Homesick
Monday, June 28th 2010 at 1:20pm
I miss my home city and the house I grew up in, and my parents.
I told my Dad on skype that I was 'home sick' and he became confused for a moment because he's home from work today because he's pretending to be sick because if he doesn't take a sick day in a period then he loses that day off. Today happened to be that day. I clarified and said that I missed home.
I went on to say;
“I've started making some friends here, kinda, but... That's not the same as having your parents around, or having my garden, or all of my things, and so forth.. Also, oddly, I kinda miss driving. So far my attempts at learning a standard-shift have just been me stalling his truck a lot. I got it to move barely any more than I made it stall, and I'm not keen on continuing to try. It's very frustrating; in some ways, it's harder than learned was in the first place.”
Last night I narrowly avoided breaking down into tears over how much I miss my parents and home again. I didn't want to have to get up and get tissues and clean up and recover from the crying. So instead I placed Paladin's hand on my forehand and asked him to 'pull.' Paladin is new to working with energy - something I've essentially introduced to him although he had heard of it and had some experiences with meditation before.
My father latched on to the car thing, undoubtedly because he doesn't want to try and handle my emotional issues with missing home.
He says; “Well, you have to understand it first... When the gears need to shift and why... Did you know on most sticks you can feel when it needs to shift and that you can actually shift it without the clutch on some vehicles...”
I said, “I feel the car shaking.”
Dad says; “It is a gut thing... But you need to get your head around it first... No much more subtle...”
This is kinda funny to be talking to my dad about since my mom insists that my father can't drive a stick-shift correctly. *shrugs*
I say; “I understand the concept, but my feet just don't coordinate the petals... And it has to be so fast...”
He says; “That is why I said you have to feel it, and no not the shake...”
“I find the shake in a stick-shift car annoying as all hell. But anyway, I've been worrying Paladin (or should I use this excuse to say 'my husband' - *chuckles*) by being all teary-eyed about being homesick for a couple weeks now. I thought it would sorta go away after a couple of days or something.
Dad says; “You know how your grandmother learned to drive a stick? She got mad at your grandfather and took the car... The first lesson was how to take the car down hill and keep it running as she made it to the bottom. She was gone for three days.”
I laughed.
He went on, “She was sixty-five years old. She learned. She learned to swim at fifty-five years old, and to play bridge t sixty.”
“That's nuts. And odd. Too busy ironing all the boy's pants the rest of her life?”
Dad says; “Yup. She was determined not to be trapped by anyone.”
I say; “Yeah, that's an extreme of house-wife I never intend to shoot for.”
Dad says; “Well, the stick is one of the challenges...”
I burst out laughing hysterically. In my mind I thought to myself, you have no idea. Getting sex out of Paladin can be quite tricky... But yeah, I don't think he caught on that I was thinking of it that way, which probably is for the best.
“It sure is,” I said vaguely.
He goes on without seeming to notice; “My mother didn't even learn to drive until she was forty.”
“Sounds like a good age to learn,” I say sardonically.
My Dad, seemingly lost in memory says; “She shopped for seven boys and walked to the store and back to save the dime for the bus.”
I say; “Yeah, that's just absurd. Also, she didn't do you or your brothers any favors; making it damn hard for any wife to seem like the 'right' sort of woman. Respectable, but absurd.”
“It was what was done in those days... Woman devoted all their time to their numerous children.”
“Well, that isn't absurd. But sheesh, send the boys to the store.”
“She had three in college and one in diapers... Three in grade school... Yes, someone should have gone to the store for her...”
I say; “My experience has been thus far that doing things alone sucks. Maybe I spent so much time as a kid alone that I spent a life-time's worth that way. Now I insist on doing anything that can be done with other people, with other people. The way people isolate themselves is ridiculous and serves no purpose but to make people ill in their souls.
“The fact that eight men/boys would let her go to the store on her own for all of them just goes to show how completely insane men can be... Or maybe it's just humans. But somehow I suspect having one daughter could have changed everything. Then again, little girls aren't the same as women, at all.”
Dad says; “No, but she would have gone to the store.”
I say; “Indeed... It didn't occur to me growing up that adults might get lonely too. I just thought that was a kid-thing.”
After a few minutes silence I say; “Are you suggesting I should get mad at Paladin, take his keys and run off in his truck for three days?”
He laughs; “Well you would learn how to drive it, but as a more practical matter you could practice on your own in the parking lot without any pressure except your own; your mom's 'driveway theory'.”
I say; “Yeah. I think I'm too paranoid of not being acceptable in some way. I'm not used to being the imperfect one in the relationship. It gives me a whole new perspective on how Porcupine must have felt about a lot of things.”
I notice that my father continues to take the 'safe route' and continues to talk about driving.
Dad says; “When I let you drive you will note much of what i had to say was with my white knuckles.”
I laugh; “You're not the best driving teacher. Especially when you're drunk.”
Dad says; “But then you learned...the pressure was yours, not imposed by a teacher.”
I say; “It's true I learned when I was alone in the car the best. In fact, driving suddenly felt easy when the pressure was off. Porcupine made me feel like shit by pointing out that I was letting him walk home at night into the ghetto with his laptop on his back... And that I ought to be picking him up.”
I would how my father would react if I pointed out he keeps taking the 'safe route' in conversation with me.
Monday, June 28th 2010 at 3:45pm
I can't seem to become fully awake today. I talked to my father a little on Skype. I digitally painted some things for a bit. I spent some time drawing, although not much. I read about half a chapter of the book I'm reading; Dragon, by Steven Brust. I ate a bit of melon. I looked up Melrose Place and Vampire Diaries to see if there were new episodes, but there weren't. I looked over the plants and trimmed off some parts of the strawberry plants that were not looking too hot.
I got up at one o'clock. I have not even been awake three hours yet. I keep yawning. I need a reason to do things, once again. I hate this feeling...
I ought to be doing something useful.
Response:
“How come we rip music when neither the music, CD or computer becomes torn?” I asked a while back...
Prairie Dog informs me; “Originally the term "rip" comes from printing. It stands for "raster image processing" which is the process of converting something into a format printers can use. When you tell a computer to print something like a photo and it thinks about it for a while, that's what it's doing.
“That's a not very interesting answer to one of your rhetorical questions.”