The Requested Burden

   I don't have a lot of pet peeves. Granted, if I'm annoyed, I'm annoyed and there's nothing to be done about that. But there aren't very many specific behaviors that can really ruin my mood. I'm sure that on this blog I come across as this belligerent and powerless force of aggression, attempting to break through to the aging society that threatens to drown my people with their tightening authority. That is on purpose. I portray myself as such on purpose. This is a blog about teenage angst; what else did you expect? Don't get me wrong, the subjects that I address are ones that I care about, but real talk here, I'm usually pretty calm and probably seem a little lethargic at times. My brain is always going a mile a minute, believe me, but it isn't as though I'm constantly fighting the urge to leap up onto my desk and preach the pleas of the misunderstood masses. I'd rather just express myself through a platform where it is your choice as people to decide whether to listen or to peacefully disregard me. I really don't have a problem with being ignored. Yeah, attention is awesome, but not when I'm just doing me, trying to get through every day without keeling over and dying of boredom. I like to perform, and I like to write, and as long as somebody is watching or reading, I'm totally fine.
   Anyway, back to the matter at hand: pet peeves. I most likely would not be able to name at least five of these. We've established that. But I was thinking in the hallway while heading to the library that there is one thing that bothers me far beyond the point of politely forced apathy, and that is the use of frivolous, unimportant questions so often resorted to to start a conversation. There are different degrees of this frustration; I actually love those conversation-starter flash cards that people bring to parties and stuff. They are delightfully awkward. No, my frustrations are directed towards the mundane inquiries asked persistently by people who should by now realize I don't enjoy answering them.
   That sounds a little shitty, I know. But it bothers me so much and I've been nice about it for at least the past twelve years.
   Yes, readers, the infamous, "How was your day?" Asked by my mother, of course.
   As someone dealing with clinical depression, I figuratively have to slap myself around eight times to keep from saying, "I hate everything that I am forced to do. How the fuck do you think my day was?" Obviously, this has never been used as an actual response, but it's getting harder and harder to avoid it.
   I am sick. I am very, very, excruciatingly sick as a result of reckless parents. My father used to bring me with him to bars and smoked around me and let his brothers and friends smoke around me as well. This pretty much resulted in my lungs being utterly destroyed. It's not so huge a problem now. I get around. But it's enough to hospitalize me  for about a week once every two years. This year, I need to be hospitalized again. It's going to turn into something ugly and devastating, but of course, it is going to be pushed off until next year because I apparently "have a problem with being one of four." My mom basically just told me to get better because we don't have any medical until January first, in spite of the fact that she's had a doctor's appointment a week for the past month-and-a-half. That is not an exaggeration, I promise you.
   She knows about my excessive lung issues and my completely fucked to shit brain chemistry, and she wants to know how my day went. This is coming from the woman who explicitly declares that my problems are nothing compared to hers, and also that I'm just a greedy little shit that always needs attention, and the hypocrite needs to know what I learned in class today. The hypocrisy dripping from those words disgusts me. See, despite how much of a burden I tend to be (you know, just the fourth fucking child that she decided to have), she is so desperate for my approval that she needs to pretend to care just a little bit, and then she knows I'm absolutely sold, and my opinion of her is ranking higher than that of Queen Elizabeth I and Madame Curie, right where it's supposed to be. I am appalled at this half-assed attempt at an interest in my life.
   I told her the other day that when I have children, I am always going to help them with their homework and she just laughed at me and said, "Good luck with that." And I just looked at her and said, "I'll make it work." I know that by the time my kids are in eighth grade, they'll probably be learning calculus and fucking physics, but I will learn it with them and call whomever I need to call to ensure their success. To this, she gave the most bullshit answer I have ever heard pass anyone's lips in my entire life. She shrugged and told me, "I never helped you kids with your homework." I fucking shit. I had to leave the room. Her point was one of those and-look-where-you-are-now points, and it made no sense whatsoever. No sense. My sister is a doctor now, yes, but my two brothers are fucking college dropouts that still live at home, and I am a fucking basket case. How the fuck can you use that as an example of your shining exhibition of parenting. She literally does not care what we do at all. When I was sixteen, I walked around the house drunk for two days straight, just blatantly drunk, and she ignored the whole thing. (I've been sober ever since, I promise, haha... That experience was unpleasant to say the least.) She does not address any problems with me, and she never cares where I am as long as I don't miss a major family event that has something to do with her.
   Ugh, I'm sorry. This whole blog has just been bitching about my mother for a couple posts now, but I'm seething with rage at the moment, so... this is probably the last one for now that's about her, though. I'm just so upset with everything. As always. But still.