2. Lost an AirPod. Found some freedom : stressLess-life
Lost an AirPod. Found some freedom
falseI was at the office the other day, and I lost my AirPod. I could not find it anywhere, I looked super hard.
I considered buying another pair that day.
“The only store is that skeevy electronics store in the worst part of the city, your parents will worry that you would die if you go there, worry about the fact that you’d be bold and reckless enough to go there. Worry themselves sick wondering what’s changed.”
“The AirPods there cost $89, your parents will be mad you spent so much instead of asking them to buy it themselves, worry about the fact that you’d be bold and reckless enough to spend that much of your own money, especially after going to Target and buying a few things that month… TWICE!” (Neither trip went over $70, it was stuff I had been wanting for a long time and I had enough to pay for it).
“What if your parents see that your AirPods are different than the ones before, and find out you walked away from the office during a break by yourself and got new ones? Worry about what else happens while they aren’t there? And wonder why you’ve changed? And are forced to think about the other times you’ve changed, the times he would take you away and teach you things far beyond their scope, and return a child who had become far smarter, far more capable, and far less fearful of dangerous situations than the one they knew and could raise? A child who could move like a seasoned troop, polymath, and leader at an age far too young?”
“What if they thought about it for too long? Wonder where you got the confidence and experience to walk through shadowy realms without worrying? Wonder if it’s the same child he returned to them, that showed for a fleeting minute before remembering it wasn’t it wasn’t the time or place to show itself? [The one I’ve been forced to hide so they don’t have to acknowledge all the times I’ve been taken, go bezerk, have a literal heart attack, or kill themselves?]”
“What if they worry that he’s somehow returned, that I’ve chosen him over them?” (I have chose him, in many respects. But I choose them as well.)
I chose to push past those fearful thoughts, and choose myself as a grown adult. I saw that the store was active online and good quality, I went and got the AirPods. They were technically counterfeits, but very good quality. Just as I assessed. Just slightly off-brand to accommodate the impoverished area. No issues on my phone or any other valuable assets or bank accounts have occurred, just as I knew would happen.
They sound slightly better than my older name-brand AirPods, just as a name-brand version of the newer model I bought would. The case closes with an elegant, heavy, magnetic “click”, just like an Apple case. The seams are seamless. The materials are the perfect, dignified combination of heavy and light that Apple puts in their products to denote their quality. They look exactly the same, sound just as good. No counterfeiter acting in genuinely bad faith would have paid this much attention to replicating them this perfectly and making sure that they worked and sounded this good, while still taking a good chunk of money off the price tag.
It was just to provide a cheaper copy to the impoverished population while still allowing them to feel like they were buying Apple, as well as to allow the equally in-need seller to save money as well. Not to con or swindle me like my parents would worry endlessly about. Just as I predicted based on the evidence. I wasn’t doing anything dangerous, I was perfectly within my range of experience. Using my skills and sharp sight to successfully navigate situations I’m good at navigating, even if my parents’ brains would break from accepting that truth.
It feels weird, having a foreign set of AirPods, ones that I can’t turn off the “tap to play and pause” settings on so they pause the music when I don’t want it paused occasionally (because they’re counterfeit and therefore not 100% perfect). I felt uncomfortable looking at them.
At first I thought the sickly feeling in my stomach looking at them was because they were a new model and didn’t look like my “good old” pair I was so used to, or out of a fear of them being “dangerous” (like my parents would worry about and hope I was worried about, and therefore like I would normally convince myself I was worried about).
But they’re mine. I bought them myself. It feels weird looking at them, because it feels like choosing myself. Not the version of me my parents feel is “safe”, 100% familiar to them. I will keep them until they become unusable, in honor and celebration of my commitment to choosing myself!
Every time the music pauses beyond my volition, I hear in my head “I told you so. See, you shouldn’t have walked into that dangerous area and got AirPods without us there! What if you had died? Lost all your money? Got your stuff hacked into by the counterfeiter?”
But I know what I’m doing. I want to live as I am, not as my parents feel safe knowing me by. Right now I “can’t drive” because I’ve “fallen out of habit of practicing,” even if I drove enough with him to not need any more practice, and know damn well how to drive. If I took the car and drove to the bank right now and cashed my check I got from work all by myself, it might make them remember things. And they’d have a heart attack. So I’m sitting in my bed, annoyed at the fact that I’m going so slow at 23, just as I always have, just as my parents need me to.
But I’m determined to figure out a way to integrate my true being into my life, to allow myself to speed up to my real pace while not accidentally killing my parents from heartbreak or causing everything to blow up from their realization. Because I know I can. I’ve done a million way more difficult things successfully, managed plenty of impossible missions. Even if it’s hard for me to internalize that, since I need to hide myself from myself a lot to keep my parents safe and happy.
I’m going to commit to allowing myself to be alarmingly capable with alarming confidence, even if it might scare my parents a bit. That idea scares me a lot. But I’m determined to see it through, and not give in to the urge to let exhaustion and fear win, and slowly trudge through life as someone I’m not as a result. I’m going to keep choosing myself, little by little!
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