Talking with my Father

Prepare thyself for the angst of a confused twenty-something blogger who is leaving her best friend:

There was a point in my life when my dad really was my best friend. We lived together, just the two of us. And we spent so much time together in a way that should have made us hate each other, but we didn't. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it was awful. The slowly diminishing voice of my mother that's still stuck in the back of my head says that I called her "all the time in tears because of something terrible he'd done." But that wasn't all the time, it was only when his stress and my stress collided and caused me to feel overwhelmed and in need of escape. I couldn't live with him anymore. But sometimes it's nice to feel like someone you are connected to by blood is your best friend.

Some days we're all tired and worn out and feeling dejected. And so we try to talk ourselves out of it. Or make more tea to suppress it. But really all we need is our best friend to call on the phone. Just to check in. And then to talk to us for 45 minutes because they actually care that much about you and you actually care that much about them. And sometimes those talks make you cry silently, if only because the support you are receiving in such a necessary and unexpected way is making you feel complete for the first time in weeks. This is my dad for me.

Sometimes my mom.

Almost always my dad. He makes me make sense to other people. Heck, he makes me make sense to myself.

I remember one time, during freshman year when all of my friends were new, and they hadn't heard the whole story but they got the jist of the experiences in my life that had shaped me into the person I am. We were driving back down to school after Thanksgiving. I was in the front with my dad driving and everyone had fallen silent and there was some Beatles CD on loud enough to cover up the sound of the road but soft enough that I thought everyone in the back might be asleep. And my dad and I were both humming along to the first track, and then singing along to ourselves with the second, and then harmonizing by the third. It wasn't until the last track on the album that I got a text from the back seat exclaiming our adorableness. That was the first time they really got it. That moment was as important to our friendships as any other, and I can't really explain why without just showing you. Without just me and my dad coexisting in your presence.

So it's particularly scary, in all the mess of things I'm trying to deal with in order to graduate and leave and still go to grad school soon, to realize that I'm going to loose this. I'm going to loose the support and the contact that kick-starts me when I'm drowning. I won't be able to call every time I'm glum. I won't be able to tell him the stories of what I did this weekend, or talk endlessly about work and school and friends. And because I'm loosing those little things, it also means that I'm loosing the bigger things. Visits, trips, vacations, weekends home. He won't be there to introduce to the new friends when they finally realize how weird I am. He makes me make sense. So without him, there seems to be this very big chance that I won't make sense to people. Because until you've heard the whole story and seen that I'm not exaggerating, my brokenness is difficult to understand.

#skype is going to save my mind when I live abroad.

Music:

Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, "Endless Love"
The Beatles, "Fixing a Hole"
Foster the People, "Pumped Up Kicks"

Update!

Contracts: signed and being mailed today
Tickets: purchased, printed and (not so) safely in my mother's hands
Grad School: admitted, tuition deposit paid, waiting to hear about deferral and scholarships

And with 71 days until graduation, 75 days until Canada, and 83 days until Germany, life is nothing but a pile of thesis.

Back to that overly large paper I suppose.

Music:

Mumford & Sons, "Where Are You Now"
Carrie Fletcher, "When I'm Gone (the cup song)"
Carrie Fletcher and Alex Day, "This Kiss"