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terribleturnipSo, I'm at that age when my parents are now telling me stuff I actually, really, really don't want to know.
Stuff from the past that I saw through the blissful rosy ignorance of child/teenhood and now, you know what, I don't want to hear about how maybe it wasn't that good and that my parents both would have preferred to live a different life. Christ on a cracker. I have so little innocence left, can we preserve that at least? In comparison to many of my peers I had it really good. Or maybe that's the benefit of having a New England WASP upbringing: no one talks about the bad stuff. You just deal, quietly, grimacing in private, and then put on your game face in public.
So, I'm really, really grateful that my parents gave me that. And, it's sort of juvenile and selfish of me to now refuse to hear reminiscences that contradict that idyll. (For the record, there was definitely some no-good stuff. But, like my people do, I don't dwell. And am always conscious that relatively speaking, pffft, nothing.) But still, it struck my soul cold when my father said to me one night recently "You know, I've never actually been happy. I think you're like me, and just are never happy."
Admittedly, we'd been drinking. Admittedly, he's half Danish, I'm a quarter. (Danes, the conventional wisdom has it, are blissfully happy until they're not and then they OWN morose.) And there was a good part of me that was all offended -- how could you possibly think I'm not happy? Not CAPABLE of being happy? But then, okay, I have to run that through the German/Danish filter and that's sort of a compliment from father to daughter -- you're like me, you GET me. So, I sorted those ruffled feathers.
But still, to think that at 80 years old, my father's sitting there, confessing that he's never really been happy. That taps a depth of sadness in me that is definitely epicly Scandinavian. It'd been a long night already, on top of a long visit and I have to admit my dealing-with-people reserves were on fumes. So I just let it go with a quick "Dad, seriously that's not cool. I AM like you, but I'm pretty happy. You need to talk to someone about why you think you've never been happy."
And look, from what I know, his childhood was NOT like mine. I know he worked his ass off, he married someone with a heart and sense, he did a lot to ensure my experience growing up was not his. But to never feel happy...
When I got over the inherent trauma -- because let's face it, while I know he was being Danish (a little drama queeny) about it, still, it's hard to think, as a child, that you'd never made your parent happy...but then I thought "wait just a minute!"
Because here's the thing: what does it take for you to consider yourself happy?
I mean, I'm happy all of the time.
To put that in perspective: I work too hard at work and can't possibly keep up with demands, I work too hard at my hobbies, I constantly feel like I can't keep up, that I'm a shit housekeeper, I can't keep up with yard work or house repairs, that I don't have enough money, that I don't make enough money, that I don't save enough money, that I do a crappy job at growing what little money I have. I have no cartilage in my knees, arthritis in my fingers, knees, toes and ankles. Toes. Arthritis in my fucking toes. I'm overweight, I have some mystery disorder that's causing horrible fatigue, aches and malaise, and there are a lot of days where I sit on the edge of the bed convincing myself to get up and start...or beat myself into doing just one more thing, near tears and wanting nothing more than to just lay down where I am and stop and no doctor can figure it out and if I have to spend one more goddamn month abstaining from a thing or taking a thing or "seeing how it goes" I swear to fucking god I will throatpunch a doctor. I live alone, so everything that happens in this house from repairs to taking out the trash to cleaning the litterboxes I have to do it all. None of my partners lives with me, so there are a lot of nights where there's no one to share that joke with, laugh at the show, snuggle up to in bed. I...well, look, you don't want to hear it, and honestly, I've bored myself near to death with even beginning to recite it. My point is: I don't live a charmed life. It's fucking hard. Not as hard as a lot of people. Not as easy as a lot of people.
But still, I have so much delirious happy. And thinking about it...do I just have a lower bar? I mean, I was explaining to a colleague tonight how happy I was that the robins have decided to make a nest in my inkberry bush, even though I'd planned to do a major pruning and redo the garden bed underneath, so that's off the list for this season. And she made a face, like that would make you happy? And yeah, yeah, it actually does. I'm sitting here my desk, looking up at the shelf above where I have my dinosaur collection. And it makes me so happy that in my lifetime we've learned that they weren't cold-blooded lumberers, that some of them had feathers and bright colors and warm blood and that I've had enough spare income to have a dozen...okay three dozen of them up there, inspiring me, making me happy.
It's like I've got a hair trigger for happy. Two of my boy kitties are curled up on the bed, the oldest and the youngest, right next to each other, exact same position, waiting for me to give up and come to bed, when they'll get up and the resettle around me, purring the whole time. My partners are travelling and it's quiet now, but eventually they'll be reaching out again and I'll have someone to share the movie, the book, the bed, the meal, my day, the experience. I have an overwhelming richness of friends with whom to share my life. I also have the peace and quiet of my own space. There are so many good things to eat and drink! The pansies on my front steps smell so good. My swiss chard and nasturtiums have popped up out of the soil. I...okay, for the record, now I'm not bored but you probably are.
Is it that my father is just aiming too high? Is there some existential "happiness" goal that I don't even care whether I reach, but he does? Did he want to be rich, hugely successful, living someplace fabulous, no physical ailments, children who were also wildly successful? I honestly don't know. My brother and I are fairly successful...but neither of us are "major points at parents' cocktails parties" successful. We're both moderately successful, moderately financially stable, moderately...no wait, we're both majorly contributing to society in general. My parents are comfortable enough and prepared enough that they'll be able to live their lives in comfort, without my brother or I having to struggle to care for them.
I don't know. Maybe I need do have a conversation with my Dad about what the hell he thinks "Happy" is. But it leaves me wondering? Is he setting his bar too high? Am I setting my bar too low? I wonder if I'm brave enough to have that conversation with him next time I'm up there?
