I found out my dad is dying a few months ago. He's got rapidly progressing Alzheimer's at the age of 47/48. I can never remember birthdays and ages. I hadn't slept at all the night before I found out, and lack of sleep has always made me emotionally unstable but when I heard about the diagnosis I didn't react as dramatically as I expected to. Instead, I went out to the porch of my hip little Portland apartment and sipped my tea, and smoked a cigarette. It was an unseasonably sunny day in Fall and the chilling wind blew right through me. I considered the idea of my dad dying but only waded in the most shallow of thoughts.
My father and I have never been close and I've never really understood why. I have my suspicions though. I was a slightly rebellious kid, not in the cool, leather jacket, switchblade, motorcycle kind of way. When I was a teenager I absorbed so much industry propagated angst that sometimes when I listened to my favorite sad Simple Plan songs I swear I wept pure eyeliner.
This probably threw the man for a loop, I still don't know much about him but from what I can tell he grew up in the leather jacket age, had the motorbike and switchblade, and actually had shit to be angsty over.
The youngest of a family of seven kids, I assume he's given and taken more than his share of craziness, and there I was, whining about whatever dumb shit was on my mind at that time. Not getting to see my friends over the weekend, or not wanting to go to another day of high school.
After I settled down, if whatever I do now can be called that, we began polite communication and spoke to each other mainly in terms of common ground, which consists mainly of fictional stories surrounding the shady origin and goings on of the house-hold pets.
I guess I just always figured that someday we'd both have aged a bit more, and over time chipped away at the wall that seems to have formed between us. I had this picture of us in 20 years, sitting down at a bar somewhere, on a family trip maybe. And he'd sit down with me, old, and wrinkled but happy. I'd be successful, not famous or anything, just grown up, self sufficient, and probably taller. And we'd drink, and talk and he'd tell me about everything about himself that I didn't know. Funny tales of stupidity, and bravery and everything in between. And we'd laugh and talk until we both had to leave and he would get up and so would I and after a bear hug we'd set off in our separate directions with all the awkwardness and frustration behind us. I'd be a son he could be proud of and he'd be the dad I always wished he was.
I'm 22 now, and after a recent unsuccessful attempt to strike out on my own again, I've been coerced into moving home to help the family as conditions deteriorate. I really wanted to escape to the safe haven of Portland again, I thought I had enough time and that being around would just stress my family out and therefore my dad but here I am. A week or so away from living in a place that stresses me out. With people that need me but don't really like me. In a town where the people are poisonous. I will be alone, with my slowly dying father and my teenage little brother.
I'm not sure if I will keep up with this but it really would be nice to have an outlet so I hope I do.
