After the Storm

Chapter Three

But alas, tonight, he was not on my side.

"Yeah, why don't you take a break? I'm sure you can work on that tomorrow," he said instead.

Frustrated, I pushed the top of my laptop closer to the keyboard to show my parents that I was giving them attention but not giving up on my work just yet.

I loved my parents, I really did. They were great people. Fantastic. And for the most part, I loved living with them. I mean, my setup was pretty sweet. I had their love, guidance, and support whenever I needed it, which was pretty much all the time.

But what I also had were their opinions. About everything. All the time.

Why are you doing that now?

Did you talk to your brother today?

Have you emailed your professor yet?

I knew I set myself up for the questions as I had a compulsive need to share whatever was on my mind whenever I had run in to some sort of problem. Some folks have the issue of letting everything simmer inside them. If those people lived in the Arctic, then I set up camp in Antarctica. Maybe it was because my parents were my safe place and my dumping grounds, but geez, it probably wouldn't be the end of the world if they didn't know every little wrinkle in my life.

"I can't," I said, trying to keep annoyance from leaking in my tone. "I planned to work on the Introduction section of my thesis tomorrow."

See? More unnecessary information. And I give it away like candy.

"You planned to work this weekend? You've already been working so hard this week. Take some time off."

See? More unnecessary opinion.

"Mom, please, trust me. I have all the due dates written down and I know when I can and can't afford to take time off."

Thankfully, my dad did take my side this time.

"We trust you to know what you're doing. Come on, Maia, just leave her alone. I know you miss her, though."

They missed me? Oh god. I still lived with them and spent, literally, 99% of the time that I wasn't in class at home with them. Yeah, I got that a lot of that time was spent in my room alone or that if I was in the living room with them, I had my laptop for company, but still, they missed me? I guess now was a bad time to admit that I was thinking of applying to grad school outside of Winnipeg. I hadn't brought it up yet because I wanted to make sure there were actually programs in experimental social psychology that I absolutely loved outside of the province. No sense in giving my dad a heart attack over a hypothetical.

"We do miss you, but it's more than that," my mom said. "I worry that you work too hard and don't enjoy yourself enough."

Well, she had a point there. I'm not alone in this, but somewhere along my educational career, I adopted the mindset that the less fun you were having, the better a student you were. There's no evidence to support that it's true, and in fact, the opposite probably has more truth, but attitudes were hard to change. I would know. I took an Attitudes and Persuasion course two semesters ago.

"I went to the game last week with Ang," I reminded my mom.

Her face lit up.

"Speaking of Angela, why don't you make plans to go spend tomorrow evening with her at her dorm? Get out of the house a little."

I deliberated. All things considered, that was a fair request. Saturday nights were typically my "off" nights, but that usually consisted of resting up so that I could be even more productive on Sunday. A real wild child, I am.