I can think of many reasons it would be a better time if I were channeling my father. Perpetual sad sack and patient man, he made a career out of meaningless choices, not the least of which was to stay with my alcoholic mother. An enabler, to be sure. We all were to some extent. It was easier to ignore the elephant in the room than to confront it. And when Lois, by some miracle, the first three months I was away from home in graduate school, managed to drink herself into the hospital, not taking the hint, checking herself out AMA and returning home, the prodigal, to spend a drunken week with me and my dad. By this point in the story her mother, Dorothy, was spending more and more time with her sisters and less time at the home she loved and had shared with my grandfather. Yes, children, we lived with my grandmother, who foot all the bills, save for the $25 a week my dad gave her as token room and board, an arrangement he was content with as my mother was not capable of managing a home of her own. His motto might have been "just pull down your pants and slide on the ice". Instead his verbalized motto was "to be a king is not worth it"...I shit you not. When everyone know, by virtue of Mel Brooks, "it's good to be king". No, my dad had small expectations of life and was rarely disappointed. But he, too, stuff his emotional baggage way down the rabbit hole, not unlike myself growing up, and he suffered from Crohn's Disease later in life, brought on, I am sure, by stress and genetics. I have my own stress maladies, but we shared a similar gastrointestinal system. Push the stress down the rabbit hole and out emerges Colitis or Crohn's and a lifetime of pill popping. But he never let you see the stress. If my mother was going out of her mind on a bender, my dad would simply move to another bedroom until the next morning when he would emerge refreshed. If I were actually channeling Harold I might put the stress on the back burner and smile and be content with whatever life handed me. But, as I feel it, life handed me a short stick (maybe life handed us all short sticks) and dammit I deserve to be marginally happy at least what will be the last years of existence. I don't know why I can't see that. After my mom died in 1994 my dad and I had ten good years together, traveling the world, spending more time together. And I was too much of a "cranky pants" to really enjoy that time, suffering with the bipolar disorder that shaped my life and I believe was why my mother was so unhappy. Ten years. He was happier, I could see, less stressed but still missing Lois all the time. He could have been a king, but settled for so much less. And as my parents died ten years apart, I was fretting that I would die another ten years down the line, which has since passed. So maybe so good will come out of all the navel gazing and reflection.
I don't know where I am going with this. Maybe nowhere, but it feels cathartic to get it out. A pre-Hyphen session with all you pseuo-Hyphens.
Compare and contrast Harold and Lois.
Brad the contractor has sent me the following note:
The old tile is finally demoed. Installing the base, shower valve and
board on Friday. Tile first of next week. Drywall in
kitchen, floor in kitchen,
prime paint kitchen, plumbing in bathroom, install new cabinets, redo
wood floors and paint and install new light fixtures.
I am hoping to be in the new digs by opening day of baseball season, April 6th. Apparently the above is a non-timeline timeline. Hell...that is almost six weeks away. I can hope...
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