Father's Day!
My father is back! ^_^
My father is back, my father is back, my father is back, my FATHER is back!
My father is back!
Whatever holiday the rest of the country had, for me this last weekend was Father's Day weekend!
You know, it's a darn good thing I don't drink that much, otherwise I'd be out of my head (well, further out of my head than I already am) right now! :)
Okay, I'll try to calm down now and say something coherant. If I can. which I sincerely doubt. But I'll try.
Most of you have heard the Chinese curse phrase "May you live in interesting times". Well, lately my mangy ass has been been both cursed and blesed by some extremely interesting times. Excuse me, I have to go and run around the room like a nutcase again.
My father is back! My father is back! My father is back! ^__^
Okay, I'm back again. In case it isn't obvious, I've been reduced to a delirious state of childlike glee. If the men in the white coats were to knock at my door right now, I'd be packed off to the Happy Dale Home for the Utterly Knee-Biting Wackadooly In The Head. I would be able to give absolutely no proof of my sanity. For I'd have none.
And here's why:
Last week my brother, whose family I spoke of last LJ-post, called me with the most curiously happy sound in his voice I'd heard in years. It was almost as though we'd gone back in time to when we were kids and he was about to zing his little brother.
"Guess why I'm calling. Guess!"
Having no clue, I couldn't venture anything beyond the possbility of his call having something to do with the automobile incident of last April. "Oh yeah, that..." his voice lost some of its cheery tone and he updated me a little about that. The driver of the Camaro (the one who sustained the greatest injury) has taken a turn for the worst. (My brother's wife, an utterly forgiving soul, had been asking about the prognosis of the kid almost as if he were her son.) The kid's physical condition has gotten steadily worse and complete recovery is unlikely. As in: either just a helpless amount of protoplasm hooked up to life-support machines, or dead. -_- Very sad news, I agreed with him.
"But guess WHY I'm calling!" he repeated, with his voice sneaky-happy again. If that wasn't the reason, I replied, then I was quite stumped. He already knew I didn't want to hear anything about that person who posessed some past stature as a relative to both of us, so that couldn't be it. "Oh, yeah, you mean [***]," he said with his voice sighing again. I repeated my previous categorization of her to him. She bears no maternal status to me at all. I haven't mentioned it on my LiveJournal, but not too long ago I had a very brief phone conversation with her and the moment she used her usual derogatory terms about my Shirlee, instead of simply turning the other cheek as I have in the past, I went *off* on her ass. Some might have called it childish, but for me it was quite liberating. Finally I was able to get myself out from the emotional handicap of "b-but you can't talk to her that way... she's your [***]!" I felt like a weight had been lifted from my heart.
"But you haven't guessed why I'm calling yet!" Back to game-show-host-on-benzedrine voice. I flatly stated that I was stumped and asked to be told the reason. Sheesh, all this ballyhoo, it better be good!
"Dad called," he bestowed upon me with a flourish. :)
.
.
.
.
.
I'm sure that some of you have seen the old M-G-M Tex Avery cartoons, where there'll be a take of a character whose jaw literally drops to - and through - the floor in shock? Well, just so you know... that's not a cartoon exaggeration. Real living being's jaws can do that too. I can testify to that, because mine did.
You haven't read much about my father on my LiveJournal. The reason you haven't is because I couldn't bring myself to write about him. I've written about that other person who used to be a parent of mine, as well as past acquaintances of emotional attachment. Those weren't easy to write about, either, but I gradually found the strength to do it. But I could never talk about my father that much, because talking about my father meant talking about my mother... that is to say, talking about both of them together. And of all the emotional hurdles I've had to leap, that one's been the hardest. That's been the one that, with my fingers hovering over the keyboard, trying to make them work.. or, rather, trying to grind and thrash and calamitize my poor brain into some semblance of the degree of functional ability necessary to coalesce my feelings into the words that could convey how I felt, and then getting my fingers to type them. Shirlee knows about this emotional wound of mine (we know each others wounds, to tell the whole truth, and we nurse each other out of them. I love her, did you know that? Yes, of course you did. ^_^) The only thing that I've been able to do is push on past that and keep going. But... and can I get all high-class here and quote Shakespeare? Something that has stuck with me, back when I first read "Macbeth" in high school: "Give sorrow words. For the grief that does not speak, whispers the oer-fraught heart and bids it break." And that's true, it does.
