Sugar Packet Football

I cam home to irritability and silence once again. My mother lectured me once more. I took back my guitar and amp. Tom wasn't there but the guy I sold the guitar back to couldn't understand why I did it. I started weeping and left the store. At least I have money for Ely's tattoo now. My mom was happier when I came back. I don't ever want to talk about the guitar again though. It makes me too sad. Like the resume Ely picked up at the pizza place. He couldn't make a career out of the things he loved. I feel like I'm backed into a corner and that I have to succumb to a type of courage to find my way out. I think it's courageous to compromise yourself for others, to make people you love happy, to fit in the cogs of society. However, I also believe that it's courageous to be selfish and just do what makes your heart beat and be the way you are and not change for anyone but yourself. I understand both come with positive and negative territories.
Everything is so forced.
I miss my dad. I remember really liking living with him when I was really little, just after he and my mom divorced. I remember bike riding in the mall parking lot in Woodland Hills and him gently pushing me to do more daring things when I was riding, encouraging me to be less afraid. Or rock climbing in Joshua Tree, when he'd harness me and my American girl doll up a very small boulder and tell me what kind of holds , nooks, and crannies to look for. We used to sit on his couch on slow, warm afternoons and listen to The Eagles or Tom Petty or the Steve Miller Band. And anytime we'd go out to a restaurant which was anytime we ate together, (I always hoped for Islands, no one could beat their ranch fries!!), we'd always play a few games of sugar-packet football or shoot the paper covers on straws at each other. I like how he always made a game out of everything. I'm not saying everything was sunny fields of daisies all the time but it was nice. I've never realized how scared and cautious I've been during my life. It reminds me of my mom, always doing what's safe and what she's told.
The more and more I think about it, the more I realize how accurately my sister mirrors my mom and how I mirror my dad. I miss my sister as well. Ely reminds me of her in some ways.