Unrequited Narcissism

I grabbed my favorite glass from the cupboard. A short rocks glass engraved with the map of Los Angeles on it. It doesn’t carry a ton of meaning since I don’t really consider this city to hold any piece of my heart. Sure it’s got it’s perks and occasional luxuries, but it’s just another city. Tons of happy people, even more shitty people. Some of those overlap into both as well. But it’s just the right size glass and I feel Hemmingway-cool when I use it. Got ice from the fridge door and then grabbed my favorite gin. Very NOT Hemingway-cool. But he put some less than ideal things in his mouth. Mixed some diet tonic water and grabbed my grill tongs.

It wasn’t a challenging day but overall I’m just tired. Like soul tired. The kinda tired you can’t sleep away. I feel like I’ve been running on empty and all I’ve been offered by this world is band-aids for what we all really need. It’s been thirty some years, you I’d be used to it. I have my vices sure, I just made a drink for fucks sake. But it’s more than that. It’s the unavoidable. It’s the people who create problems for themselves and then pass off them to others on their way to whatever shit show they’ve created. Even micro level problems. Like say you get cut off driving on the way to work. Like this guy sees you, you’ve made eye contact, and they still say fuck it and pull out while you’re doing 45 and then you have to lock up your car so you dont wreck and they just go on cutting off everyone in their path. Now we all take that shit personally and get mad or upset because we don’t know what else to do. All because this dude can’t get out of bed 15 minutes earlier so he doesn’t have to stress himself out. Now he’s thinking differently, now he’s desperate or anxious. And he has made a conscious decision to drive that way because of it. And now his bad time is your bad time. And I’m just tired of that loop. It’s non-stop here. Plus this city only has two seasons. Hot summer days and cold summer days, all year long. So every day feels the same. You lose track of things because you can’t anchor the memory to a season. You’ll never say in an argument, “No it had to have happened last winter. There was snow on the ground when Carla was outside!” Like that not’s a thing for LA memories. So you can guess my surprise when I went out to the grill to think I saw snow on the neighbors roofs.

I live across from a flat roof apartment building. In the faded moonlight, the white tar lines almost looked like built up snow in the grooves of the roof. As I opened the grill and took the meat out, my mind wandered to places I didn’t think I would care to ever peruse. I suddenly remembered back to my apartment when I lived up north and I could see the snow build up on the roofs of the storage garages next to my building. I started remembering what I was doing, how I felt, who I loved. I still don’t know how to describe the feeling, but it wasn’t upsetting but also wasn’t pleasant. It was like if you could somehow say a dictionary is a feeling, it was like that? I don’t know. Not like informative, but in that dry kinda you read it for a purpose not pleasure feeling. And my mind wandered backwards to being a kid scooping snow. Using the snowblower. Kicking slush off my jeans. Scrapping ice off my windows. And then it occurred to me none of these memories are joyous or fond memories. But it’s hard to find one that I didn’t fabricate into a happy memory, so I guess all my memories are just emotionless? I’m hearing the songs, smelling the smells, feeling the tinge of the cold, the feelings she made me feel, everything. I plate the food and head inside. As I close the sliding screen door, my phone begins to ring. I hurriedly flip off my sandals and scurry to the kitchen counter to set this stuff down and wipe off my hands. I take my phone from my pocket and it’s my sister. I swipe it open and grab my drink.

“Hey Sis.. whuuuuuts up?”

Slightly frantic, slightly annoyed, “What are you doing?”

“I am wrapping up dinner and enjoying a drink. What do you want?”

“When are you coming home?”

“I am home. You mean Mom n’ Dad’s House?”

“Are you fucking serious right now?!”

“Jesus what is your problem. You called me.”

She let’s out a long sigh. There’s a pause.

I break the silence, “Ok, well if you’re gonna just be rude I’m…”

“Mom was supposed to call you…” She pauses, and then;

“…Dad died. I’m sorry she didn’t tell you. She said she called you right after me….”

I honestly don’t know what she said after that. I shut off. Any shred of me that contained the ability to hold space for anyone or anything was just closed off. I closed my shell so fucking hard sounds couldn’t penetrate. I just said yep a bunch and continued sipping my drink.

