why does it always seem like I have so much more to say than I actually do? maybe that's just what happens when I keep coming back to write another paragraph, or maybe it's the fact that I could write pages and pages about... New York, for instance... but don't necessarily need to, don't necessarily feel compelled to do it. I mean, there were many lovely things. the Hudson, the city at night from the plane, the city at night on the ground... there was what was quite possibly the worst piece of theater I've ever seen and the adorable bonding session that followed. there was knowing I was back in the same city as Julian and Sarah-Delancey - but not getting to see either of them... and realizing that (for the first time, even though I was in New York) I was not in the same city as Ruth. I missed her, which - although not strange given it's me and I miss everyone, is kind of strange given how little contact we've had since she moved to the opposite coast. there was also the best hot chocolate I've ever had, candy bars that are not meant for girls (screwy marketing tactic that actually worked, in some backward manner, and the candy bars were go-od)... feeling sad about not being a part of any recent or upcoming RMM productions, skirts made out of paperback pages, and really good vegetarian food. mmmm. and right now, that seems like more than enough documenting. Brooklyn's fantastic, but I miss the subway ride to Queens. I miss moving from the tunnels up into and above the city, the view of Manhattan at night... I even miss having to take trains to get *anywhere* just a tiny, tiny bit... because I miss having the opportunity to take them by myself.
I also missed my friends. I have visions of skipping (and limping) down sidewalks, singing Stephen Merrit songs, dancing past the subway musician who plays the Beatles, and hugging I-don't-want-to-say-goodbye by the gates. I went into lj withdrawal...
and now for a completely random Christmas annoyance: who the fuck is Donner and why has he invaded every reference to Santa's reindeer? let's take a look at his fellow sleigh-team-mmebers, shall we? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen. (all actual words with actual meanings.) Comet, Cupid, blah-blah, Blitzen. Still actual words, the impostor, and finally - Thunder and Lightning! Donder und Blitzen! How fantastic is that? and they just wipe it away, and I'm not supposed to complain because hell, we don't speak English anymore, how can we be expected to speak German? sigh. I've decided to whine about this for awhile, to keep from being too bored by my normal reasons-the-holidays-suck tirade. and damnit, I *like* Christmas. I just need to somehow recover it from wreckage, and that might take me a few years...
anyway. Thursday I felt crappy and decided to call someone, so I could feel social instead. it worked well. I had a lovely talk with Beth, and at the end she felt better (which made me feel good), and I felt all giddy... mainly because she'd said something about how when I'm doing the work I want so much to do, she's going to be able to say how she knew all along how good I'd be at it... mmm. friends are splendid. the only uncool thing was that talking with Beth meant missing a call from Jennifer, and missing calls makes me sad. Jennifer and I still haven't connected (neither have Dwight and I, actually) - partly because I can't call her, which sucks. stupid international charges... but otherwise Thursday improved.
Friday was thoroughly suckish, as described in the I Don't Want to go to Therapy entry. the idea of even pulling myself out of my apartment and onto the sidewalk to wait for the bus exhausted me. I really didn't want to go. but I kept getting ready anyway, and just before it was time to leave, I finally hit on the emotion that exploded out of the depression and let me cry a little. so I figured I knew what I needed to talk about at the session. the only problem was how completely random and unnecessary it seemed. and how entirely cliche. I mean, seriously, it's bad enough to go to therapy, and to have it actually help, so that you keep going for several years, and talk about your problems and improve and all of that... I would really appreciate it my problems would at least maintain some small bit of uniqueness. I need to not feel like I'm straight out of a case study. it's just something I prefer. anyway. Friday I talked with the doctor about my dad. oh, my dad. I'd come onto a theory that my shitty feelings had to do with anger I didn't particularly want to feel, and was therefore turning into depression and guilt and other things (which I also did not want to feel, for the record.) and to make things more interesting, I didn't feel at all comfortable bringing this up with the doctor (even though I tell him spucking everything) because... somehow I got it into my head that, so far as the doctor and my mom are concerned, my dad is the bad guy. as in, two or three years ago - my parents were equally nuts and equally responsible for the state of things, but after my dad quit therapy, moved, my parents divorced, and my mom continued working, my mom became the good guy, and even the past changed... Why I believe(d) this I have no idea. my dad has played a hard-core martyr act for as long as I can remember, but I really doubt it's coming from him. my mom usually manages to just not mention him, although she does occasionally attack him; she slips, says she didn't mean to, and - generally speaking - continues. the joy of being the only child still living with a parent. whee. ...um. anyway. I did eventually manage to explain to the doctor that I didn't want to give him anything that could contribute to the negative perspective of my dad - because after all, he's my *dad*, and I love him (more than in the obligatory sense. we talked about how it was when my parents first began to see the doc, and how it eventually freed me up to tell him however I felt about them in a moment - because I knew first off, that he would believe me (I'd always been afraid I was lying or exaggerating; when my parents actually went into therapy, the fact that I wasn't making the problems up was confirmed) and secondly, that he wouldn't feel differently about them based on what I said. they were people and he had a separate relationship with each of them, and I didn't need to worry that I would be so horribly powerful that I would destroy all the good in my parents just by being pissed at them. he described all that; I nodded and told him I missed it terribly.
