Hands come untied.

There are different types of intelligence, ones which enable people to
solve derivatives inside their heads, kinds that allow people to do
their best speaking through notes and scales, others that allow people
too see beyond what sits immediately before them, and types that
enable people to soak in the details of things they hear, touch, and
see. I possess intelligence of the latter kind. Some people might call
the product of this sort of intelligence intuition but I like to think
of it as an ability to formulate connections between people, places,
and things that contribute to an overall understanding.

I suppose the attractiveness of this intelligence is that those who
possess it are alert and aware always, producing an aura of strength
and confidence. Maybe I'm wrong but I think this might be the reason
people like the ex-convict and the doctor look into my eyes and see
not necessarily answers but comfort. And this is why people like the
boy look into my eyes and find an end to a path they want to go
further, that they can't imagine to have stopped. People like him are
not satisfied by answers or even suggestions of answers because to
live, they require the possibility of more, of something else. I am
not something else, I am just something. I don't mean that is a
self-injuring way. My soul is not a wandering one, it is an ever
present one. It finds happiness internally, not externally.

My mother is this way, except she does not realize it in a conscious
way. It is a responsibility to know that you are the rock surrounded
by drifting sand. That things, people, and places continuously pass
you by and you hold on to them for a little while and then let them
go. Sometimes you feel used, but you just misunderstand that those
pieces of sand haven't used you, but you have used them. And this is
all why when broken souls look into your eyes and think that they can
stop fighting and they foster an eternal love for you. Their ignorance
of the world around them is off putting but their brokenness is
attractive. It is the last part that makes people like my mother and I
waste our time pretending to love and care for people who could never
understand us.

I spent my childhood wishing for it to go by faster, always
maintaining a nearness to adults listening and observing and learning.
I packed my mind full with books whose contents were too mature for my
youthful ignorance. I played office in the basement instead of house
with the neighborhood kids. It didn't make things go by faster, it
just made me bitter and skeptical towards to world. I don't regret it.

My sixteen-year-old sister and I sat next to my mom on a hill
overlooking the soccer field my fourteen-year-old sister was supposed
to be playing on. She was injured, her arm hoisted in a sling, a smile
on her face as if to say finally, now I have an excuse not to impress
him. And I know how she feels about my dad, our dad because I used to
feel the same way. There was a time when his words were biting, now
they're funny because I recognize that they spew wildly from a
deranged mind who's suffering has become so unbearable that he can't
even acknowledge the tragedies of its own childhood. His judgment is
worthless to me now, but I remember how it used to feel and I
sometimes slip into that familiar pattern where I work endlessly for
his approval.

I think my mom married the wrong kind of man because this one has
seemed to suck the life out of her. She's constantly trying to fix him
and it's so hard to watch. It's like someone put a protective cast
around their lives hoping for it all to fix itself, but the inside is
all mush, held together by this fragile outer shell, threatening to
give way if the mush doesn't get it together. And we wait for it to
happen. Either fall apart or fix itself.