“Hey!?” She shouts.

I come to and realize I’ve downed this drink over the course of this very brief conversation and that a question has been proposed.

“When can you be here?”

“I… I don’t, I don’t know. Let me check tickets prices and all that aaaaand I will let you know.” I say with humor to hide that fact that I just crashed into a glass wall and I’m not sure where to start cleaning up. Do I brush the debris off me? Do I sweep up the floor so I don’t cut myself? Is there any large pieces I can start with? Where’s my flashlight?

She continues, “Ok, I’ll try to stall the service but I think there’s like a specific window otherwise they charge you a storage fee or some crap.”

“Yea, of course. See ya.” And I end the call.

I just kinda hung up on the conversation. I said my goodbye, but I don’t think she expected it. But I didn’t care. I’m out of cares. This is exactly the kind of thing that my family has done my whole life. Push push push, and then treat me like shit for feeling pushed away. It’s been years since I’ve been to my parent’s house and seen the whole family. It’s no ones direct fault. Bad parenting. Shitty situations in life. Lack of communication and expressions. It’s just not easy for everyone to deal appropriately. There was just too many times that my Mother and Father made eye contact and pulled out in front of me anyways.

Strangely Dad being dead isn’t what struck me, but the communication triggered something I didn’t expect. This won’t be fun. For many reasons. I just really don’t have it in me to face either of my parents, let alone my mother after this. I’m strangely calm about my father’s passing but to have to see and TALK to my mother, just upsets me. I grew up thinking that my childhood and relationship with my parents was normal. Rooted in discipline to their tasks, rules, and punishments. And when I’d hear things form friends I was at first surprised by how light their parents and I formed a strange pride over my “strict parents”, but as I got older and learned more from my friends I thought their families were weird. They goose each other’s butts? They say loving affirmations? Public displays of affection?! Unheard of under my roof. Their parents HAD to be weird. But the harrowing truth that revealed itself is my parents were damaged and unfortunately, still are.

As my Dad got older, he became more nostalgic and would tell me stories from his youth. It was always strange too. We never talked like that growing up, ever. He always did the talking, sure, but it was news or politics or some old ancient country singer no one’s ever heard of. But he would tell me stories about my great Grandmother and how kind she was and he would go out to their farm and hang out and do chores and he loved it. But I was always like ok cool, why are you trying to bond now? I have no interest and the fact it’s just one sided without asking me any thoughts or memories just meant to me that he needed someone to listen to him more than he wanted to bond. Like the dude just needs a friend. So while I wish I had that relationship with him like most sons do, I washed my hands of that dream long ago. I buried him years ago. I closed off my parents after years of having to not only learn who I am, but to unlearn what they made me think was life and how the world worked. And here I am, confronted with this unavoidable truth that any connection is lost and am I ok with that?

Fuckin ay man, we have all kinds of things and places and knowledge that we share we could talk about. Ask me how my work is going, ask about my apartments, ask me if I have a girlfriend. I ask you that crap and all I get is oh it’s good, yea it’s ok blah blah. Please get to know me, but I digress. It’s now moot.

Mom is a clear-cut narcissist and my concept on how to treat the situation is right in line with protecting myself until I’m ready. It would seem the universe would prefer I stop procrastinating and face this fear head on. Didn’t realize my Dad had to die in order to do it, but that’s about the only thing on this Earth that would force me here. I guess that’s really what it comes down to. We sometimes have to do what we don’t want to do in order to grow. I want so badly to not be a son or sibling or whatever societal expectation is of me to do so I can just live. I have this weight on my heart for ignoring them or not thinking of them fondly. Mom always has this way of saying something she wished I did or something someone else did and all the while have this tone like I should be better or I could be farther ahead. At the time, it didn’t click that easily but now it’s a bright shinning beacon where I wish they could see it’s not my fault directly. My actions are reverberations of their nurturing.

