Erasing Faith(3)

Dylan and Lennon were closer to me in age — just five and three years older — but, as every little sister in history knows, there comes a point in every boy’s life when letting your baby sis tag along on your adventures is no longer acceptable. Plus, they were boys. I could play LEGOs and army tank with the best of them, but after ten years of scraped knees and tomboyish-tendencies, I was ready for a change.

My teen years were lonely.

All three of my sisters had moved out of the house, by that point — off at college or settling down with their own families halfway across the country, in places so far from our sprawling California farm house, years would pass between their oft-promised holiday visits.

They left and the house was suddenly quiet — or, if not quiet, then at least quieter — and I could hear myself think for a change. There was no more of Saffron’s screeching into her cellphone at all hours of the night, no girly pop music blasting from Meadow’s speakers, no rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of Rainey’s field hockey stick in the back yard. Dylan and Lennon, typical teenage boys, were out partying with their friends half the time and passed out in a dead sleep the other half.

There was silence at last in the Morrissey manor.

And in that unforeseen quietude, I — for the first time ever — could finally stop playing that game of catch-up. I stopped rushing full-speed toward my siblings. I let them fade out of sight, around a distant corner, and I was abruptly alone on the empty, dust-swept road of childhood. I glanced around for a while, apprehensive at my sudden solitary state, before I realized there was nothing left to do but ask, now that they’re all gone…

Who the hell are you, Faith Morrissey?

The saddest moment of my life was when I realized I didn’t have a f*cking clue.

***

By the time I turned eighteen, I was overdue for an adventure.

I’d graduated from high school and broken up with Conor, my high-school sweetheart, who’d done the great service of divesting me of my virginity and walking me through all the typical teenage milestones: homecoming, prom, graduation. No one — not even me — fully understood why I’d ended things with him. He was the perfect, All-American guy — two years older, attending community college, and first in line to inherit his father’s car wash business, even if he secretly harbored greater ambitions. Being with Conor promised security: a safe little life with a big house and a bunch of kids, which never forced me to step foot outside the county I’d been raised in.

But I didn’t want safe. Not anymore.

So, I left a bewildered ex-boyfriend behind with no regrets, and found myself alone at California State University in Bakersfield — just another freshman with an “undecided” major and a case of severe skepticism about what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I’d figured that sensation of mystified self-consciousness would fade as I adjusted to life at school.

It didn’t.

CSUB was only a few hours from my parents’ house and, frankly, after putting five other kids through college and paying for two lavish weddings, it was the only option my parents could afford. I lived in a dorm with a part goth, part punk, full crazy girl named Cindy. She wouldn’t let me call her Cindy, though, insisting that I instead refer to her by her “paranormal” name — Crimson.

‘Cause, you know. Vampires. Blood. Red. Crimson.

Yeah.

She wasn’t exactly what I’d call an original thinker, let alone a friend.

So, when I heard about the study abroad opportunity my favorite history professor was coordinating, I didn’t give a damn about the destination. Timbuktu, Athens, Tijuana, Amsterdam… name the city, and I’d be there. As long as it was anywhere but here, cloistered in a 10x10 foot cinderblock room with a girl who spent every weekend watching reruns of Buffy alone in the dark.

Though my parents were fully supportive of my travel plans, they couldn’t contribute financially. I scrimped and saved for two years until, finally, I had enough money for the down-payment. And only when the check had cleared and I held the flight itinerary in my hands, did I allow myself to be excited.

Senior year in Budapest.

I still remember the giddy feeling I carried inside for weeks leading up to the trip, and the shit-eating grin I couldn’t quite keep off my face as I boarded my first ever plane, which would whisk me away from the only state I’d ever set foot in. I felt as though I was starring in a Hollywood movie version of my life — some glamorous jet-setter, heading off on a year-long European vacation with stars in my eyes.

And the best part? The trip was mine.

Just mine. It wasn’t a repurposed, out-of-fashion prom dress or a second-hand pair of shoes one of my older sisters was no longer interested in. It wasn’t the inherited, old bicycle Dylan had no use for anymore, or the beat-up, twenty-year-old SUV I finally got to drive after Lennon left for college.

Budapest belonged solely to Faith Moon Morrissey, and no one else.

I’d wonder later, after it all fell apart… if I’d known how it would turn out, would I have ripped that plane ticket into pieces? Would I have stayed in my quiet little life, married Conor, and chosen never to meet the man who’d splinter my world — and my heart — into fragments?

I still didn’t know the answer to those questions.

And, at the time, I had no idea that Budapest, that the fantasy I was living, wasn’t real.