My parents just left to fly back to the Arizona RV park where they are spending the winter months of their retirement.
It could not have been too soon.
I do love my parents, I do. But God damn, they can be hard to be around.
They are both anxious and uncomfortable all the time (thanks, mom and dad for passing on those genes!) and are really terrible conversationalists.
My dad has like three stories from the RV park and I heard them at least four times.
My mom has a camera full of pictures of her "grandbabies" that she shows everyone. These are not her actual grandchildren, of course, but children from the church where they used to pastor that my parents would watch sometimes. My brother thinks she brings these kids up all the time to get us into having grandkids. I think she just really wants grandkids and will take what she can get.
They mostly talk about themselves and really rarely ask questions about anyone else's life.
I always thought that was just how they were with my brother and me, but I had dinner with them and their best friends this weekend, and this is just how they are.
Anxious, unhappy, uninterested in others.
What I've realized about them this weekend is that I don't think they really believe in me at all.
When I accomplish something (like graduating at the top of my class, for instance), they tell me they are proud of me. Nothing more than that, really. Just those five words: "we are proud of you."
But before the thing is accomplished, they are usually the first to tell me it can't be done and that I shouldn't try.
There were several times these last few years where they encouraged me to drop out of school and just a get a job somewhere.
They have told me that writers can't possibly ever make a living so much that I stopped even trying during my twenties.
And now that I am again making an attempt at doing this for a living, they act completely deaf when I try talking about it.
Instead they tell me to get a job.
I have actually lost count on how many times they have told me that in the last week. When they'd call to confirm the time they'd arrive, they mentioned me getting a good job. It was one of the first things they said when they arrived. They have mentioned at least a handful of times at every meal. It was the last thing they said before they left. My mom then texted me from the airport, saying: "will be praying for a great job to open up."
Fuck.
Do they not think I know that I have to pay my bills? Are they not aware of how much stress and pressure that makes me feel? Jesus fuck. Give me a fucking second to enjoy finishing college. Celebrate with me for a bit.
I know they say it because they care and they are concerned about my poverty and my future and everything else. But fuck it stresses me out.
And writing is a job. Lots of people have it. It pays well. So fuck them for dismissing the one and only thing I want to do with my life. Fuck them for rolling their eyes and treating me like some idiot daydreamer without a lick of practical sense.
Because when I do make it. And I will make it. They will come around and tell me that they are proud of me.
And I hope then that I will be a bigger and better man than I am now. That I will not cower under them like some disobedient puppy, nor will I tell them to go fuck themselves.
I hope then that I will understand even more that they set limitations on me because they could never see much of themselves.
They live in a small world where success should not be expected.
I was raised in that world too. I have only lately began to recognize it for what it was.
But I am building a rocket. I am going to shoot past the moon.
4:22 p.m. - 2016-12-18
Recent entries:
Resolution - 2016-12-29
That Ended Quick. - 2016-12-29
Allyson - 2016-12-28
Bodhisattva - 2016-12-26
The Freak Out - 2016-12-23
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