Mom forgetting to tell me about my own father passing doesn’t shock me in the least, but clearly upsets me. And after the sadness of once again being forgotten, I turned to anger. I often wonder if it’s just me, and I’m overreacting and being a big baby. And then I catch that voice is my conditioning of having to deal with it all and how I survived growing up in an environment that didn’t comfortably suit me as a child, and rather have my environment adjusted to help thrive, I had to learn to adapt in order to survive. Think of it like you buy a plant and bring it home. You read it needs medium water and medium indirect sunlight, whatever the hell that means. So you place it somewhere you hope will get the best light for that random sweet spot of light, and plan to check the soil often to see that the soil stays on the dark side. After a couple weeks the plant looks a little wilty, and that new leaf it had when you bought has now died. Do you just look at with a disappointed gaze and go back to what you’re doing and hope it figures it out? Fuck no, you realize this is too dark and put it somewhere it might get more light. My mom decided I would adjust, and lucky for her or me or the world? I did just that.

What really gets me is the direct lack of care towards showing me anything caring. Communication is just like ‘Exhibit 432’. When I was in college, and hour and a half away, I would go to visit as often as I could to help with house repairs and just to see them. I felt compelled to be there for whatever reason. One time on MY birthday they asked me to drive to the city my siblings lived in for dinner since it was in-between for them and I. But my siblings, had no drive time. So I imagine the logic was: parents drive hour and a half, birthday son drives hour and a half, and the others will already be there. Hooray for efficiency, where’s the love? After I graduated I lived 2 hours away and would spend occasional weekends with them but then I moved out of state and couldn’t get back anytime other than holidays. And that’s only when I see them. My sister lives states away and once mentioned that Mom was coming to visit. I laughed it off and said, “oh well enjoy that”, and her response was light hearted and she explained Mom comes to visit her all the time. Like every few months she’d fly out there and visit her. And my brother said the same, however he lives close so not that unexpected, but it still felt like a dagger. Why don’t you want to visit me? What is it that makes me the black sheep of receiving feelings?

I’ve tried, I really have. I’m just lost now. Do I go to Mom and Dad’s house during this? Do I get a hotel? Do I even go? I mean fuck, I don’t truly care. If I go, it’s once again to save face with the expectation that it’s my father and I’m family and blah blah. It’s all made up rhetoric. There’s no law that says the son must be present for his father’s burial. I have the same feelings of going as I do a work acquaintance inviting me to their wedding. Like ugh, I have to travel there, I have to pay for lodging, I have to take time out of my life, and all for what? So someone else can be blessed by my presence? What do I get out of it? Heartache? Loss of money? New emotions and memories to scour though and see if there is love stuck somewhere in a crack I can’t see? I’m so tired of this thought process and emotional strife that never seems to end being tied to a family that only brings me down. Is my father’s passing the first sign of being able to move past this? Does his death mean I can release the feeling of being a bad son for doing what I want and not what they think I should? Is this healthy? Am I just a psychotic person with no empathy? I donate. I read books. I’m nice to strangers. Am I crazy for thinking I shouldn’t have to do anything I don’t want to even if my family thinks I should?

I guess at this point I’m being a bit dramatic because recently I started digging into my mind to help understand why all of my relationships were playing out the same. Got a flashlight and started combing my mind real deep. Before I moved to LA, I lived in a cold desolate city north near the border. It was cold and boring and it sucked. I moved there to help save and rekindle a marriage I had already deemed senseless in my mind but felt the obligation to be in the relationship. For whatever reason. After some time, it drug me so low that I was either going to die of cirrhosis at an early age or I was going to have to make some hard choices. I made a lot. To the point where I found myself in a one-bedroom apartment overlooking some storage garages on the north end of town. It was great. I felt alive again. I felt like I had all the fight in the world to change myself. So I worked on me, however not all of me. I realized that later BUT I would meal prep, work out daily, I got some great work opportunities that opened up, I was picking up more musical and art hobbies. And then one day I met her. She actually came to my office, unrelated to my existence. And I took the nerve to contact her and start up dialouge. She absolutely swept me off my feet.

Fast forward to um, she uh… destroyed me. She came in hot and then just shut it down one day. Months went by where I was a wreck but keeping my shit together. Then one day I sorta pieced together what happened; she was also recently divorced and I was the rebound then she ghosted me to get back with the guy she cheated on her husband with. I don’t know, something resembling that nonsense, either way, NEAT. So I snap out of my shit mood and decide now is when I need to shake my core. Go where I want, do what I want. So LA it is.

