So Hard to Get to Easy

Life for me has always been a cakewalk in some personal respects.  Work and goals mostly.  I’ve never been afraid to do anything, never been too proud to do anything except the very basest of things, and even then there were other reasons as well.  I know I’m not too proud to work any job when I get to California, maybe because everything else will be so easy that I’ll be able to swallow anything.  I hope California is going to be as easy-going as I think it is.  Money worries, fine.  All the insurance difficulties, the years of trying to break in, I think I can handle that.  I think the freedom is going to be so wonderful to finally have.  I had it for a little while in River Falls, though it was always coupled with a small dose of expectations. 

But it’s a hard frickin road.  Right now my father and I are at about the end of the line with each other.  Yesterday, he was excited to see me go and encouraging, right now he just wants me out and gone.  See, he’s so blind, so pig-headed, so frickin arrogant…and my mother does nothing but feed the frickin flames.  I told a lot of people that I wanted out at the beginning of January, that was after I had already wanted out in October, but my parents advised me to wait until the New Year.  So I did.  Not because I wanted to, but because they did.  That seems forgotten.  So now it’s mid to end of January and I haven’t yet gone because everytime I turn around there’s another something they "think I should do" before I get out there.  Their endorsement for January 1st seems forgotten. 

Check insurance on your health and car.  I did.  But they said they’d do it.  So I waited for them to do it, which my father finally did and came up with this stunning conclusion: I’ll have to change it over when I get out there and deal with it then.  The answer I came up with back before January 1st, but I waited anyway for that answer.  Check on your phone: the answer I discovered: "I’m going to need to change it when I get there, so that people in California calling me for call-backs etc. aren’t calling long distance.  Otherwise, my current phone works just fine for everyone else in Wisconsin."  There conclusion: My phone works just fine for people in Wisconsin.  They didn’t even realize that people in California would be calling me long distance so they didn’t ask or think about it.  I’m a step ahead.  My parents haven’t addressed apartments and houses at all…I’m waiting for them to delay me for it.  But they won’t.  Because they don’t seem to understand that it may be considered inconvenient and downright bum-like to crash at somebody’s place for over a month — even if you are willing to help with the rent.  I took care of that all anyway.  I’m registered for the C-Best, which I did myself.  I was planning on getting a credit card before I left, but Dad took care of it….which will be explained a little bit later on.  And finally — transportation and my things — I was driving out and that was that.  Nate was to go, he backed out, I’d do it myself and didn’t much care.  Hotels, fine.  Gas, fine.  I have the money to do it, you can always use a little bit more, but my parents were behind me.  I wanted to leave on Friday, yesterday, but my parents once again said it would be better to drive on Monday so I missed the weekend traffic.  (The massive amount that travels along interstate highways in the middle to end of January.)  Fine.  I waited.

So today, they decide I should fly out.  That I should get a car out there in California from my Dad’s good friend’s brother, and that they’ll ship me the rest of my things.  Which means: A) I won’t have all my stuff with me B)I’ll need Megan to drop her plans to pick me up, or take a taxi  C)The date I’m leaving will be changed, because they need to procure a car for me  D)All the things I’ve told people about departure dates are changed again.  Now, these are not significant problems.  Fine.  I’ll do it.  It’s cheaper certainly if you compare hotel bills and gas to a plane ticket (probably.)  They’ll be buying a car, however.  But ohhh well.  It will be registered and everything, great.  The idea is fine.  What I’m bothered with, is their decision a day before I was planning to leave.  They’ve changed it all again.  They don’t seem to understand that this is inconvenient.  They don’t seem to understand that Megan needs to be alerted, and they don’t seem to understand that shipping all my things is going to be a pain in the ass.  I’m going to have to ship all my DVDs and games and my TV and all that crap (let’s pray it doesn’t get damaged or that Mom and Dad even know about the special shipping costs and details entailed with shipping electronics and DVDs (whatever.)

So I get bothered.  I tell them fine.  Let’s do it, just get it done with.  At this point, I don’t care…just do it.  But that’s not good enough for my father.  He doesn’t see why I’m not more grateful, why I’m not jumping up and down for joy at this idea.  Let’s ignore the fact that the last large display of emotion he saw me do over anything was years ago when I was a different person…but he’s waiting for a bow, perhaps a parade, perhaps a standing ovation at this idea.  (Which by the way my mother proposed two weeks earlier and he shot down and insulted her for for the same exact reasons that I brought up for why not to do it.)  But nevertheless, I’m ungrateful and I’m a jerk.  And talking back to him works about as well as blowing on a forest fire. 

