But there is no way I’m going to host a celebration of any sort.
On my way to the airport, I share a social media post about how my father died and how I’m going home to deal with all the boring, annoying business and house stuff. How it’s all crazy and complicated because my bananas parent hadn’t been in my life for years, so I’m resentful that I have to wade through his myriad of disasters. How I wish I’d had a better father. I ask my online friends to talk about their own parents. To maybe celebrate great parents, but also to unload about growing up with crummy ones.
Being truthful with my followers has always been important, and it’s moving to see how they comment. So many supporting me, sharing love, telling me their own stories, and altogether making me feel less alone.
I am not the only one with a family that makes my head spin. And I’m inspired—maybe reminded—that I could one day find myself in a family that isn’t wholly dysfunctional.
I force myself to correct my thinking. It’s not that I could find myself in one, tumble into one. It’s that I could create one.
When the plane lands, I about groan.I really do not want to be here.But I grab my bag from the bin above my seat and trudge off the plane
After I open my Lyft app, I pause. It’s tempting to run to my hotel, yet I put in an address and soldier on to my dad’s house. I’m almost pissed that a car is available to drive me, but I reluctantly lumber in.
When we’re at my destination, I’m sulking in the back seat, and my driver almost forces me out of the car, as my disinterest in leaving is pretty clear.
“Ma’am?”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t want to be delivered here either,” I spit out.
He exits his driver’s seat and pulls my bag from the trunk to the front door before he tears off in his Acura.
It’d be nice to pretend that I didn’t know about the key under the very fake-looking rock, but I sigh as I grab it.
I wish this fucker had locked me out.
But he didn’t, so I’m in.
The entryway is all mail, and I swear a thousand swears as I take a step in and kick his million envelopes across the floor.
I wander around his house, and I’m grateful he wasn’t a true hoarder of physical items. But when it comes to piles of paper? He was a master. After wading through the ocean of crap in the entryway, I laugh with slightly maniacal rage as I gaze at the kitchen. Stacks of mail have given up and begun to fall to the floor. My experience tells me this is all bills, collection letters, legal documents. Did I really expect anything different?
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and settle into a chair at the kitchen table, which also holds its own mountain of everything paper. I surrender and reach for the nearest envelope, having to start somewhere. There are two categories, I decide: personal and business. Andfuck himfor making me even have to deal with this.
I open a piece of mail that is obviously a bill and see that it is from an accountant. A past due balance. Then it hits me.
I am an adult with resources.
This does not have to be my mess. I don’t have to fear his disapproving gaze or shaming words. I have choices. I luckily find trash bags under the sink and go about the task of bagging up all this shit that has nothing to do with me and doesn’t have to be my problem.
While the literal trashing of all the nightmares is a nice cathartic distraction, it suddenly occurs to me that I am alone in this house. It was only after I left for college that I started to reflect on my childhood and identify things that began to seem strange to me when I was young. And things that now, as an adult, I know are totally fucked. As I go through the house, I again am hit with how it is not normal for people to keep piles of cash in the air vents oftheir home. Or routinely store cash in the freezer. A normal business person doesn’t have strangers coming to their door in the middle of the night to conduct “business transactions” and whisper in the shadows. There are so many things that made me anxious as a child that I shoved to the back of my mind and refused to think about. Years later, I am sitting in this now-unfamiliar house and feeling that anxiety that I hoped was gone.
When the doorbell rings, I assume this is someone calling whom I should fear, so my entire body is on high alert. There are no cameras or a security system.
But I know there are guns. I hate them, but there were always guns.
It doesn’t take long to find a shotgun, under a bed. Loaded and primed to go. As I march through the house with all the adult courage I can muster, I realize how ridiculous this is. A shotgun is not something you brandish while answering the door. It is bulky, hard to handle, especially for a petite female, and is also meant for long-range shooting. I also realize that if some dirtbag debt collector wants into this house, I will gladly let him in. He can have the bags of shit and the ancient boxy televisions. I’m happy to take what I came with and leave.
The doorbell rings again.
When I open the door, I don’t know what to feel. Anger, sadness, relief?
After looking at Patrick for a minute or two, I just say, “Fuck you.”
“Fair enough.”
“I almost shot you,” I spit out.
“Also, fair enough.”
