I pulled my comforter around me and stayed sideways across the mattress as my eyes drifted closed.
I thought I was finally breaking free from all the complicated relationships that had haunted me throughout my teenage years. I loved my parents. My dad was my hero, and I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. He’d had a guitar in my hand and taught me how to play and write songs since the time I could understand what made music so magical. I had always known I wanted to pursue playing music instead of enrolling in college, much to my mother’s horror. Eventually, we’d come to a compromise after I failed my entire first semester. I only went to make her happy, which we both realized was a huge mistake.
It wasn’t that my brilliant mom was against me following in my father’s footsteps. It was more that she’d been with him through all the ups and downs of being a professional musician. She stayed with him when he had nothing and when pretty much everyone on the planet recognized his face. She knew how difficult it was to have a family and to keep a relationship together when one of the people involved gave half their heart to music and melodies. She reminded me repeatedly that I had to share my dad with all the people who made it possible for him to do what he loved for a living. I knew she just wanted my life to be a little easier than that. She wanted me to have a secure future. She didn’t want me to sacrifice, or go without the way she had when my dad was on tour for long stretches of time. She often reminded me how often it was just me and her, and the twins later on, when my father was away. I hated it growing up, but I understood the sacrifice now that I was older.
Music meant everything to me, and I was willing to do whatever it was going to take, to give up whatever I had to sacrifice, to make my mark the way my father had. I wanted to make both my parents proud, but more than that, I wanted to chase after my dreams and accomplish great things because they mattered to me, not because I just happened to have a famous father.
I often butted heads with my more pragmatic and reasonable mother, but I never doubted for a second that she would love and support me regardless of the path I chose for myself. She was actually the more understanding parent. Like when I started to put my foot down about being dragged to Denver. My family loved to get together with the friends and found family that had helped them not only get together, but stay together when times got tough. My parents were inexplicably close to the friends they’d lived and worked with when they were the age I was now. I understood they wanted the next generation to have the same kind of bonds and support system they had, but it wasn’t something that could be forced.
The twins and I had our own friends here in Austin, and while it was nice to know there was a whole group of people we could rely on in a pinch, regardless of time and distance, they couldn’t be a part of the challenges and solutions that made up our everyday lives.
Plus, Ry was the epicenter of the relationships that connected everyone. He was the one we all circulated around and gravitated toward, whether we wanted to or not. He was either related by blood to half of them or was the one who welcomed the new additions into the fold with open arms. There were a lot of us kids from the second generation running around. He was friendly and charming. He was levelheaded and calm. He was the one they turned to for advice, and the one they looked up to as a role model. The fact he and I had always rubbed each other the wrong way forever made me feel like the outcast. It made it harder to get close to the others who did nothing but sing his praises and fall for his false portrayal of perfection. I felt like I was the only person on the planet willing to call out Ry on his bullshit time and time again. I felt like I was the only one who could tell