But in the meantime? Where I've got my bar set? Totally working.
Stuff from the past that I saw through the blissful rosy ignorance of child/teenhood and now, you know what, I don't want to hear about how maybe it wasn't that good and that my parents both would have preferred to live a different life. Christ on a cracker. I have so little innocence left, can we preserve that at least? In comparison to many of my peers I had it really good. Or maybe that's the benefit of having a New England WASP upbringing: no one talks about the bad stuff. You just deal, quietly, grimacing in private, and then put on your game face in public.
So, I'm really, really grateful that my parents gave me that. And, it's sort of juvenile and selfish of me to now refuse to hear reminiscences that contradict that idyll. (For the record, there was definitely some no-good stuff. But, like my people do, I don't dwell. And am always conscious that relatively speaking, pffft, nothing.) But still, it struck my soul cold when my father said to me one night recently "You know, I've never actually been happy. I think you're like me, and just are never happy."
Admittedly, we'd been drinking. Admittedly, he's half Danish, I'm a quarter. (Danes, the conventional wisdom has it, are blissfully happy until they're not and then they OWN morose.) And there was a good part of me that was all offended -- how could you possibly think I'm not happy? Not CAPABLE of being happy? But then, okay, I have to run that through the German/Danish filter and that's sort of a compliment from father to daughter -- you're like me, you GET me. So, I sorted those ruffled feathers.
But still, to think that at 80 years old, my father's sitting there, confessing that he's never really been happy. That taps a depth of sadness in me that is definitely epicly Scandinavian. It'd been a long night already, on top of a long visit and I have to admit my dealing-with-people reserves were on fumes. So I just let it go with a quick "Dad, seriously that's not cool. I AM like you, but I'm pretty happy. You need to talk to someone about why you think you've never been happy."
And look, from what I know, his childhood was NOT like mine. I know he worked his ass off, he married someone with a heart and sense, he did a lot to ensure my experience growing up was not his. But to never feel happy...
When I got over the inherent trauma -- because let's face it, while I know he was being Danish (a little drama queeny) about it, still, it's hard to think, as a child, that you'd never made your parent happy...but then I thought "wait just a minute!"
Because here's the thing: what does it take for you to consider yourself happy?
I mean, I'm happy all of the time.
To put that in perspective: I work too hard at work and can't possibly keep up with demands, I work too hard at my hobbies, I constantly feel like I can't keep up, that I'm a shit housekeeper, I can't keep up with yard work or house repairs, that I don't have enough money, that I don't make enough money, that I don't save enough money, that I do a crappy job at growing what little money I have. I have no cartilage in my knees, arthritis in my fingers, knees, toes and ankles. Toes. Arthritis in my fucking toes. I'm overweight, I have some mystery disorder that's causing horrible fatigue, aches and malaise, and there are a lot of days where I sit on the edge of the bed convincing myself to get up and start...or beat myself into doing just one more thing, near tears and wanting nothing more than to just lay down where I am and stop and no doctor can figure it out and if I have to spend one more goddamn month abstaining from a thing or taking a thing or "seeing how it goes" I swear to fucking god I will throatpunch a doctor. I live alone, so everything that happens in this house from repairs to taking out the trash to cleaning the litterboxes I have to do it all. None of my partners lives with me, so there are a lot of nights where there's no one to share that joke with, laugh at the show, snuggle up to in bed. I...well, look, you don't want to hear it, and honestly, I've bored myself near to death with even beginning to recite it. My point is: I don't live a charmed life. It's fucking hard. Not as hard as a lot of people. Not as easy as a lot of people.
But still, I have so much delirious happy. And thinking about it...do I just have a lower bar? I mean, I was explaining to a colleague tonight how happy I was that the robins have decided to make a nest in my inkberry bush, even though I'd planned to do a major pruning and redo the garden bed underneath, so that's off the list for this season. And she made a face, like that would make you happy? And yeah, yeah, it actually does. I'm sitting here my desk, looking up at the shelf above where I have my dinosaur collection. And it makes me so happy that in my lifetime we've learned that they weren't cold-blooded lumberers, that some of them had feathers and bright colors and warm blood and that I've had enough spare income to have a dozen...okay three dozen of them up there, inspiring me, making me happy.
It's like I've got a hair trigger for happy. Two of my boy kitties are curled up on the bed, the oldest and the youngest, right next to each other, exact same position, waiting for me to give up and come to bed, when they'll get up and the resettle around me, purring the whole time. My partners are travelling and it's quiet now, but eventually they'll be reaching out again and I'll have someone to share the movie, the book, the bed, the meal, my day, the experience. I have an overwhelming richness of friends with whom to share my life. I also have the peace and quiet of my own space. There are so many good things to eat and drink! The pansies on my front steps smell so good. My swiss chard and nasturtiums have popped up out of the soil. I...okay, for the record, now I'm not bored but you probably are.
Is it that my father is just aiming too high? Is there some existential "happiness" goal that I don't even care whether I reach, but he does? Did he want to be rich, hugely successful, living someplace fabulous, no physical ailments, children who were also wildly successful? I honestly don't know. My brother and I are fairly successful...but neither of us are "major points at parents' cocktails parties" successful. We're both moderately successful, moderately financially stable, moderately...no wait, we're both majorly contributing to society in general. My parents are comfortable enough and prepared enough that they'll be able to live their lives in comfort, without my brother or I having to struggle to care for them.
I don't know. Maybe I need do have a conversation with my Dad about what the hell he thinks "Happy" is. But it leaves me wondering? Is he setting his bar too high? Am I setting my bar too low? I wonder if I'm brave enough to have that conversation with him next time I'm up there?
But in the meantime? Where I've got my bar set? Totally working.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-26 12:09 pm (UTC)