format

this playlist of posts is now set to shuffle.
i save the entries to my hard drive as i write them, and i post them when i feel it appropriate -- not necessarily in the order they were written.

the result, dear reader, is intended to entertain and confuse you.

get fucked.

i mean, thank you.

6.19.2006

Father's Day

I wake up on Father's Day on my friend's pull-out couch following a bonfire that ran late into the night. I stir and fall back asleep, stir and sleep. I hear bits of things around me during those moments that i'm not asleep. I hear my friend's son playing with his toys, and I hear my friend upstairs on her phone.

I finally wake up one last time when I hear some commotion upstairs. I hear my friend's son scolding the cat and my friend calling from down the hall, wanting to know what all the noise is. Her tone is not exactly sympathetic.

He shuts himself in the bathroom, and they have a conversation through the door. Apparently the cat attacked him, he explains through tears. He can't stay in the bathroom the whole morning crying, she tells him.

I picture how this all might have happened: he's playing with the cat, rubbing his belly, and the cat thinks its fun to attack. After all, the cat has done this before with adult visitors and the game can go on for quite awhile. But this time the hands he bites and kicks at are younger and more vulnerable, and the boy is scratched and bleeding. He feels betrayed by the cuddly kitten that transformed into a violent beast. Down the hall, mom calls to him to quiet down, adding insult to his injury. Not wanting to further attract the attention of her or that weird guy who passed out on the hide-a-bed, he takes refuge in the bathroom.

He's 11 years old, and I'm thinking how popular opinion would lead me to say that he's a bit old to be crying like that; but nothing about this situation seems the least bit unnatural. I have sympathy for him, and i can easily imagine myself in that position.

I think back to my own childhood and all the times i cried for whatever reason, and how this was discouraged. I was made to feel weak for crying. Suddenly, seeing my own situation played out by someone else, I realize for the first time ever how my reaction was perfectly natural and I wasn't weak. I was just indoctrinated with that belief and i've worn it like a big black ugly mark.

Realizing this, I suddenly want to cry too and let out everything that never should have been bottled up. I could wipe my tears away and go up there and tell him its ok to cry, as I wish my own father had.

I feel my eyes tighten up and the muscles in my face tensing. But before I can burst into tears, I feel the cold wash over me. Like a tidal wave of liquid nitrogen, my face and heart go still in the same instant. I have just pulled the plug and I feel nothing. This is how I learned to overcome crying, i detach. And this moment that should have been a release from my programming is replaced by a reminder that my programming is here to stay. This is who i am now.

I leave my friend's house without saying a word to her son.

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