Today's writing

Lying to my father is like breathing. It’s just that easy. I learned long ago that you had to deceive the man if you were going to get by with him in control. Simple, really: just take the right thing to say and twist it to the inverse. I’ve never even thought to wish it were different. It’s just the way I’ve always known it to be. 

“Well, that’s the thing. The job isn’t even available until July. It’s –"

The look in his eyes tells me I don’t need to say another word. I’ve completely lost his interest. The only thing he wants to know is that I’m not going to go to him with my hand out. In a sense, I can’t blame him. I’m coming up hard on 30 years old. I still go to him for help. It’s not all that often and when I do I’m appropriately miserable at myself, but the point is that I should be able to stand independently. I don’t feel that way because he tells me to. I feel it because I don’t want to rely on him. Honestly, I don’t want to rely on anyone. But he’s the last person in the solar system I’d want to rely on. 

He can be an evil, ugly man. He has a mind like a steel cage and he shoves every bit of potential material in there for use at a later date. There is nothing my father can’t remember, nothing that he won’t press into my face, yell into my ears, beat over my head to make a point. And that point is always and forever: 

YOU. ARE. WORTH. NOTHING. 

So why bother? Why meet him here? Why sit with him in this cheap pile of crap known as a restaurant and choke down mediocre pizza? Why come to London in the first place? 

Hope. That nasty little four-letter word. 

He’s a deceptive little fucker, Hope. Leads you down a pretty garden path only to kick you squarely, flatly, in the ass.

Adam's wedding vows

Yesterday was our 17th wedding anniversary. Today I found Adam's vows in my Facebook memories:

Allison:

Today we pledge our lives towards a future that is larger than each of us. I go into this future excited and more than a little nervous.

First and foremost, I promise to always be your best friend, through all that life may hand to us. I will support you when you need it, whether you ask for it or not. I will accept your support when I need it, whether I ask for it or not.

I will always hold myself to the standard of being your best friend, as everything else follows from that. I will share everything with you, every day of my life and be eager for you to share your life for me. I will support your goals for yourself and for us as a married couple. I will laugh with you, cry with you, and dance with you. I will strive to improve myself as a person so that we may grow stronger every day and every year.

Allison, you have been my best friend for as long as I’ve known you and will work every day, through joy and sorrow, to strengthen our friendship; which is our strongest bond.

Lately

 

Today's writing

“The conference should be something,” my father said, then laughed. “But I can’t really tell you what.” 

It was a running joke between us, but it wasn’t really a joke. His security clearance was so high that he wasn’t allowed to tell us the majority of what he did – besides the umbrella theme of GPS – so we never knew exactly how he earned his money. We only knew that he did, and that we were subject to his whims and wills because of it. 

Still, I felt a dash of pride. “You’ve really built a career for yourself,” I said. “That’s awesome.” “Yes,” he said, and dark clouds passed over his eyes. “and you haven’t.”

Yesterday's writing

But I’m safe right now, in this singular second, and for the time being that’s sufficient. I haven’t yet started to play the long game in life, to see further than my own breath. I live in snippets and slices, rock-hopping from one harbor to the next.

Carly Simon, "You're So Vain"

But you gave away the things that you love
And one of them was me

Today's writing

My father was twenty-seven when I was born; my mother was twenty-four. They’d been trying to conceive for three years, so even my rotten math leads me to believe they were hellaciously young when they first started. Looking at pictures of them from that time makes me wonder what the fuck? Why did you bother? They had smiles set in concrete, eyebrows that confided worries. Nothing about this wooden couple spelled parental desire. 

“It was your father’s idea,” my mother once told me, mouth working around a lit cigarette. She thought she hid the habit from my father, as if he couldn’t smell the secondhand smoke, see the nicotine stains that dotted the walls. “I don’t want you to take that the wrong way. I don’t mind having kids. You can be useful. You can sometimes be fun. But I wanted to – I don’t know, go to India or something.” 

When I pointed out that she still could do it, she shook her head. 

“You know, you go from Point A to Point B, and it cuts off options.” 

“You’re saying because you had us, you now can’t travel?” 

“I lost my touch,” she said, and locked down her lips.