I had a rough one this afternoon. First I should tell you about the kind of person that I am. Specifically the kind of person I am with myself. I am fifty-one years old and it wasn’t until I was about fifty that I really started to try and love myself. Sometimes that still takes herculean effort.
So there I was working on a programming lesson for some class I am taking for some certification I am not really sure will get me anywhere and I was having some trouble. I could not get the end result I was supposed to get. When I peeked at the answer I couldn’t see the difference. So I deleted my code, copied the correct answer into my Visual Studio and, boom, it worked. I put back my own code and nope, errors out the ass. So I combed through it all line by line and fuck me, there it was, a missed comma.
Also there again, that little voice reminding me that I am a fuck up. So there I was again, that thirteen year old boy too weak to hold up a length of fence being screamed at by my dad.
You’re a fuck up!
I felt it in my core, that spiraling feeling. The room got a little wonky and my head got fuzzy and that fucking voice in my head getting louder. Because of a fucking missing comma that ruined my code and took me twenty minutes to find.
I took a deep breath, put my head down, pulled my hands away from the computer and just… stopped. I stood up, stretched, did some twists and stretched, and then walked away from my laptop for a few minutes.
When I got back to it with a clear mind it came easier and I got shit done. I stopped for the afternoon at a high point. Then I sat outside with my thoughts and a smoke and tried to talk to myself in that same compassionate way that I have talked to so many of my friends who struggle.
Cut yourself some slack.
And eventually, I did.
I remembered that that one moment was only a fraction of a fraction of time in my day just like that moment when my dad was exasperated with me was a fraction of a fraction of an even smaller fraction of my childhood. He would apologize and then carry that with him for the rest of his life. I know this because one night on my porch in Ohio he told me so.
I moved to Ohio for a girl. But I knew it was doomed before I hit the 10 freeway in San Dimas. No, I moved to Ohio to run away. I ran away a lot. My baby brother would later tell me they called it ‘pulling a Rudy.’ I couldn’t tell you what I was running from. Not then, not any of the other times I did it when I was a kid.
Maybe I was running from that voice in my head. A new place equals new stimuli equals drowned out noise. At least for a little while.
Of course, I forgave my dad. He was my fucking hero after all. More than that, the shit I put him through, well… I’ve met a lot of wonderful parents in my time and I don’t think any of them would have been strong enough to withstand a kid like me. I was brutal to that man.
As I sat outside smoking my cigarette it occurred to me that that voice in my head this afternoon was less about my bad coding and more about grief. Dad’s birthday is coming up and it’s been dancing around in my head the last few days, but I am trying to just get on with things, you know? But grief doesn’t work like that.
In a few days he would have turned seventy. Fifty two years ago he turned eighteen and less than a month later I arrived. A baby raising a baby. And I miss him. And he should be here except that he had a problem. Same problem I have. Same problem his father had.
Drunkards all.
I’ve been thinking that if he’d stayed sober he wouldn’t have been drunk on his motorcycle. If he hadn’t been drunk on his motorcycle he wouldn’t have hit a fucking brick-wall. If he doesn’t run head first into that brick-wall he’s here to celebrate his seventieth birthday.
So maybe I was just missing my old man on one of those birthdays ending in zero that we put extra emphasis on for some reason and that fucked with the synapses in my brain.
Or maybe my dumbass just needs to pay more attention when I code.
Postsript – Yes, I am sober now. Twelve years come January. I plan to make it a little longer than my dad who, coincidentally, died at fifty-two. The age I turn next month.