The truth is, I and my brother (more so in my case) were always closer to my father than to my mother. I could cite a lot of examples (and indeed I probably will one of these days, now that my heart is lighter) but to keep it brief I will just say that most of the happy memories of my childhood are of my father. If I close my eyes and the room is still, I can still hear his booming voice from when my brother and I were little. I'm now about to run into the same brick wall of inadequate linguistic ability that has plagued me for years... you see, I'm not a writer. I can scrape through most basic conversation without sounding like an idiot but there are elusive, spider-weblike things in me that defy my poor ability to turn them into words, but I'll make my usual bull-in-a-china-shop clumsy stumble at it now.
The thing that has made it hardest for me to talk about my father is the subconcious blame that I put upon myself, and bore for a long time, for my father and mother separating and no longer being together. And before you reply that I shouldn't have blamed myself, let me assure you (or inform you, in case you might not have known) that the brain and the heart are two separate organs, and though they can work together when they want to 99% of the time they don't give a shit about each other, at least not in my case. I've told myself several quadrillion times over the years that it couldn't be laid on my shoulders, but that's Brain. Heart says otherwise. Brain doles out logic, logic is cold, sterile, benign. Heart recalls the kid standing in the hallway, hearing the same booming voice that was so cool when we were playing or going somewhere on the weekend or doing something else that was fun, now booming in a different way - an angry way - at my mother, who was screaming back at him in that voice that was soon to become the only parental voice I would hear ever again and the kid in the hallway is crying and the kid is me.
And then Heart, just to make absolutely, dead-certain positive that the kid that is me knows where the blame belongs, drops the clincher. The Sunday punch, the six-pack of whoop-ass. The point at where the argument gets the loudest and the mother asks (at jet-engine-decibel level, I swear she could shatter glass when she'd a mind to) why they're staying together. And one of the answers ends up being "Well, because of the children, for one thing..."
Yes. Make your feeble attempt to rationalize it away, dismiss it, file it under "Not your fault", Brain. Heart gives less than a shit about you. Heart gives nothing even parenthetically resembling a shit about you. Heart places the blame squarely where it belongs - on your little ass. Why is the misery being prolonged? Why did it get worse and worse? Why, ultimately, did it end with the good parent leaving and the bad parent sneering in triumph and marching off with her ill-gotten booty - you and your brother? Why? You, that's why. Got that? Good. -_-
Anyone who's actually struggled their way down through this clumsily-written catharsis, give yourself a pat on the back - you deserve it. Sheesh, you must really be a friend of KatEllis to want to read this pitiful wailing of mine! O_O
So, yeah. By various degrees and at different intensities, sometimes more, sometimes less, that's been a Top 10 Contender in the List Of Things That Has Been Responsible For Richard Katellis Being As Screwed-Up In The Head As He's Been. For a long time (for practically all the years my brother and I lived with that other parent) we heard nothing from my father. Once he and I got out on our own we'd occasionally get phone calls and letters, and a few times my brother actually got to meet him. And he'd bring me back things like "Dad's doing okay, but he's got some issues of his own" or "Y'know, I think we'd better just wait for Dad to get himself together. He was ashamed to talk to me." For about the last eight or nine years my brother and I had, sadly, pretty much written off the idea of ever hearing from my father again. -_-
Until last week. :)
I could write a heck of a lot more at this point. I could begin to relate to you all the things he's been through (just from what he's related to me so far, I'd halfway suggest to him he get a stenographer and turn it into an autobiographical novel! I'm not exaggerating when I state there could be a movie screenplay in it!) or how much praise he lavishes on Shirlee (as opposed to -- no, wait, never mind that b****, not even worth the mention) or how much it's made me realize how far I've come because of him - even though he wasn't part of my life for so long... I still see my face in his. ^_^ I realize now just how much of my own depression has been hereditary (actually I already knew, to some extent, thanks to my brother) and what all of the *real* reasons were for him and that other person separating. (And it just confirms a lot of what I suspected about her. But, like I said, she's not on my to-care-about list anymore). I suspect I've spent too much time typing already. Heck, I'll say it again - if you're actually down to this point, go do something else, for god's sake! This is just the weepy happy babbling of a kid who got his dad back. :)
Yeah, weepy - I been crying. But the good kind, this time. My dad is alive, he's well, he's doing pretty much what he wants to do, he's been hesistating all this time thinking that that other person "poisioned our minds" against him. (And believe me, she did try.) But curiosity got the better of him and he sought out his sons, first my brother and now me. And he flew out here over the weekend and this is the first measurable span of time I've spent since he got here that we haven't been beating our gums about EVERY DAMN THING IN OUR RESPECTIVE WORLDS...! And I am a happy kid again. Yes! And now you'll have to leave, 'cause I'm done! ^_^
.
.
.
Dad! C'mere, this is called LiveJournal.. see what I wrote about you? Look!
