05/29/2012

My mother called me this afternoon, about 20 minutes after I had woken up.  I had just started my workout, and the phone fortuitously rang as the songs were changing on my iPod.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard it.

Normally I don’t sleep until after noon, but I was out until 3:30 last night, and didn’t get to bed until 4:30.  Getting up at 11:45 was, I thought, not so bad considering how tired I was.

Speaking of being tired, I have apparently become alcohol sensitive.  After two beers, I am nauseous.  I get a nice, shiny migraine to go with it.  Although, I have read that alcohol sensitivity is a genetic issue, and thus I cannot just “become” alcohol sensitive.  I suppose it’s more likely that alcohol is triggering my migraines, and the nausea stems from the migraine and not the other way around.

Anyway, my mom called me around 12:15 this afternoon to tell me bad news.  I knew it was bad news because she wanted to talk to my sister and me at the same time.  Last time she did that, it was because our cat had died.  She was also quite upset on the phone, so I went to fetch my sister from her bedroom with a heavy heart.  “Who’s died this time?” I thought.

“Your father–” she choked out.  I immediately assumed he was dead.  “Is in jail,” she finished.  Well.  Since I was expecting him to be dead, jail seemed like good news.  I don’t give a shit where he is, since he’s alive.  Apparently, though, this is not the appropriate response.

I never have the appropriate response.

It’s not like it’s the first time this has happened.  The man wasn’t even present for my birth, since he was in jail at the time.  The second time was when I was in 6th grade.  This is the third time.  The previous two times have been for drunk driving.  How fucking stupid can you be?  This time, it was drunk driving with a nice little possession-of-narcotics charge.  Classy.

So, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be feeling about this, since I have experienced neither the crushing panic that gripped my mother or the cloud of shame in which my sister is immersed.  I have a bad habit of feeling nothing and then attempting to break my own limbs.

I don’t feel particularly like breaking my own limbs, though, and it’s been 12 hours since my mother called. 

I honestly fail to see how this is my problem.  I actually feel bad for him, and that’s shocking to me, considering the rage I have felt at him for years.  His alcoholism tore my life apart.  It tore me apart.  And I hated him for it—and sometimes, I still hate him.  But…I don’t right now.  I’m annoyed that he was endangering the lives of sober citizens, and I’m pissed about how much money this is going to cost that my mom can’t afford, but I’m not filled with judgmental rage.

It’s just not my problem.  I am refusing to take responsibility for this.  It is not my fault.

My mother should have divorced him a decade ago.  I wish she would have done so.  But it is not my fault that my father is a deadbeat.  It is not my fault that my mother never left him.  And so it is not my fault that he got arrested and cost my mother a ton of money that she cannot afford.  I have nothing to be ashamed about.  His actions are his actions and I am not going to try to own them.

Geez, I am having all kinds of personal growth over here.

The idea that other people have agency…that other people can own their own actions…is foreign to me.  For my whole life, I have felt that I was the only person capable of taking responsibility, the only person strong enough to handle the burden.  And so, everything was my fault, because I wouldn’t break under the strain of it.  They would.  So I would save them.

Now…I’m thinking…fuck that.  If you can’t handle the burden of your own actions, maybe you should reconsider what you’re doing.  If you can’t take responsibility for your own life, then fuck you.  Grow up, be an adult, learn from your mistakes, and stop doing the same fucking stupid things over and over again. 

Hmm.  Maybe I should stop doing the same fucking stupid things over and over again.

I think…that I would like to be the end of this chain of people held captive by addiction, of people who never learned how to love each other.  I am not my parents’ keeper, and I am not their legacy.  I can be someone…better.  Maybe?