After being here a few years and seldom meeting new and occasionally interesting women, I meet the next soul crushing train wreck I could’ve imagined. But this time will be different I tell myself. I learned from my divorce, I learned from the divorcee, and I’ve spent years reading books and doing my best to be a well-rounded and healthy human being. Been wandering around with this flashlight for years now. Let’s go for it. Incredible, hot, smart, crazy, passionate, artsy, comfortable kind of home feeling the entire time. Bang cash zoom right into a canyon. One of my longest relationships outside my marriage, so after it ended I chalked the ‘longing for her’ up to the length of it all and time will heal. So I try to move on but also going back to working on me because I didn’t know what happened with that one. And I steered in some painful areas and it shined my flashlight where I hadn’t thought to truly look. The relationship with my parents. The part of feeling like home she gave reverted me to child-me trying appease the parents the whole relationship. I was never comfortable to speak up and I never made a fuss when I didn’t feel heard or validated. Avoid confrontation. Keep the boat on a steady course. And that’s not how want to define home. I had come full circle and got into a relationship that brought out the same me that ended up in a bleak marriage. In my defense this relationship was a bomb from both ends. One of relationships where you look at it under a microscope after the fact and realize you both have childhood issues that needed dealing with but neither of us were aware of them.

So I never reached back out. I couldn’t. I knew that I had changed, but how could I be sure she did? So I moved on. Pushed past it like all the other ones. I kept getting slammed with the same lesson from the universe and never taking the hint. And now I get it. Just like now it’s telling me to go and see my mother and get out what I need to. If I can speak my boundaries and truths to my mother then I can say them to anyone. Then I can say them to my boss. Then I can say them to the asshole at the store harassing the cashier. Then I can say them to my wife and we can be open and discus and get back on track and keep our spark thriving. I can use all that I’ve learned and mix it with how I feel in the moment and speak on my truth and use it to help communicate things in my life and grow to their greatest potential. Using my knowledge like the sunlight and the feelings as the water and my life will become this beautiful thing I’ll be proud to say I grew. Sometimes you gotta throw some seeds in the wind and starting growing where the soil feels best.

I miss her presence. I could use someone like her to talk to. I could call my friend but his mother died a year back and I’m not sure this won’t trigger him. But she could comfort me. As much as I tell myself I can love myself and I can take care of myself, it would be great if I weren’t doing it alone. I’m great, I’m self-sufficient like a motherfucker, but to be in your late thirties and have never felt true caring unconditional love? I can’t tell you how big of a sigh it makes me take. I have a pretty warm spot in my heart saved for all the few in my life that came in. It’s the kind of weight where you don’t know it’s there til it’s gone. She was able to take off the weight every now and then. When she was being authentic and not trying to push me away out of her fears. I miss her smell. I miss her curves. The way she walked, the way she had this rigid but free flowing posture when she’d move around the kitchen or bedroom. It was somewhere between a ballerina and gymnast but not weird. She overthought herself so much she had no idea how to be sexy, but in her natural essence. Chefs kiss. She was beautiful. She could wear the shit out of any outfit and had zero confidence to truly do so outside. And the way she truly adored me for being able to the simplest of “manly” tasks; like level the fridge so the door closes on it’s own, clearing her dishwasher line so it drains and she can use it without it smelling like warm milk, or just hanging literally anything on the wall. She did things that truly made me feel the warmth of her character and love. And I miss that every fucking day. I miss her because she was able to give me that, and I wish she still could. Getting tired of these heavy sighs I keep having.

I need to go look up tickets. Maybe I’ll call my sister tomorrow. I’d rather have another gin if I’m gonna continue having all these wonderful thoughts pop up while I just wanted to eat dinner in peace. Maybe I should call her. Yea don’t. I wish I had a close person like a sister I could talk to about this, oh that’s right. My family doesn’t open up about these things. I grab my plate and take a seat on the couch and place my plate and drink down on the coffee table. After searching for the fucking remote that I never seem to leave in the same place and lose even though there’s a giant piece of bright pink tape on it. I click on the television and lay back in the couch and let out one last long heavy emotion-releasing sigh. I glance over at my phone. Yea no don’t. You’ll be fine. Eat your food. You got this.