I talk to my parents too little.
Before my mother’s accident ten and a half years ago (followed by a three month coma) she and I spoke regularly. Before college we spoke a lot; we were close, close in a way my father and I never were. We could sit in the living room, she crocheting and I reading, or both of us watching “Mystery” on PBS — whatever it was, if I had something to talk about, we could talk.
My father worked, he often worked nights, and even if he hadn’t we were different enough that we had little in common and little reason to talk. He was enough of a stranger — although he was there for breakfast, there for dinner, there for soccer or basketball games, there when I took driver’s ed, there to pick me up from viola lessons — that he was almost a “stranger” to me when I decided I would corner him and try to convince him that I needed, say, a Geo Metro as my first car. Or when I wanted to go abroad as an exchangee. I’d built a wall, he hadn’t helped to tear it down, and my mom was my silent conspirator.
I wouldn’t say that either parent has become my (or my brother’s) “responsibility” but I think we’re aware of ourselves as adults and them as mortal, older people. Despite our differences, and there are many, I feel bad if we don’t keep in touch, and the fact is that we don’t talk much, and probably not enough.
It doesn’t help that we don’t have much to talk about, and when we do talk, I have to find things that I can pretend interest us both. With most people, and my parents are included, there is no point talking about what interests me and hoping that they’ll go along with the conversation. I have to find what interests others and go with that.
Which means that the person I present to others has to be a facade. Can’t be me, never is me, and is reason enough for not spending too much time interacting with others. For who I am interests others rather little.
The response is simple, trite, perhaps even true: I have to be different that I am. If only I change then even though I would act differently than I do now “as myself,” I’d then be acting true to whom I had become.
The counter claim comes in and is insincere, really. “It’s not who you are, it’s how you present yourself.” See, I don’t have to change, I just have to moderate how I come across to others. The geekiness, enthusiasm or passion for certain topics, desire to talk, to listen, to exchange ideas. Pull those back, but don’t change who I am, just how I act.
I can negotiate. I do it every day. All the time. It’s second nature. It’s not difficult, not a chore, not stressful
Sorry, people, but that’s who I am. I interact. I speak. I express. I desire, enthuse, talk with my hands, let my eyes grow wide with interest and passion. I ramble on and go on tangents. Jump from obscure, esoteric, and eclectic topic to obscure, esoteric, and eclectic topic. And these are not the how of who I am, they are the what. This is not the case of a socially awkward facade hiding some inner depth; I’m not socially awkward at all. I can judge and measure social situations and decide how important they are to me. And the less important they are the less I act like myself, and the more I act “normal.” The more “normal” I act around you, the less important you are to me.
And so with my parents there is a conflict.
They are important to me, but behaving as “who I am” around them would alienate them completely. Thus I must act in a way that is not true to who I am and yet somehow be “real” or “sincere,” and so I nurture a little part here or there, perhaps based on memories or moments or shared experiences, a little well on the side, a secondary source, that I only go to when talking to them. It’s not who I am, but it might be who I was or who I could have been. It borders on their world.
I spoke to my father late in the afternoon when he called; he was still at work and so had little time to chat. He called later in the evening, when I was watching a documentary about “Clerks II.” We talked about my trip to NY, about the weather, and about sports. When we talk about sports it’s about common teams or experiences. When we talk about the weather it’s not small talk. It leads to talk about Idaho or the region, about the past. Only with relatives is talk about the weather not talk about the weather. Or rather, it’s really “talk about,” not just a social convention.
Just before going to NY I checked out “Clerks II” the same night Jen and Jenny got “Keeping Mum.” Tonight while preparing dinner I skimmed the audio commentary tracks, and afterward I watched the bloopers and the documentary “making of” feature, both on the 2nd DVD. I also have copies of “Keeping Mum” and “Descent” lying around; both copies have “issues” that make them difficult to properly encode. I’ll solve the “Descent” one; perhaps I already have. But “Keeping Mum” might be beyond my control.
Today I finished “The Chemical Brothers,” “The Corrs,” and “The Cure.” I previously had “The Carpenters” in there, after “The Beatles.” After “The Cure” came “The Delgados,” a Canadian alt-rock band that broke up a couple years ago. I know them primarily from a song of theirs that made it’s way to the anime series “Gunslinger Girl.” Which is to say that were it not for “Gunslinger Girl,” I wouldn’t know about “The Delgados” at all. “The Doors” and “Eagles” are up next.
As for life around here, I returned with high hopes; I had them in NY as well. On the bus home (the 24, then the 4) I thought of getting material, getting patterns, and sewing things by hand. Or perhaps getting a small, used, sewing machine. Cheaper clothes, a handicraft, something to do with my hands.
I know that I won’t do it.
I need to lose weight. Drop 20, 30, or 40 pounds. Perhaps 50. Drop 2-4 inches from my waist. Lose the gut. That means taking morning walks or jogs, doing push-ups and sit-ups in large quantities, stretching, perhaps biking or getting involved in a sport or going to the gym. I can even imagine the whole “get up early, bus to the SERF, work out, shower, and go to the library” routine. It makes a lot of sense. Lots and lots of sense. Especially in the summer, but really, “always.”
I know that I won’t do it.
Eat healthier, learn more languages, write quickly and intensely. I’m a f**king broken record, a loser, waste of space and oxygen, a failure. Someone treading water, in a rut, in the same ol’ grind. Nothing has changed, and I live my life passively. And why? Because things work out. I’ve never hit bottom, never failed. A failure without failure, even. Coasting. Content with previous success, knowing that most would be satisfied with the results, and with no one to push me. Ask a normal person on the street or a colleague? They think I should be satisfied with or proud of what I have. And so I’m in another contradiction, for on the one hand they seem like my peers, but were they really my peers they’d want so much more, and so I deal with them, but I can’t really respect them. Which is to say, I like them but don’t really respect them, the reverse of a normal tendency. So is my friendship really worth anything?
