What a beautiful Masters Sunday. Gobs of wealthy people are driving by my house and jetting over my roof to attend the final day of the Masters golf tournament. I’m inside - for obvious reasons.
If you haven’t caught on, or if you’re new, recurring themes here are: walking away from dogmatic religion, indecision about procreating, privilege guilt, and mommy issues. I also really like to talk about yoga. Keep scrolling if you’re bored already.
Areminder this is heavily exaggerated “fiction” drawn from personal experience.
You told us the world was ours so we took it. Your “world,” as in, the economy, opportunity, money, success. I grabbed for the roots, fingernails black with soil; she hung from vines and drank from springs. It was our world, as in, we ate plants and sang songs and slept in unkempt houses.
Last Easter I watched my dad try to conceal his surprise when he caught a glimpse of my unshaved legs in a dress. I was proud of him. A day I used to know by heart, I’m now reminded is approaching, by the grocery store sign, “We will be closed for Easter, April 17th.” This year I’ll be counted absent on the red attendance pew pad, Dad in pastel (or maybe it’s seersucker this year), undoubtedly disappointed, chin to chest, a subtle but grave nod side to side, the ice clinking in his bourbon at lunch and cards.
Dad doesn’t even like bourbon - he only drinks the clear stuff. A happy poison that has cemented his big-T trauma inside his very bones, like marrow, creating more and more diseased cells, to numb the urge to fight or fly. Sober, he flies. Away from us, away from anything that reminds him of who he is.
I’m unattached to this pattern. I was out before it got bad. My sister asks if I remember when, and I don’t. I think she was scared when I was gone. When I would call with stories of college escapades (too worldly for her adolescent ears), when she watched me burn bridges in my dearest friendships, when I told her who I was marrying. A sisterly burden is not an easy one to bear, all the while, our childhood home on fire.
The Light still connects us - bound on either end by Christmas music and Easter hats, snow capped mountains in between. When I think about raising babies, I think we. Her and me.
So I go to the cabinet to take a random prenatal vitamin and resolve to tell husband when he gets home, teary-eyed, “I’m sorry.” I swallow, thinking, what if it is terrible? And I remind myself, I don't believe in terrible anymore.
Thanks for reading,
Chan