I miss that freedom. somehow, I've gotten it into my head that since my dad quit therapy and my mom kept going, the doctor is on my mom's side. ("since we have good guys and bad guys, we might as well take sides, too.") the one thing I thought of, regarding this, that I didn't mention was the possibility that, since my mom is working with him and feels very, very negatively toward my dad, I assumed those negative feelings were endorsed or fostered by the doctor, which obviously - they might not be. the more he talked to me, the more I realized he really doesn't hate my dad at all. in fact, he seems to have a lot more faith in my dad - maybe hope is a better word than faith - than I do right now. I'm pretty convinced that it's over, that my dad has given up on his life, and retired into a state of existence that means, no matter how much I grow, our relationship can never be as strong as I want it to be. speaking basically, I can't talk to my dad about how I feel, and if I can't share the feelings I experience in my life with my dad, what the hell else can I share with him? we talk about music and television and all sorts of other weather-like bullshit. (do you like flowers? never mind. it's just sometimes weather isn't bullshit, and I like inside jokes.) so the doc asked if I thought my dad had really given up on life or if it was possible Dad's living the life he's wanted for some time. I said I think it's possible that living where he is, close to his family (that cut pretty close to home, saying "he's close to his family" and meaning his mom, aunts, uncles, cousins - rather than his kids, rather than us, rather than me) is something that he's wanted for a long time. but he's way too depressed to be living the life he wants to live. so then the doc asks why I think he's depressed, and I give the list of things I'm told or I observe when I interact with my dad, and the doc says something amazing about how I shouldn't have to shoulder all of that. I give some cop-out reply about how it isn't all given to me, some of it I just notice without anyone pushing it in my direction... but inside I'm just thinking how good it feels to be told it's not mine to carry.
the doctor has more hope than I do that my dad will still decide to change his life. I think it's impossible, basically, considering that he doesn't take responsibility for what's going on... Everything bad in my dad's life is apparently something that happened to him, and he doesn't have any power to change it. so, why would he bother exerting the energy? the doctor says this could end up being a huge learning experience for him, and you know, it's not over... which I think is when it hit home for me that I really feel like it is. I really feel like he's totally gone, and we never got that chance to have a relationship like I have with people in my transgenetic family. a rather sad thought. I did a lot of crying, and the doctor told me something I never realized well enough to articulate - that my dad believed, for whatever reason, that if he had less responsibilities he'd be happier... when the truth is, being connected, being responsible, coming through on things and having relationships, is what makes us feel good. and so, when my dad shredded all of these ties he had and let go of so many responsibilities, he actually did expect to feel better. now he doesn't. but it's about what he believed and all of the choices he's made over his life, the same way where my mom's at is about the series of choices she's made. and any 'judgment' of my dad is only a judgment of his behavior; he is, at his heart, an incredibly good person. it's where his choices have landed him and the behavior he's choosing now that's so hurtful. it's not an issue of him being bad.
also, apparently, I'm not supposed to feel like I need to defend my parents. that is, apparently, role reversal, and the fact that I feel the need to do it is a bad sign. we, apparently, meaning the doc and me, need to figure out what messages I'm getting from said doc and from my mom that are making me feel like I can't just vent about my parents the way I used to do. and we need to deal with those things so that I can once again do so. hooray for a doctor who hears, "er, something's fucked up between you and me" and doesn't try to hit me over the head with the white noise machine.
he also said that my parents have to have a great deal of good in them because...they made me. comments like that still floor me, to be honest. and at times during this session, similar statements actually hurt a bit because, as I said, I have this anger toward my dad that I want to feel (and so right now, even though I'm defending him, I don't really want him defended) - and hearing that I am who I am because of him basically sucks. one of the doctor's comments about how I'm able to keep going because of something my parents gave me was more than I could keep quiet about. I reminded him that I've felt, pretty much this entire time, that I'm getting better in spite of my parents... and he agreed that, over the past few years, that was probably true. but their effect on me earlier was far from all bad, and with that I agree. he said that even if all they did was not break in me what was broken in them, that was a step in the right direction. even if ultimately, the people who helped make me who I am were Rogers-folk (and some other, less geographically concentrated, family) my parents did me a lot of good, originally. it's part of the reason I so don't want to join the club of dad-haters. I understand how legitimate that feeling can be, but it's not valid in my story. it's not necessary, and if that sort of hatred isn't absolutely necessary, I'm not inclined to feel it.
