The Voice that Wore Out its Welcome
When you grow up with someone who likes to throw back a few drinks, there’s a voice that can stick with you longer than you’d like. It’s the voice that slips up to you in the middle of the night, sits on the edge of your bed and hisses at you with clenched teeth. It rages over the sound of the television, echoes and thumps through a locked door. A voice tossed at you in the backseat of car. The words sometimes change but the point’s always the same: you won’t amount to shit in this life.
After a few glasses of wine that voice sometimes came out of my mom, out of the same woman who loved me and told me I could be anything I wanted. The same woman who “got” me more than anyone else, as Moms sometimes do. She pushed me hard. One day in grade school I came home with a 97 on an English test. “What happened to the other three points?” she asked, without a trace of humor. Still, she and my dad raised me with the expectation that I would make my way to college, and on to good things, in a good life.
That these two voices came from the same woman confused me as a kid, turned me wary and watchful, measuring the heat in every room. Hear it at the wrong time, when you’re too young to know yourself, too young not to believe what others call you, and it works its way into your marrow, growing up with you, hobbling you, lowering your aim in life.
The voice can’t be reasoned with. You can’t show it the proof of your past deeds, your honors and awards. Other people can’t argue it out of your bones. It feeds off the same stuff as nightmares, hiding where the light can’t hit it, growing up twisted and gnarled, wrapping itself around the stronger parts of you.
Later on, I grew up to be a guy who liked to toss back a few, and I heard that voice coming out of me, aimed at someone I loved, and after a while I couldn’t live with it anymore.
I’ve been thinking about that voice lately, as I work away at a couple of projects, the kinds of projects that voice kept me from trying, and though I hear it every day, hissing at me with those stupid clenched teeth (it has no sense of humor, this voice), it’s not working like it used to. You can’t reason with the voice. You can’t outthink it. But you can get to work, acting like it’s not there, whistling like a seventh dwarf, your bones strong and pure.
Hearing the voice and listening to the voice are two very different things.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:13 pmGood for you man. So been there and totally understand your post.
*bear hug*
April 29th, 2009 at 5:19 pmWonderful piece. I have the same voice. It’s a voice that forced me to adopt an “I’ll show you who’s a fuck-up you motherfucker” attitude that has served me well in life in terms of success. Yet in my internal dialogue, the voice continues. Regardless of success, I am always waiting for the world to discover what a fuck-up I really am.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:58 ammichael,
even as you still hear these voices today and think negatively of them, just remember this; at least you had someone telling you something.
i grew up in a small spanish family that had two adult drunks who never gave any encouragement to any of their children. oh, don’t get me wrong, they occasionally gave us words of ‘warning’ or some type words of wisdom, but never in a positive manner so that we would understand what they were trying to say.
i am the only one from my family who went to college and has made something of myself (professionally). i can still remember to this day while trying to do that stupid math homework, that they had no clue how to help me. i can still remember while in college that they never once asked me about my grades or progress.
how i motivated myself to do anything was beyond me. i guess i just remember something someone once told me one day; that if i do all the right things i can do anything. well, that has worked to a point. i have done all the right things and now i’m without a job because of today’s stupid economic situation.
lately, i feel like i am losing my motivation that i use to have and become more and more depressed. but i still try to keep a positive attitude. i guess that is one of my strong points i carry and have used to make me believe that things will be better.
so, the next time you hear your mother’s voice, just smile and think to yourself; at least you had someone who cared enough to say something…anything.
take care my friend.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:47 amsteve
Your system doesn’t allow a one-word comment, so these words are the parenthetical before the comment: gorgeous.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:15 amThanks guys
Snoopy I didn’t want to imply that I was asking for pity, or that my lot in life was worse than anyone else’s, though that was the obvious risk with writing about this issue, and I may have tilted too far in that direction.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pmI’ve heard that voice coming out of me.
This hurt to read, but thanks. Got some thinking to do now.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:02 pmDude,
I hate to be the one to have to break the news to you, but life and fate are con-
spiring against you. Your GONNA BE SOMEBODY, a “literary contender”. Get used
to it and get over it. Accept your place with those other DIVAS; Gore Vidal, Truman
Capote, Walt Whitman, etc.
On second thought, scratch Capote.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:24 pmMaybe you can think of that voice as an asset — a lot of very successful people were driven all their lives by the urge to disprove a parent’s scornful assessment of them.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:00 amHang in there buddy. Sounds like a similar story to my relationship with my older brother. sending you hugs
May 12th, 2009 at 4:41 am