My trespasses are forgiven these days. My friends and loved ones know i “have a lot on my plate.” I am a pitiable person. I work hard not to be a pitiful person. “How are you doing?” How many times a day do you ask; are you asked? To grow up is to know the difference between hello and, really, how are YOU doing?
Preteen, teen, angst filled me had emotions that roiled and expressions yet to be formed. A curt “fine” screamed, “like you would ever understand what is going on with me!” A different time, different minefields. With hindsight and experience and trauma, times to be looked back upon with nostalgia. There were risks then. Dangerous decisions, navigating those emotions that made it so easy to love then. Same emotions made depression and suicidal thoughts or reckless actions a part of the milieu.
Today, with heavy weight of the world, the opposite can trend. So often, the answer is genuinely fine. Happy to be here, I have so much to be thankful for. I do have a lot on my plate. My world of making over 50 years is in free fall do-over mode. I am more healthy emotionally, I have played the game of know thyself in earnest. I forgive my foibles, my fetishes, my obsessions and distractions. I still have the capacity to dream, to year, to plan for the future.
At the same time the duckets must roll in. Have I deferred and extinguished to many dreams for cash flow? The cracked hearth they nourished played a symphony of love for new souls times three plus one anew. Those were my breathing dreams too, and they will aspire and dream and thus add wonder to the world. So truly only dreams deferred plus interest. My nose can survive that grindstone.
The getting stopped at red lights, the C on a test, the incompetence of a store clerk that used to be the reasons for my bad days have been replaced. The larger problems of life has showed up on my door simultaneously, The odd thing about it is that most of this can truly be weathered with a genuine smile. There are so many kindnesses, little happinesses and joys and moments of beauty and inspiration in the world. There are so many possibilities. Only now, with dying of father, end of marriage, damaged relationships with children, and dire financial concerns hovering, the impact of the worst moments of these have a magnitude in moments that is truly knee-bending and humbling. There are the dread version of epiphanies. Instead of flashes of hurt they become rolling thunder, breath stealing disturbance of the force. My father is dying. My marriage has ended.
But sometimes time slips by unnoticed. Attention slips by what must be attended to. My trespass, forgiven by all but me and perhaps one other, was a grave one. Is every second as equal as any other? I think not. My father is drifting toward his death. He is doing so in an uncountable way. He does not heed Dylan Thomas words exactly, He has raged against the withering of the body, of the decline of function. He has tried to race to death before succumbing with waking breath to all other limitations but death. From a thousand miles away I have a magic phone. It rings and lucidity and calm arrive for a few moments. A reason for the suffering of the day. I tell myself I call every day; I know it stretches to every other day most often. And as I saw clearly that the days of my father are numbered and more precious than mere days, somehow I let six days slip. Life flew at me, as it does in my line of work with an unending run of this and that. Of major tasks, minor inconveniences, decisions that demon added attention, and scheduled events that filled the minutes, And not calling for one day, turned into that nagging feeling that you forgot something, turned into a frantic scrolling through the cell phone log. That cruel keeper of records and shatterer of delusions, 6 days.
Live your life. Be present, Put your children first. Don’t buckle from the emotional turmoil and confusing transformation of every part of your daily routine. Everybody knows that it is times like this that leave your character showing. You are doing okay.
But . . . Don;t fucking forget to call your father again, or I won’t forgive you.
Signed,
You Truly