Let’s Duel
I’ve been thinking a lot about joy. I want it, and I want it to know that I want it. I had great plans to start this writing project, write about the cheesy gratitude stuff all over the internet, and subsequently change my life by changing my thought patterns. I was intending to title this second episode “Let’s Dance.” It was going to be great.
And then joy got bored and left to get an iced coffee, leaving reality in charge and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but reality doesn’t pull punches.
I was in the middle of the next to last paragraph of the last post when I got a phone call from my mother. She was calling to let me know that my father had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Was anyone else in class the day they taught us to handle things like this as a grownup? Not to be THAT kid, but can I borrow your notes?
I knew he had been sick, and that they thought it was a bad cold. Neither of them are in the best of health as it is, and given that this is 2020, I was fully prepared for her to tell me that he tested positive for Covid-19. Instead, I was managing my tears while telling my mother not to worry, that everything was going to be ok while my father sat in the background, struggling to breathe.
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My parents and I have an interesting relationship. We don’t always understand each other, and almost every single panic attack that I’ve had in my life was caused by me overthinking about the fact that they were never, ever going to let me be my own person unless one of us died. They subscribed to Childhood Trauma Weekly (only real if you imagine it, but please don’t), and by god, they were going to do their damnedest to live up to the challenge.
Of course, almost everyone feels that way about their parents, right? Most parents try their best to be good parents and not fuck their children up too badly. But they inevitably do include a little fuckery along with the parenting, and it’s up to us kids whether we identify it, learn from it, and not pass the fuckery along to our partners or children.
When my mother told me the diagnosis, my throat immediately closed, and I ended up being in a state of intermittent crying all evening long. Then later that night, I got a massive headache, nearly threw up, and went to bed early. Does that mean that I have different feelings about my parents than I thought, perhaps more devotion than I’d found before when delving inward? Or was I just in shock?
Spoiler alert: it was shock. I’m fine today, the fuckery is still intact.
Regardless, I am still determined to continue navel-gazing. I am going to be happy, dammit.
Oh also, my father will be going to a specialist to find out what’s going on with his heart.
See? I do care.
