My Life, Day 8: Photo Not Found

Oops.

Photo Not Found

Because I didn't take one. Not. A. One. So yes, I lasted all of six days to my commitment. See, let me explain how things work around here. I make rules for myself. I follow them diligently for days. Say, six days for example. And then I'm like, FUCK THAT RULE SHIT! 

Let me give you another example. We joined a pool club this summer. Have I mentioned it? In, like, twenty dozen hundred pictures on instagram? I tell myself I will eat very healthy, having only fruits and vegetables for snacks, because I will look good in a tankini and not like a mom in a swimsuit, DAMN IT. I follow that rule diligently for days. Say, six days, for example. And then I'm like, FUCK THAT RULE SHIT, I'M MAKING SOME GODDAMN BROWNIES. 

And then I gobble half a pan of brownies because I broke my toe at the pool and can't go as frequently anyway. 

And now on top of that I'm bloated with perimenopausal PMS bloat, which, holy mother sperm whale, what the fuck? Is gray hair not enough? Saggy boobs? Wrinkles? Cellulite on my ass? Obviously this whole aging process isn't glamorous enough, so now Mother Nature demands an additional week of bloated belly brought to you by flatulence.

Ugh. I told myself if I started back with this writing thing, I would be more sophisticated and refined and not drop the F bomb so much or talk about farts. Well, we see how that fucking went. NOT WELL. I also told myself I would post the pictures daily. But I've been post-dating them instead when I finally steal my computer back from my children. I'm not only breaking my own rules, but then cheating too. I'm clothed in awesomeness.

I also told myself that if I didn't take pictures, it would be okay because that would mean a day I'd have to sit down and actually write. Because forced creativity is always awesome! So I pick a meme to write! How original! And I will write something nice and funny and light and....wha? 

What the hell was that fucked up mess? Putridness came out instead, not light, funny memories. It's all very confusing, because while I was completely honest about those parts of my early life, it's not like my childhood was all bad.  But twelve adult years of ripping a family unit apart bit by bit is enough to storm across a lifetime of memories, leaving it all clouded in shadow. 

We parents...we never stop touching, shaping, and influencing the lives of our children. Never. There is no moment when "our job is done" and our actions don't color our children. We're forever intertwined, perhaps even after death. 

After I wrote that, my dad came to me in a dream that night. That first sight of him - I have no words to describe how it feels.

He was trying to tell me something.

I still can't hear him.

Complicit

People are kind.

Sometimes I forget this.

There are many kind people who have contacted me one way or another - through mutual acquaintance, through Twitter, Facebook, or the Mouthy Housewives, wanting to know when I'm going to blog again. They miss me, they say. They miss my writing.

All very kind people.

If they only knew.

The writer they miss - I don't know where she is. Or if she'll ever be back. She is so far gone that I've sat here for 20 minutes, trying to find the next words.

It's now been 30 minutes.

There is no elegant way to say this. There is certainly no humorous or irreverent way to write it, which is what I knew. Humor and irreverent writing is what I honed and sharpened. Perhaps too much so. It's quite possible I embraced irreverence just far enough to lose sight of compassion at the exact wrong time.

Three months ago my father shot himself in his backyard.

He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

I feel I'm complicit in a self murder. People will automatically say I'm not complicit. Of course they will say that.

But they don't know.

They don't know of the slow disintegration of our family; the loss of respect, the unkindness witnessed, the ever-growing resentment - the poison between parents that seeped and spread until it tainted everyone close to it.

They don't know of the last conversations I had with my dad. Jesus, those two conversations haunt me. I can barely tell anyone of the things I said to my father those two nights. Those conversations are nightmares I can't wake up from, words I can't unspeak.

Maybe that's why I can't write anymore - I'm now terrified of words.