Good times without the good
Whenever I have an extended conversation with my Dad he never fails to insinuate that I will be evicted.
"Is your room clean?"
"Yeah Dad."
"It isn't like it was that time when I visited? Clothes all over the floor" He interrogates, suspicion thick in his voice.
"No." If I am on the phone, I roll my eyes, and glance toward the mountain on clothes at the foot of my bed.
"Stephanie, if you keep living like that he will evict you. Do you want to be evicted?"
One of the reasons (among many) that I avoid talking to my father: he tells me I will be evicted. The word itself, evict, evicted, becomes a punchline in a world where punchlines are bullets aiming for the brain. He has no idea, I'm sure, that he is uncannily able to pinpoint the exact things I am insecure about, and poke at them, twisting my mental bruises, mining for full fledged panic.
He's always asking me about my temp job, too.
"Do you know when the job will end? Are they extending your position?" He asks, every time we talk, and every time I tell him that no, they never tell me whether they want me or not, and when they extend my contract it is on a month-by-month basis. Maybe I imagine it, but I can feel in his voice that he thinks that if my current job ends, I will be unemployed. Hold onto your apartment, Stephanie, hold onto to your job, they are tenuous, he seems to be drilling this into me.
So I guess I should be more grateful than angry for his extended MIA status throughout my childhood. He always sucks me into his neurosis, without even trying.
"Is your room clean?"
"Yeah Dad."
"It isn't like it was that time when I visited? Clothes all over the floor" He interrogates, suspicion thick in his voice.
"No." If I am on the phone, I roll my eyes, and glance toward the mountain on clothes at the foot of my bed.
"Stephanie, if you keep living like that he will evict you. Do you want to be evicted?"
One of the reasons (among many) that I avoid talking to my father: he tells me I will be evicted. The word itself, evict, evicted, becomes a punchline in a world where punchlines are bullets aiming for the brain. He has no idea, I'm sure, that he is uncannily able to pinpoint the exact things I am insecure about, and poke at them, twisting my mental bruises, mining for full fledged panic.
He's always asking me about my temp job, too.
"Do you know when the job will end? Are they extending your position?" He asks, every time we talk, and every time I tell him that no, they never tell me whether they want me or not, and when they extend my contract it is on a month-by-month basis. Maybe I imagine it, but I can feel in his voice that he thinks that if my current job ends, I will be unemployed. Hold onto your apartment, Stephanie, hold onto to your job, they are tenuous, he seems to be drilling this into me.
So I guess I should be more grateful than angry for his extended MIA status throughout my childhood. He always sucks me into his neurosis, without even trying.