My father is back, my father is back, my father is back, my FATHER is back!
My father is back!
Whatever holiday the rest of the country had, for me this last weekend was Father's Day weekend!
You know, it's a darn good thing I don't drink that much, otherwise I'd be out of my head (well, further out of my head than I already am) right now! :)
Okay, I'll try to calm down now and say something coherant. If I can. which I sincerely doubt. But I'll try.
Most of you have heard the Chinese curse phrase "May you live in interesting times". Well, lately my mangy ass has been been both cursed and blesed by some extremely interesting times. Excuse me, I have to go and run around the room like a nutcase again.
My father is back! My father is back! My father is back! ^__^
Okay, I'm back again. In case it isn't obvious, I've been reduced to a delirious state of childlike glee. If the men in the white coats were to knock at my door right now, I'd be packed off to the Happy Dale Home for the Utterly Knee-Biting Wackadooly In The Head. I would be able to give absolutely no proof of my sanity. For I'd have none.
And here's why:
Last week my brother, whose family I spoke of last LJ-post, called me with the most curiously happy sound in his voice I'd heard in years. It was almost as though we'd gone back in time to when we were kids and he was about to zing his little brother.
"Guess why I'm calling. Guess!"
Having no clue, I couldn't venture anything beyond the possbility of his call having something to do with the automobile incident of last April. "Oh yeah, that..." his voice lost some of its cheery tone and he updated me a little about that. The driver of the Camaro (the one who sustained the greatest injury) has taken a turn for the worst. (My brother's wife, an utterly forgiving soul, had been asking about the prognosis of the kid almost as if he were her son.) The kid's physical condition has gotten steadily worse and complete recovery is unlikely. As in: either just a helpless amount of protoplasm hooked up to life-support machines, or dead. -_- Very sad news, I agreed with him.
"But guess WHY I'm calling!" he repeated, with his voice sneaky-happy again. If that wasn't the reason, I replied, then I was quite stumped. He already knew I didn't want to hear anything about that person who posessed some past stature as a relative to both of us, so that couldn't be it. "Oh, yeah, you mean [***]," he said with his voice sighing again. I repeated my previous categorization of her to him. She bears no maternal status to me at all. I haven't mentioned it on my LiveJournal, but not too long ago I had a very brief phone conversation with her and the moment she used her usual derogatory terms about my Shirlee, instead of simply turning the other cheek as I have in the past, I went *off* on her ass. Some might have called it childish, but for me it was quite liberating. Finally I was able to get myself out from the emotional handicap of "b-but you can't talk to her that way... she's your [***]!" I felt like a weight had been lifted from my heart.
"But you haven't guessed why I'm calling yet!" Back to game-show-host-on-benzedrine voice. I flatly stated that I was stumped and asked to be told the reason. Sheesh, all this ballyhoo, it better be good!
"Dad called," he bestowed upon me with a flourish. :)
.
.
.
.
.
I'm sure that some of you have seen the old M-G-M Tex Avery cartoons, where there'll be a take of a character whose jaw literally drops to - and through - the floor in shock? Well, just so you know... that's not a cartoon exaggeration. Real living being's jaws can do that too. I can testify to that, because mine did.
You haven't read much about my father on my LiveJournal. The reason you haven't is because I couldn't bring myself to write about him. I've written about that other person who used to be a parent of mine, as well as past acquaintances of emotional attachment. Those weren't easy to write about, either, but I gradually found the strength to do it. But I could never talk about my father that much, because talking about my father meant talking about my mother... that is to say, talking about both of them together. And of all the emotional hurdles I've had to leap, that one's been the hardest. That's been the one that, with my fingers hovering over the keyboard, trying to make them work.. or, rather, trying to grind and thrash and calamitize my poor brain into some semblance of the degree of functional ability necessary to coalesce my feelings into the words that could convey how I felt, and then getting my fingers to type them. Shirlee knows about this emotional wound of mine (we know each others wounds, to tell the whole truth, and we nurse each other out of them. I love her, did you know that? Yes, of course you did. ^_^) The only thing that I've been able to do is push on past that and keep going. But... and can I get all high-class here and quote Shakespeare? Something that has stuck with me, back when I first read "Macbeth" in high school: "Give sorrow words. For the grief that does not speak, whispers the oer-fraught heart and bids it break." And that's true, it does.