so I did end up telling him about how angry I am at my dad for giving up on himself. how angry I am that your fifteen or sixteen-year-old daughter can do everything to keep fighting, no matter what's thrown at her; she can go through hell to get well... she can refuse the option of giving up *every godddamn time* and you - you, her parent, her father - will give up. so we still can't ever have that relationship. so, between us, it doesn't much matter that I did all that work. all that going-through-hell work that you *cried* and begged me to do. he begged me not to die, and I didn't - I didn't... and then he dropped out of therapy and life. which just feels like having it thrown in my face - that it wasn't enough. that somehow the fact that I give everything I have, find strength I don't even know I have to give, to this cause, to this life... was not enough. the fact that he had a daughter was not enough to keep him from quitting. the fact that he has five kids and himself aside... it does hurt. it does make me angry. it does make me cry. and no matter how I might tell him this, he wouldn't hear it. that's why it's so impossible for me to believe things will change. he won't get help. he won't try. and until he's trying, where the hell is my hope?
and the thing is... it's not a complete mistake in judgment, on the part of those people who think my dad's the kindest man in the world. yes, there's another side - the at home, pushed past the limit of his stuffed-in-emotions, explosive side - to him that they didn't see. but that's not who he is. that's not a part of him that would exist if he learned how to handle emotions, how to utilize them even. that's not his identity; it's just how things are. (and it sucks, and it's real, and it did/does a lot of damage... but it's not who he is.) at heart, he's really, really kind, and nurturing, and gentle... and I think that's why missing him came so easily to me after I heard from Dwight. because Dwight has dealt with his shit, he has put his life together after some serious fragmentation... and in a lot of ways - so much as people can be identical, which they can't, and given the fact that there are differences (differences I love, differences I want to remain aware of) between my dad and Dwight, still - he's a lot of who my dad would be. if my dad would do the work to be healthy. and even though it looks like I'll have Dwight in my life in a very real, very good way, it makes me sad that my dad hasn't done that work as well. isn't doing it. it hurts a lot that while I still can't think of him crying and begging me to get better, while I was so desperate and so clueless about how to do so, let alone about how I'd live without my illness without hurting again and being grateful again - that I found people who weren't clueless, who knew how to help me... my own tears apparently meant shit. I know that's not really the case, not totally, but I feel it. I don't know how to help feeling that way sometimes.
I know we're supposed to be more than our parents, to go beyond where they were able to go, and I'm grateful to mine; I am. but, wow, does it hurt to have someone ask the impossible of you, actually manage to do it, and then turn around and realize they gave up anyway.
wow, it does hurt...
*
my message from Dwight because at some point, it won't be on my voicemail, ready and waiting for me to listen to it yet again:
hey, mary, this is Dwight; I got your wonderful card the other day- um I thought I would give you a little jingle back... I- uh- sounds like you are growing in leaps and bounds; this is wonderful. um- good news to hear from you and um, I'm really - proud of you, I just want you to know that - and um uh give me a call sometime and we'll chat. the number here is blah and my extension is blah. take care, mary; bye.
he says his name like it's two syllables. DWight. I can't describe the way he says my name...
*
what's more, yes more... there's one more tiny miracle to tell. when I left for my appointment Friday, I checked the mail... and... normally I wouldn't even believe it, but honest-to-goodness, I got a letter from Dave. Dave. Letter. Dave. Wrote. Me. Back. this would be the first time he's ever written me a letter, although there was that one time I put a couple of sixth-grade "circle one" questions on the back of a SASE, which he did answer and return. (one of them being, "can I expect to hear from you?" and his answer being "yes." that was when? April?) but seriously - a REAL letter, addressed to me, to Mary Brave, with Brave underlined twice... and so very Dave. where support and expletives bond. apparently, the proper way to force a response out of Dave is to totally throw him. say, tell him you like girls. ha. there was a whole lot of ?!-ing going on.
I'm going to ask him to make a resolution for the New Year to write me more than one letter in 2005. maybe I'll threaten to drop bombs on him more regularly if he doesn't comply. I was so close to threatening him when this came. squee.
my advice, kids: don't let people thinking you're a stalker keep you from pursuing those relationships. because those relationships rock and are totally worth it, and it's ok to love real, and deep, and long. except, if you actually *are* a stalker, stay away. it's the presumed-but-not-actually-a-stalker-ness that's to be dismissed.
there's some serious amusement just in comparing Dave's response to Dwight's. there's some serious wonder just in knowing I get to have them both in my life. hell, I get to have a life in the first place.
maybe someday my dad will join me.
~me