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Parents
Dad: Nightly walks have become routine, or rather, dad has tried to make them routine by joining me every night when I take Sumo out into the fields. We walk in silence, the cool air gutting our sinuses from a winter of disconsolate torpor. I love him, but I cannot live with him. He is too dependent on my presence. Perhaps it's my ultra sensitivity to situations like this, but I feel his attachment to me like the grip of a drowning man to a plank of wood. I am strangely repelled by his loneliness, perhaps because it echoes so much of my own. Occasionally, quips of conversation would assault the night air. I would discuss my days with a cynicism that is so ill fitting, but reflexive to my annoyance. His laugh would come easily, too quickly, as though he were feasting on every word, ravenous for more. His elementary sense of humor -- ignited by jokes of bodily functions, sexist remarks, and human stupidity -- has quickly become a nuisance rather than a welcome addition to conversation. By spending less time with him, I maintain my arm's-length distance from bitterness. Unfortunately, this only seems to feed the cycle.
Mom: Dinner last night with alcohol. After nineteen years, I think I've come to understand her, since raising me has deeply ingrained her thought process in the bowels of my mind. Both of my parents are complex people, however, my mother is the most difficult to describe. Then again, maybe it's not necessary to explain the people we love. She worries constantly. I doubt it's out of true, heartfelt concern, but more out of the idea of motherly responsibility. These past few years have been especially hard on her with my brother and I going away to college. Financially, she's also struggling, and last night I confronted her about paying for a loan she had given me a few years back for a car I bought. The idea of me giving her money caused her to break down into tears. When she gets upset, however, she has reverts to a childlike state, giggling and bouncing around, so you never know if she's joking or seriously upset. It's hard sometime not to laugh. I think it's her natural reaction to upsetting situations that has taught me to laugh in the face of adversity.
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