It is true, exemplified keenly by my parents, that you can blind yourself so completely to who you are, that you can’t even see why you do things or what you’re doing.  They say it’s not me versus them, that they’re just trying to help…but I wonder how well my father would take to me changing his plans at the last moment.  Circumstances are exacerbated by my eldest brother Dave, who just hit up my parents for money to fix the car and is hitting them up again for another 1500 dollars to (what?) fix the car.  I have my own suspicions about whether his car is really having problems, since when my father decided to give Dave MY car and buy me one in California, Dave replied that he was already having the work done…though no real payment had been made.  So my father is furious.  He is furious that his way was not given and that his children, both who are above the age of 21, are trying to live their life by their own decisions.  At the same time, he’s furious that Dave is not financially independent at the age of 35 but is hitting up him for thousands of dollars.  Well, what a paradox to make everybody’s decisions and want them to think for themselves. 

I will grant that Dad is not responsible for Dave.  Dave has been a leech since the beginning.  He is so arrogant he is blind to the fruitlessness of his own ambitions, so self-impressed he is unable to recognize the futility of his efforts and that the thing that will grant him success will not be his own merits, but pure luck.  He has been the lead si

nger of a Chicago Goth rock band that’s gone through more members than Christopher Guest’s "Spinal Tap."  He gets paid very little, the other members of his band all have good enough jobs to warrant their moonlighting, but Dave just spends it drinking, dating girls almost half his age, and thinking he’s a lot cooler than he really is.  If he is successful, I will not renounce my beliefs about him…he will only make it by luck.  He’s already past his prime for making it into the music scene in my personal opinion.  And he has a massive complex — he cannot handle "degrading" himself with certain jobs or with certain things.  I really didn’t want to tell Dad that I figured he wouldn’t go for the whole deal Dad came up with, because Dave wouldn’t like my car.

But my feelings don’t really play into this.  That’s the problem.  The only time I can speak is when I agree or applaud my father.  It’s ridiculous.  It’s just so frickin hard and enough is enough.  Now, I don’t know what to do.  I want to fly out there and get the frickin car so that I can just frickin get them off my back.  But that means being here another two or three extra days and having to tell everybody that I’m not sure when I’m leaving.  And now my Dad is not even sure he wants to do it he’s so angry with me.  He hasn’t made a clear decision, because Mom still insists that I fly.  So what am I supposed to do?  Every where I go I feel like an embarrassment, not to them, but to my friends and the people who I really respect and love.  I am a person who has always been independent in mind and soul, and part of that independence is knowing that I can suck up whatever degradation and humiliation my parents heap on my back because I want to be a son to them…and because I do feel I owe them for the money they give.  But I am embarrassed to have to change my plans again and again, to tell people that I wanted to go, but I didn’t because my parents wouldn’t let  me.  I’m a frickin adult, I should be able to make a decision without having to clear it through them, but they don’t see it that way.  They only see themselves as concerned parents, they don’t seem themselves as controlling, close-minded, demanding people.  They don’t see it and I don’t even know if anybody else really sees it either.  Just me and anybody who’s willing to believe these words here.

Lately, all I feel like doing is sleeping.  It’s the sign of the depression I once had coming back on me.  Getting out of here will free it again, because I know it’s only my parents that bring it on.  I’m glad at least I know what makes me truly happy and I’m willing to pursue it.  I’m glad at least I have a direction to go and am pursuing it.  My oldest brother has spent his life indulging himself with things that make him feel good, aiming only for a few seconds further into his life than the moment he’s living now.  And one day, after 15 to 25 years of responsibility-less enjoyment, my father is going to die, Dave is going to flounder, and the rest of his life he will be half a man.  Maybe.  Maybe he’ll just sink further into denial and live beyond his means through the rest of his life, happy himself, hurting everyone around him.  The consequences of our actions are not contained to ourselves…and pursuing the things we want on a whim, pursuing hedonism pure and clear, before earning it, before ensuring that everyone who counts on us and helps us is safe and satisfied, is utterly selfish.  That’s what I’ve discovered that Dave hasn’t yet.  A lot of people admire the Jennings sons for their intelligence, and my parents, despite their flaws, have always tried to hold us up to a place where no one can see our problems, so that they could continue to admire us without realizing what they were admiring.  And Dave could handle being held.  But the people who respect ME deserve better than admiration of a false idol.  I want them to respect somebody who has earned it.  I want to believe when I give my opinion that I have earned the right to state it, and that I’ve earned the right to be listened to and believed, especially since I have always operated as if I have that right. 

But my parents don’t understand anything.  To them I hate them.  To them, I’m ungrateful.  To them, I’m just a reminder of how they failed to make a simpering, overly exultant pawn who grovels at their splendor.  I know their strengths and I know their weaknesses, and they don’t respect me for my fair impartiality.  They hate me for pointing out that they’re human and flawed. 

And, by the way, anybody who believes a family should be this after-school special everybody in-love with each other, eternally forgiving group, should remember that feelings are reciprocated, and when one breaks that precious concord, knowingly or not, they do not deserve to have those they harmed be the bigger man.  It’s better to be it, but not demanded. 

Oh, and I apologized to my father.  And he didn’t accept it.  So tell me what I’m supposed to do with that.  Hell if I know.  The road is harder than even that, there’s something more that I don’t want to talk about now, I’ve rambled long enough, but suffice to say, easy can’t come soon enough to give me a break from this shit.