here it is.
i'm sitting in the "entertainment shrine", my makeshift bedroom while i'm here in what was formerly known as my parents' house. now, just mom's house. but dad is everywhere. this room i am in holds his 2nd closet, where he stashed his things to have his own spillover space (mom has many of those). now a messy shrine to that spillover, where mom has started cramming more & more of his things that used to share the enormous, 2-sectioned dressing space in their bedroom. now i'm looking at piles of his clothes, 2 unruly stacks of underwear crowning it all. 1.5 years later, it's still surreal. it hurts.
my therapist says that what makes the grieving process + trips to sf so tricky for me is because i live 3000 miles away in my own little universe, i am not immersed in a day-to-day-life-sans-dad, in sf, in this house, where the memories of him are ubiquitous & thick. it's not a gradual process of letting go for me. i come here for occasions, most of which are laden with meaning for us as a family. holidays, birthdays, events... ok, maybe not gay pride.
so when i drop in for my visits, i am overcome with the sharpness of his absence. i can't get used to it. i am not here in this house frequently enough to adapt like everyone else. & i hate it. i feel a little extra crazy. & i don't need more crazy. got plenty, thanks.
and now i have something else to adapt to. mom's new(ish, since late summer) boyfriend. initially, i had a pretty hefty meltdown when she told me (via freakin email) about him. she'd scantly mentioned him before, but within 2-3 weeks, he went from from being someone she was maybe maybe maybe going to date to a man she had a serious connection with & they were a relationship. i mean, out of nowhere, some guy is with my mom & he's not my dad. it's weird.
don't get me wrong, what i really feel isn't even about mom or her bf. the presence of him in mom's life served as a catalyst to release the last dregs of my blissful, blessed denial about dad being gone. it was like he got gone-ER.
& i miss my father. i want to rewind the clock. i want dad's vast vocabulary to fill the air. i want eat sushi at ino with him on tuesdays. i want to hear about the esoteric class he's taking. i want to tell him about something cool (or stupid) that i did. i want him back. but he's dead.
but i also want my mother happy. for admittedly selfish reasons, when she's happy, she's less crazy/possessive/obsessive/competitive with me. she sees me. but my own needs aside, i do just want to see my mother happy. she deserves it. her life was an arduous one until she met my dad. & nearly 45 years later, she watched the love of her life disintegrate over the last 5 years of his. & while her life has been very fulfilling in innumerable ways before & since, my mom could still use that special brand of happiness that a partner can bring. this new guy makes her happy.
now, here's the newsflash: new happy-man is coming to thanksgiving dinner. which apparently mom has known about for 2 weeks but failed to mention. at least to me. until she started talking to my uncle & aunt in the kitchen yesterday about how they could meet him here on thanksgiving (they are going to napa instead, not a bad option)... hearing this, i had to ask 3 times in the midst of that innocent banter if the bf was no longer going to be with his family & was joining ours. mom talked around the matter for probably 3-4 minutes until i had to firmly establish that we are in yes-or-no question territory. yeah. i'm meeting mom's new relationship for the first time, on thanksgiving, & maybe on thanksgiving mom was going to tell me?
which came first: the infantilized 40-year old child or the 40-year old who acts like a freakin 5-year-old? come on people, psych 101.
(hence therapy. whatever.)
i. am. emotional.
one of my dear friends in nyc gave me some good advice (too early) this morning. he said, in so many words but here with my own twist, that nothing & nobody will change a damn thing about my dad. can't. impossible. it's valid to feel whatever i'm feeling about dad but stop muddying it with all this business about mom's boyfriend.
he also advised that maybe i stop calling this guy "mom's bf" and start calling him by his name, david. huh. makes sense.
DAVID. rip the band-aid off.
potentially a new tradition is starting. me trying to be an adult. this could be good. still annoyed at mom but like i said, her happy makes a lot more happy go around.
so i'm looking back into that closet of dad's, still full of longing. but adapting. knowing that i don't need to shut the door on it for any reason or anybody. & i'm eyeing a couple of t-shirts i'm going to bring home with me. but that's for later. now i gotta stop this writing crap get to the kitchen. keep that tradition going. happy effing thanksgiving.
** as an addendum to this aggro bit of scribbling, i should say that david, my mother's friend, is lovely. and once i chilled out a bit (a.k.a. got over myself), we got along & were even spotted chatting on the phone the following day.
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