So … My Dad Died

It was a year ago.

I don’t remember how I found out, I don’t remember who told me, where I was or anything leading up to it.

I remember sitting down next to my mom on a hot summer afternoon and watching her cry for reasons I still try to pretend I can’t relate to. I remember finding out he was murdered and fearing for my own life. I know I still do.

I remember that it served as the introduction to many new relatives. I know that it helped me draw the line as to who is and isn’t family.

I had all of my dreams of reconciliation, reconnection and peace making crushed. I remember trying to tell myself that the culprit did me a favor. I remember being angry and numb and in denial all at once.

I’ve spent the better part of my life struggling to convey the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but excelling at pretending like I am. Almost as if I’ve made emotional intimacy into an act of slight of hand – never really giving you everything, but just enough.

Enough where you think you understand, but very few know everything and seldom do they understand.

I’ve spent the last year feeling like my life is a movie. Getting abused by people with more money than me and asking myself how mad I can possibly be when my dad had all the money in the world and he still bled like the rest of us.

I started going to church again (irregularly). I didn’t cry. I had a panic attack on my balcony, I called my friends, I leaned on other people. I’m glad, I’ve almost jumped off that balcony so many times. I probably should’ve moved by now, but that’s me pretending like the balcony puts a gun to my head and tells me to kill myself. No pun intended.

I had something really start-up, really techy, really cool. I was writing it, I gave up. I think none of that matters anymore. I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of noise on the internet. I’d rather not contribute.

I owe people work. Nobody pays me to write though. My dad never read any of the letters or texts I wrote him, I guess that’s why I lay myself out on the internet.

Is this healthy? Is this my social suicide? These are the real anxieties I have when speaking about my life – if I say too much they’ll chastisize me like I’m so much more different than I am the same, if I don’t say anything they’ll swear I was made in a lab, that I’m fake, this can’t be real. I’m neither.

My mom won’t admit to it, but I’m a happy accident.

My dad died and I got to compare notes on my upbringing with my oldest brother. My dad died and I didn’t cry. My dad died and I didn’t accept anybody’s friend request on Facebook because what’s a friend really? My dad died and I never told my mom how I really felt. My dad died and all my dreams of making this work, of having this turn around and be a success story on our relationship, they’re all crushed.

My fault, I tried to milk the clock.

I think you should live every day like it’s your last, don’t beat yourself up over what you did or didn’t do. That’s how it was supposed to play out, pay attention.