Everything Will (Probably) Be All Right by Ashley Parker

Author:Ashley Parker [Parker, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2024-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

14

I help my grandma set the table, doling out nine plates, nine sets of silverware, nine carefully folded paper napkins. Grandma and Grandpa sit at opposite ends of the table. Cindy, her husband Randy, and their fourteen-year old daughter Lucy fill the seats on Grandma’s left. Then we have Grandpa Wally. An unspoken decision places me in my dad’s spot next to my grandpa. Brian and his girlfriend Ana are next.

Grandpa Wally gives the blessing. Brian revives our childhood tradition of squeezing the other’s hand as tightly as possible. You can’t say anything, because then the adults will know you were goofing off instead of thanking Jesus for this meal, even though it was your grandmother who spent hours slaving over a stove.

I feel like a celebrity when I’m back in Georgia, my life suddenly interesting. The upgrade from background character to star of the show is an ego boost and uncomfortable. I wish Dad could be hearing this.

“How much is a gallon of gas out there, ten dollars?”

“Do you bring your lunch to work? What do you mean, they give you food?”

“I bet the ganja out there sure beats the stuff out here, huh?”

After I was expelled from the tenth grade for pot, I was sent to an alternative school for a semester, a county-wide collection of miscreants and education standards even lower than those of the Georgia public school system. This was not received well by my family.

I could feel the shift in how Grandma Judy saw me.

“You’ll be ok, Sierra, just keep your chin up and the Lord will carry you through this.”

Every family dinner, every holiday, every half-impressive achievement was met with jokes: Was I eating so much because I’m stoned? Do I make more money at my fancy corporate job or slinging pot?

My protests that no, I’m actually not a pothead, I didn’t even smoke weed for ten years after getting expelled (California changed that though), fell on deaf ears. Truth couldn’t get in the way of some harmless joking. The ‘harmless jokes’ built a wall between me and my family, made me an outcast. The ‘harmless joking’ calcified my doubt and I tried to accept that I would never amount to anything.

Throughout the years, when Randy told a story one Christmas about finding some old weed in Cindy’s underwear drawer, or when Brian hinted that he sure would be interested in seeing what medicinal marijuana gummies were like, I was pissed. The teasing had been too much; the only person on the other side to tell me they’re proud of me, I’m doing great, was Dad. The other outcast in the family.

Eventually I realized that maybe they were just jealous of a different life, no apparent family obligations, a “fun” job, legal weed. They didn’t know that life in California was the same as life in Georgia. You wake up, you go to work, you go home, you pass the days with friends and travel and crying in bed, you go to sleep.

But I don’t need to let them know that.

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