of my mom pregnant before I was around, there
were no baby pictures of me until a few weeks old, and despite what everyone
said about how I looked like my dad having brown hair and brown eyes wasn’t a
family trait, that’s just called looking average. I knew that there was
something different about me when my entire family loved music but I could
hardly carry a tune. I knew that I was something different because whenever I
looked at family pictures I never felt like I looked like everyone else around
me, but at the same time there were old yearbooks that I thumbed through that
had pictures of people that looked more like my relatives than my actual
relatives. I waited for someone to finally admit to the truth about who I was.
I waited before and after
graduation for someone to finally let me in on the family secret. Dad changed
his name when he was in college, and he never told anyone why. I knew that once
I finished high school that I would finally be old enough in their eyes to be
told. I stayed in my bedroom that night, instead of out with my friends,
because I was certain that someone was going to come into my room and tell me
the secret.
I waited for someone to tell me
which college I should go to. I got accepted to a few different ones, but I
didn’t know which one to pick. I knew that my advisor had a favorite, but he
never actually told me which one I should go to. My parents were even less
helpful and I tried to get them to put in their opinion but they said that it
was my choice. I waited past three admission deadlines and was stuck with plan
D.
I waited in college for her to call
back. I even had her number. She was going to be the one. She made me feel like
no one else ever could. She made me feel like just possibly, somewhere in my
bones was the person that could make dreams come true. She made it feel like I
could touch the tops of trees and float through clouds, but she said that she
would call me, and so I waited. I waited until I heard from one of my roommates
that she was engaged to someone else.
I waited for a response from my
interview at my dream job. They were the company I was going to work for. They
were the only thing that I wanted to be with for the years that I planned it
out. That company was where I was going to be, and I knew that after one
interview they would see what I had and call me back. I waited for their
response. I only slept three hours a night for a week because I was afraid that
if I fell asleep that I would miss their call welcoming me in to their fold,
where I knew that I would belong and could finally make a difference in my
world. I waited because I knew that if I got that job, I could finally be
different. I could finally do all of the things that I had dreamed of doing.
I waited to ask her to marry me;
she said it was too little too late. I wanted to make sure that I was ready and
that I could support her and we could have a family together. I wanted everyone
to be happy, and she didn’t like that I wanted to provide that for her.
I waited to start my family. I
couldn’t have a kid while still in a graduate program. Then I couldn’t have a
kid while interning. I couldn’t have a kid while in my first year at the
company. I certainly couldn’t have a kid while working on the new project. I
wanted to be the father that would help and love my kid, and I couldn’t do that
while I was just getting started in the world. I waited for her to tell me that
we should have a kid, but all she told me was that we weren’t right for each
other anymore.
I waited to move. I always wanted
to live on the east coast; I liked the cities. There were jobs out there that
were better paying, there was a life style that I knew would fit me, but I
waited because it was a bit too much work to try to box up everything in my
life deciding what pieces could go with me and which had to be thrown away. I
knew that I would have been better off in a different city with a different set
of friends, but getting there was just too much work, and so I waited. Each
week I would tell myself that I would start to clean out a room. That each
night I could start to think about cleaning my life up so that I could move,
but I waited to start it all because my work days were long and I got tired.
I waited for the will to be read to
still hear the words that I knew were to be true. Everyone else was sad to hear
that my dad had died, but throughout the funeral I didn’t cry. I didn’t care
about his body being put into the ground. I didn’t care that I would never be
able to talk to him again, because I knew that the will was going to be read
and the truth would finally come out about me. It was the last chance for my
dad to tell me what I had always known, that he was not my father. I waited for
the lawyer to give away the china cabinet full of nick knacks to my sister. I
waited for the house to go to my older brother. I waited as all of the
heirlooms and chotskies were given away. I waited while everything else was
debated over, because apparently I should have had strong emotional ties to the
standup piano and argued over it for an hour with my brother and sister. I
waited because I knew that at the end of that will was going to be the lines
that I knew to be true, that I was different. That the people arguing about
silverware and blenders weren’t my actual blood, and that I was something more.
I waited for him to pull me to the side and tell me. I waited for the phone
call to come and tell me in secret for a month after the funeral.
I waited for my bosses to give me a
promotion because I knew that I was doing a good job and doing better than
everyone else in my office. I knew that I was better than them, and that my
manager had to be seeing that. I knew that they would see just how great of an
employee I was, and that they would do what had to be done and give me a raise.
I waited to enter retirement. I
still had work to do. I still had things to get done, and no one at my job
could do my job. It was my job, and no matter how smart they thought a new hire
was going to be, no one could do it faster or quicker than me. I waited to go
to finally see the cities I had dreamt about looking at. I waited to be the old
guy who could yell at kids to get off his lawn at all hours of the day. I
waited to even be that old guy who lived at the library and read books for the
entire day because that’s all he had to worry about. I knew that I wanted to do
those things, but I also knew that I needed my job and so I waited.
I waited to see a doctor about a
small little lump. It was a birthmark. A doctor wasn’t going to tell me any
different. I waited to see one because he wasn’t going to say anything that I
didn’t already know. I didn’t care if the lump had grown in size, changed
colors, or any of those other worry wort things. It was just a birthmark – a
birthmark of stage four skin cancer.
I waited for someone to come and
visit me in the hospital. Someone was going to come. My boss, my neighbor, or
anyone other than nurse Tyson was going to come and see me.
I waited for permission from my
body to stop breathing.
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