The truth is, I and my brother (more so in my case) were always closer to my father than to my mother. I could cite a lot of examples (and indeed I probably will one of these days, now that my heart is lighter) but to keep it brief I will just say that most of the happy memories of my childhood are of my father. If I close my eyes and the room is still, I can still hear his booming voice from when my brother and I were little. I'm now about to run into the same brick wall of inadequate linguistic ability that has plagued me for years... you see, I'm not a writer. I can scrape through most basic conversation without sounding like an idiot but there are elusive, spider-weblike things in me that defy my poor ability to turn them into words, but I'll make my usual bull-in-a-china-shop clumsy stumble at it now.
The thing that has made it hardest for me to talk about my father is the subconcious blame that I put upon myself, and bore for a long time, for my father and mother separating and no longer being together. And before you reply that I shouldn't have blamed myself, let me assure you (or inform you, in case you might not have known) that the brain and the heart are two separate organs, and though they can work together when they want to 99% of the time they don't give a shit about each other, at least not in my case. I've told myself several quadrillion times over the years that it couldn't be laid on my shoulders, but that's Brain. Heart says otherwise. Brain doles out logic, logic is cold, sterile, benign. Heart recalls the kid standing in the hallway, hearing the same booming voice that was so cool when we were playing or going somewhere on the weekend or doing something else that was fun, now booming in a different way - an angry way - at my mother, who was screaming back at him in that voice that was soon to become the only parental voice I would hear ever again and the kid in the hallway is crying and the kid is me.
And then Heart, just to make absolutely, dead-certain positive that the kid that is me knows where the blame belongs, drops the clincher. The Sunday punch, the six-pack of whoop-ass. The point at where the argument gets the loudest and the mother asks (at jet-engine-decibel level, I swear she could shatter glass when she'd a mind to) why they're staying together. And one of the answers ends up being "Well, because of the children, for one thing..."
Yes. Make your feeble attempt to rationalize it away, dismiss it, file it under "Not your fault", Brain. Heart gives less than a shit about you. Heart gives nothing even parenthetically resembling a shit about you. Heart places the blame squarely where it belongs - on your little ass. Why is the misery being prolonged? Why did it get worse and worse? Why, ultimately, did it end with the good parent leaving and the bad parent sneering in triumph and marching off with her ill-gotten booty - you and your brother? Why? You, that's why. Got that? Good. -_-
Anyone who's actually struggled their way down through this clumsily-written catharsis, give yourself a pat on the back - you deserve it. Sheesh, you must really be a friend of KatEllis to want to read this pitiful wailing of mine! O_O
So, yeah. By various degrees and at different intensities, sometimes more, sometimes less, that's been a Top 10 Contender in the List Of Things That Has Been Responsible For Richard Katellis Being As Screwed-Up In The Head As He's Been. For a long time (for practically all the years my brother and I lived with that other parent) we heard nothing from my father. Once he and I got out on our own we'd occasionally get phone calls and letters, and a few times my brother actually got to meet him. And he'd bring me back things like "Dad's doing okay, but he's got some issues of his own" or "Y'know, I think we'd better just wait for Dad to get himself together. He was ashamed to talk to me." For about the last eight or nine years my brother and I had, sadly, pretty much written off the idea of ever hearing from my father again. -_-
Until last week. :)
I could write a heck of a lot more at this point. I could begin to relate to you all the things he's been through (just from what he's related to me so far, I'd halfway suggest to him he get a stenographer and turn it into an autobiographical novel! I'm not exaggerating when I state there could be a movie screenplay in it!) or how much praise he lavishes on Shirlee (as opposed to -- no, wait, never mind that b****, not even worth the mention) or how much it's made me realize how far I've come because of him - even though he wasn't part of my life for so long... I still see my face in his. ^_^ I realize now just how much of my own depression has been hereditary (actually I already knew, to some extent, thanks to my brother) and what all of the *real* reasons were for him and that other person separating. (And it just confirms a lot of what I suspected about her. But, like I said, she's not on my to-care-about list anymore). I suspect I've spent too much time typing already. Heck, I'll say it again - if you're actually down to this point, go do something else, for god's sake! This is just the weepy happy babbling of a kid who got his dad back. :)
Yeah, weepy - I been crying. But the good kind, this time. My dad is alive, he's well, he's doing pretty much what he wants to do, he's been hesistating all this time thinking that that other person "poisioned our minds" against him. (And believe me, she did try.) But curiosity got the better of him and he sought out his sons, first my brother and now me. And he flew out here over the weekend and this is the first measurable span of time I've spent since he got here that we haven't been beating our gums about EVERY DAMN THING IN OUR RESPECTIVE WORLDS...! And I am a happy kid again. Yes! And now you'll have to leave, 'cause I'm done! ^_^
.
.
.
Dad! C'mere, this is called LiveJournal.. see what I wrote about you? Look!