There’s this recurring theme in my life: I’m just a passenger, staring out the window of whatever bus, car, train I happen to be in as someone else drives. I’m at their will. They’re future is mine. I’ve been too afraid to take matters into my own hands because of my fear of failure. I look head on as the car zips toward its destination, only to smash into an oncoming vehicle. I’m propelled through the windshield and am suspended in the air, slowly twisting as the glass pebbles fly around me. I have enough time to count them all until I collide with the other vehicle. I kindly smile at the other driver and utter my last words, “I guess I’m your passenger now.”

I always imagine Iggy Pop playing as this happens, but now I’m thinking The Apples In Stereo is probably a better choice.

I chatted with my ex-girlfriend online the other night. The night of my first day at work, if I’m correct. She, like several other people, have asked me when I’m planning to pop the question, get married and start breeding. In the history of my family, it seems the breeding starts, a question is kinda asked and the marriage is an inevitability. The latter rarely survives. No, I’m not saying I’m content with my current situation. I do want a family and I do want to get married, but there is just so much shit that has tainted my view on family. In my experience, family isn’t a good thing.

Marriages end and partnerships are severed. Some are doomed and others flourish during dire times. And some have a bit fatherly affection to push it off the cliff to the inevitable. My father is the model of manhood that I’d rather not be associated with. He blamed my mother for barring him from our lives, when it was the other way around. And even though we were doing fine without him, some of us decided that it was best to reconnect. I’ve tried many times and allowed myself to forgive him for the past. And new problems have started up and I have no one else to blame but a recycled scapegoat. Odd enough, said scapegoat has the impeccable timing as to return into our lives the moments the relationship goes sour.

I won’t blame my father for his transgressions, or mine. Nor those of any family member who insists on communicating with him. Because, really, we’re all passengers of the same car. Just waiting for that impending head on collision. I’m going to live a little dangerously, as well. No seat belts. Just me and the windshield.

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