I think it is in the parents handbook how to be frustrating with a loving touch. The three 'rents are freaking out over the weight thing. Yes, I'm well aware I've gotten rounder, thanks for making me more self-conscious. "What happened to my slim daughter?" Mr. Daddy said yesterday at dinner, followed by his Eddie Murphyesque laugh that makes me want to punch something. He said the last time he saw me almost two weeks ago my face was all puffy and he decided then that I needed a talk. First of all, I've never been slim and it frustrates me that they can't see that I've realized that I let myself go and have been losing, only that I weigh "too much." I've deduced that their vision of an ideal me was when I was half-insane, stressed out, and wound up circa the emotionally disastrous DC semester when I was too depressed to eat and that yearbook summer after graduation when I was practically locked in a room working to finish and come home, bingeing on whole pizzas when I was too weak to focus any more. But, they wouldn't know that those times are nothing to emulate. Keeping secrets is the family way.
The dinner had been months in the making. It was supposed to be the joint birthday dinner from three months ago. But I'm busy and I live in the city and he's busy and he lives upstate, so it took a minute to get our schedules in sync. We went for duck in Chinatown as we just about always do and had the typical conversation. "What've you been up to?" "Nothing." "You still hanging out late and down there on the Lower East Side? For whatever reason. It's not too safe down there as I remember." "Not really. It's lame now. Nothing really goes on there." "You've been thinking of going back to school yet? Might as well do it now before you get tied up in stuff." "No. I still hate school plus I don't think they accept IOUs. And I still don't know what to study." "You could always get a master's in..." "Don't start with the teacher thing." "Well, what do you want to do anyway? "I don't know." "Maybe you should apply for a federal or state job." "Ugh...everyone I know with one hates it." "Depends on the one you get. They're not all bad." "I already hate my job. I don't want to get a worse one." "Everyone hates their job. Might as well make a lot of money." "I'd rather do something I want to do." "Like what?" "I dunno." I can't really think of how to say that I just want to take time off for myself to write that novel sitting in my head, but I feel trapped by worrying about money and staying afloat all the time. I also wish I could strike it rich in the lottery but can't afford to funnel money towards tickets.
And there was a black cloud hanging over our dinner because it's family death season again. My dad's cousin had a fatal heart attack at 40. In yesterday's conferring session between my dad and uncle, it was revealed that the guy had a heart condition, was working two jobs to keep up on child support payments, and checked into the hospital Saturday and didn't call his mother until Tuesday to lie that he was on vacation. He didn't want to worry her because his brother is fighting colon cancer and not looking too good. He was always the secretive loner type, my father says. The brother called around to alert everyone before they even told my aunt about it and she found out when a cousin fucked up and called her to offer his condolences. My uncle and father tutted that everyone knows that the last thing you would think to do is call her. I gravely said to Mr. Daddy that I hoped he'd never go off to do something like that without telling me first, but now I remember that unfortunately it's family protocol. When I was seven, I went to California for the first time for a week and change and when I came back, my grandmother was dead of liver cancer and buried. And I didn't even know she had been sick. Is that fucking depressing or what?
I'm sitting at work, thinking of how tired I am of being an automaton but feeling stuck on what to do. The other week, I liberated the bass from the upstate closet and it's sitting next to my bed, calling for me to be dedicated this time around. My notebook is the first thing I see when I rummage through my tote looking for things. My apartment walls are still bare after six months and I'm trying to visualize how I can make it more like a home. I've been listening to albums, thinking about how to twist those bite sized impressions into sentences. I need to spend less time considering and thinking and more time doing. It might be morbid (but understandable considering the surrounding events), but the only thing I fear right now is being dead tomorrow with nothing to show for 24 years but a messy room, broken relationships, and dark secrets waiting to be unearthed. I'd rather fail living my dreams than be a failure at life.
Posted by Candicissima at June 17, 2005 09:30 AM