All Grown Up (?)

I'm a second-year University Student, and in two and half months I will have reached my second decade of life, but it still amazes me how young I feel and act in my own mind.

Last night, I came home late, and found my parents had gone out to dinner without me. Feeling miffed, I took some money and walked through the cold to the nearest fast-food joint to get my own supper. I would cook it myself, except, that I can't really cook anything very appetising. I can boil pyrogies, but they cool pretty quickly and once they do they're gross. When the moon is in the seventh house, and the three outer planets are aligned, I can make pancakes that are edible. There was soup in the house, and bread, and cheese - but I was cold and lazy. I didn't want to come home from a long day to eat something cold or lukewarm. So I went to McDee's.
So I left the house in a huff, feeling very irritable and out of sorts, and angry - and the most childish and cliched of thoughts turned over and over in my mind like pancakes of petulance on a griddle of self-righteousness indignation. Maybe I'll be hit by a car, I thought, Maybe I'll be kidnapped or murdered or violated or converted to Scientology and then they'll be sorry, sorry they didn't wait for me, and take me with them to supper so that they could have spared themselves this horrible tragedy.

Mother will cry, "Oh! It's all my fault! If only we had waited to take our daughter with us, then she wouldn't have had the need to leave the house and encounter the Anime Otaku Strangler in a dark alley! Woe! Woe!"

And Father will scream, "How selfish and thoughtless we are! Now that Tom Cruise has her, we'll never see her again! We're horrible parents!" And then they will rend their clothing, and beat their breasts, and tear at their hair, all while I smirk down on them from Heaven, or wherever Scientologists go after they die.

I'm too old for that, aren't I? No one in their right mind would really want to go out and get themselves assaulted in order to spite their parents. But it disturbs me that I still harbour such thoughts.

Worse, Sister #1 decided to host a Halloween party for four of her friends, and Mother and Father bought her boxes of Halloween candy and pop for the event.

Once I found out about this, I was miserable, and immediately I think : Why doesn't anybody tell me these things? Why doesn't anybody tell me Mum and Dad will buy treats so that we can hold parties? It's not fair, I want to have a party and have my parents fund it!

I then proceed to feel sorry for myself that my friends live out of town, or that I don't have their phone numbers, and that they don't know each other so I can't pretend that I always have a group of chatting acquaintances surrounding me wherever I go.

I can't believe that at my age, I feel so depressed whenever my sisters get something, because I feel cheated because I didn't get something too. I was never planning to have any kind of party - I am going to go to a party today for National Novel Writing Month, but I have to pay for my own food.

Why is it that whenever my sisters receive a special and unique and totally-out-of-the-blue gift, I can't help but be angry and jealous and self-pitying because I hadn't thought to tag along on that particular shopping trip, or thought to ask if my friends could come over, or just asked outright that I wanted something, please, please? I immediately forget everything special that was ever done for me, or else they seem to become horribly insignificant by comparison. Mum always used to tell me how hard it was to purchase Christmas gifts when we were young, because she'd always had to make sure that she and Dad spent an equal amount on all of us, and that we all had the same number of presents to open, and that no one got a gift that was just so much more special than the others. I can understand that greed when I was young, but what about now?

Even now, I can't remember anything special my parents have done for me (recently). I'm sure they have done some things, but seeing those huge cases of pop intended for Sister #1 and her friends inspires in me the belief that my parents just love Sister #1 more, that they are more willing to do things for her because she doesn't like silly cartoons and comic books and televisions shows like me, that she's the responsible one and so gets special priviledges, and that they think I'm an adult who is now responsible for getting her own presents and gifts by herself, with her own money, and shouldn't rely on her parents so much for silly things like love.

I'm sure none of that's true - I mean, when our Aunt had a new baby, did Mum say, "No fair! I could have had another baby, and then I would have been the centre of attention!" Or when my Uncle got remarried, did Dad say, "Awww....I didn't know I could get a new wife. Damn!" No. So when am I going to grow out of it?