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Warning: Besides some angst . . . nothing bad
at all. Discalimer: The characters within this story are all the creations of my own over-active imagination. Any resemblance they bare therein to any real people is purely coincidental. by Joana Rodriguez a.k.a Lady Dragon I just want to be normal I don’t want to be different anymore. I’m tired of always wondering when it’s going to get better; I want it to get better. Can I stop being the black sheep of the family now? I’m sixteen with no place to go. I’m sixteen without a hope or dream to my name. Sixteen years have gone by without anyone noticing I’m a person as well. I’ve got feelings I’ve got a heart I’ve even got a reasonably high level of intelligence. So why am I such a hopeless failure? I’ve tried just about everything to get your attention. Drinking, stealing, sex, drugs; you name it I’ve done it. I come home late at night and all you ever say is “go to your room son”. I sit there waiting at the edge of my seat hoping to get lectured, some sign that you still care. Instead it’s the same old line I get every time “I’m disappointed in you, just stay out of my sight”. Why Mom, why Dad, why do you hate me so? Julie’s report card is on the refrigerator door – three Bs one C and two As. Its right up there next to Shayne’s which by the way has all As. I got a D in math and a B gym class but I managed to snag As in all the rest. I got a higher GPA than Julie did, yet my grades aren’t up there. I’m one of two section leaders for the drum line in the High School’s marching band, but I guess that’s nothing compared to being the first string quarterback of the varsity, or being made head cheerleader two years early. Naw, I guess my accomplishments just aren’t that good after all. Can you believe I once thought that if I got a job and paid for my own car, clothes and stuff you’d think better of me for it? Instead I got chastised for being too nerdish and working as a part time computer technician at the university. Did you even care how many programming classes and training courses I had to take, or how many older and more experienced people with degrees under their belts I beat out for that job? I’m tired of trying. I don’t care what you think anymore. I’m different in your eyes no matter how normal I think and feel that I am. I’m different and I’m unworthy, that’s what you’ve been trying to say all along right? Fine, I’m tired of competing for your love. I’m not Julie or Shayne and I won’t ever be, no matter how much you rather I was. I’m the son you won’t acknowledge, the son you won’t introduce to your boss when he and his wife come over for dinner. I’m the son you never show up to support, the one you never cheer for or just say: “I’m proud of you”. I’m the son you cant even bare to call by name. I’m Amane, that’s the name I’ve given myself. A name I can remember and a name I can associate with. For a long time while I struggled to be the person you’d be proud to call your son I forgot who I was. I lost my identity and tried to be everything I wasn’t. In all honesty I’m not sure who I was, I certainly wasn’t me. The things I did for attention, the things I tried to become in order to appease you – they just weren’t me at all. Every morning I get up and take a look in the mirror, I can’t say I like the person staring back at me. He’s not me and hasn’t been for a long time. So I finally took the advice you gave us all long ago about peer pressure. If they can’t respect and accept you for who you are then they’re not really your friends. That’s what you told us the first day we each entered the sixth grade. Well I finally understood those words, but who would have thought they’d have applied to my own Mom and Dad. I took a lot of wrong turns but at long last I woke up this morning and I recognized the face staring back at me. There wasn’t a stranger looking at me this time, it wasn’t some poor fool still lost and stumbling about in the dark. It was me that I was looking at, and I was proud to see who I had become. There’s a packet of papers in a manila envelope on the kitchen table, they’re my walking papers so to speak. I know when you see them you’ll cringe a bit, but in the end you’ll sign them and sigh in relief. You’ll no longer have a son named Steven, and when you look back on this day you can say with absolute truth that the man that left your house to venture out into the world on his seventeenth birthday was a stranger named Amane. Author’s notes: At the time I started to write this I didn’t think it would be more than a few paragraphs of angst; in fact it didn’t even have a title yet. As I wrote though it began to take shape and behold the emotions that a majority of teens have felt growing up. I’ve actually seen families where a single child is singled out and neglected. Taking that I kind of ran with the idea and fiddled with it to see what I’d get. Now why did I choose the name of Amane? Well I happen to like Japanese names quite frankly, and Amane suited the character. Here’s a name analysis of Amane: The name of Amane gives you a clever, quick, analytical mind, but you suffer with a great deal of self-consciousness, lack of confidence, and much aloneness because of misunderstandings. Your idealistic and sensitive nature gives you a deep appreciation for the finer things of life and a strong desire to be of service to humanity. There are times when you experience inner turbulence at your inability to say what you mean. It is far easier for you to express your deeper thoughts and feelings through writing than verbally. You find pleasure in literature, in poetry, and in your ideals and will turn to them when you feel you have been misunderstood. You are deeply moved by the beauties of life, especially nature. Because your feelings run deep, you must guard against the ups and downs, being very inspired one minute, then moody, reserved, and depressed the next. Your reactions to people vary according to how you feel. You tend to be secretive and noncommittal about private matters, yet at times you will talk effusively in order to hide your self-consciousness or to lead others away from personal subjects. You are inspired by encouragement from others, yet suspicious of their intent. You crave affection but seldom find anyone who understands your nature. For those that did not realize it, the "walking papers" that Amane are talking about are his "Emancipation of a Minor" papers. There are essentially two ways they can make you an official emancipated minor. The easy way where the parents sign away their rights to claim you as their child and the hard way where they are forced by the courts to give you up. Now because he wasn't abused physically it would have been harder to get this down the hard way, however Amane's parents really don’t particularly care what happens to him and he's begun to realize this and thus he opts to have them sign of their own free will. An interesting fact to note is that more often then not emancipated minors will choose to legally change their names as well. Sometimes its just the family name, other times its their whole name. Please Leave a Review
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