Emancipated Minor

So today my mother was upset with me, as usual, because I never seem to do things the right way. Or at least her way of right. And she wonders why I don't cry when she's throwing her love out there at me, it's because I know a criticism is coming next. I know some people, or rather kids, suffer from physical and verbal abuse, but I suffer from ego abuse. Still I know I don't really have much to complain about.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, the house should be immaculate. Because I wasn't home last weekend, due to a church retreat, I was supposed to clean triply well today. Which doesn't really make sense if all I can do is dust furniture. I'm not going to wait around for the dust to settle, resettle, and resettle again before cleaning.

So at breakfast, while I was reading a magazine, my mother stopped by to state that I needed to catch up on my chores. I nodded and she walked away. Then she came back to tell me that my cleaning was horrible and that I should clean up my act. [I inwardly giggled when she said that, but she was quite serious and probably didn't notice her pun.] She was also very disappointed to have such an unorganized and messy daughter. This killed my morning and has been distracting me all day. I did clean the house in the hour that I was left at home alone today. [My parents took the van to get fixed and my sister went to watch Twilight.]

My sister is a whole 'nother subject. She comes home every weekend, but she goes to college about an hour and a half away. I don't understand why she thinks she can live here part time and not clean up after her own mess. I'm the younger one and I've got classes seven hours a day, five days a week, and yet she never stops to think that she can actually help me by doing chores. Of course my parents are so excited to see her every weekend, and usually let her do her own thing. I just don't understand why I am left to pick up the chores, especially when they disapprove of the work I do. I'd like to just stop doing them, but of course, that would not help anything. Then again, it might help my ego to be some sort of rebel.

While my mother was talking behind my back, literally, because we were in the same car, she said that I couldn't clean the house well enough. Which is probably a completely random subject that parents don't usually get upset with their children over. It's not just my room that I need to clean, but the entire house. And because my sister is gone, I now have to do her work too. But while riding along, my mother mumbled something about how one day they're going to wake up and I'll be gone because I'm fed up with chores. She said I'd be an emancipated minor. She laughed to herself because she knows I can't survive without the support, but still it made me think.

If I were an emancipated minor, what would I do? Get a job, an apartment near school so I don't have to worry about driving. And maybe make enough money to purchase some cheap used car that is miraculously still running. I fantasized about all the things I could do without being under the strict rule of my parents. Like go to a sleepover, or watch a movie at midnight, or have a dog!

But sadly these were just hopes and dreams that I know I will never attain. But who knows -- maybe one day I'll book it and end up somewhere in Canada.