I mentioned talking to my mother about how I’m feeling in an earlier post and worrying about people telling me that I should “just do ….”. My mind is extrapolating, before I forget I must write it.

When I’m upset, I still have some childhood notion that there are answers. As I talk, I come back to myself and remember there aren’t any answers. It’s a hard transition from being young, having questions about everything, and suddenly finding so many questions that don’t seem complicated, but really don’t have answers. It’s nice to say, “Why did that person do that” and get “because their parents didn’t love them enough”, and feel like your question is resolved, but it’s not. Psychology is interesting, but we’re complicated, and I’m fine really with folks being a mystery.

I think when I have a bad day I want to come home to someone who’ll say “aww” and give me a hug. I’m sort of perplexed when I talk to my mother and outside of asking some questions about how I’m feeling, her only statement is “Yeah, it’s hard”, never “You should …”

Which is great really, because I hate it when I’m struggling with an emotional problem and someone tells me that I should walk away or put my foot down or anything that ignores that it’s a problem with how I feel more than a problem with my actions. That reaction completely ignores my feelings. While my heart may dream of non-existent simpleness, my mind is quick to throw out those reactions.

Some time ago there were many accusations that I was trying to be my father, that I was going to turn into my father, that I was acting on his wishes. My reaction was to try to be comforting. This was fucking retarded of me, because it was soulless and empty, and accordingly accomplished nothing of substance. The appropriate reaction would have been “fuck off and die”, or maybe more appropriately, “you’re insane, and I’m leaving”, or perhaps something a bit further down the not-harsh scale. I could likely count on two hands every conversation I’ve ever had with my father where he’s made comment about what I should do, with relations to my feelings being a significantly scarcer commodity. I love my father, but I’m definitely his loudest critic. While my mother surely has more experience to speak from, it’s much less appropriate for her to do as much. I’ve had many shocking conversations with his parents about him that ended with, “We didn’t realize it had gotten that bad”. Gotten? It’s always been that bad, where have you been the last twenty years? I’m losing focus here, the point being that the implication that my parents somehow lead me is pure absurdity. They stepped out of that role many years ago, as they should have.

It’s funny too, and a warning sign that was missed out of my compromise, when that type of person spends so my time asking their own parents what they should do, while I’m asking my father how the Boston Bruins are doing, because that is what is important to him.

But I’m not looking for answers, I’m vocalizing my feelings until they solidify into pieces I can move around and see where they fit, or throw out the cruft. This ends up overflowing at times, as feelings do, and catching other people up in it. Thankfully that doesn’t happen often, only when my feelings come to a dam and pile up while I play The Incredible Machine with my life until it makes sense again.

See, I do fix things. Whoops.