So this book I've been reaidng about figuring out my dream has been pretty good. Basically it seems to center on the idea that everything thats fucked up got that way in childhood, and I can believe it. At no other time are you more at the mercy of people who were probably unqualified, and often horrifically unable to raise children. And even if you weren't, the people who raise you are still just people, so they're victim to the same bouts of fate as every one else.
I guess its time I just sit down and face the fact that the world let me down big time, and I found out way too young that everything is temporary, and that things could turn to shit at any moment.
It's terrible, but when I was very very small I remember imagining that my mother might die. I always imagined it would be her, and it would make me break down in tears and sob, and I'd have missed her terribly. I never imagined my dad would die though. He was my life.
While my mother was moody, quiet, and easily annoyed (i get more like her every day) he was a gregarious, loud, fun loving guy. Who would a little kid prefer? She'd take me to the grocery store and along to the bank...he'd take my down to the jail to pick flowers in the greenhouse, or to the ocean to see the harbormaster and play in the surf. I longed for the weekend so I could jump in his jeep (he'd take the doors off every may, and nothin feels as good as going 50 down some country road in the spring feeling the warm scented air move all around you) and be off on some adventure. We often wouldn't return until way after dark, with a satchel of rented videos and a pizza.
Then suddently, all that was over. It was replaced by a crawling ache of a year where I watched him decay daily. He went from a big guy, probably pushing 300lbs, down to about maybe 160 on a good day. He stopped being my father and became a skeleton. And to tell you the truth I was terrified. And then he was gone. But he'd really been gone for ages.
And I guess, according to popular psychology, that's what's fucked me up. Good to know, but what exactly am I supposed to do about it?
