It’s been 145 days since my dad died. Today is the anniversary of D-Day. Historical events always make me want to talk to my dad. He always had a way of explaining things so that they made sense.
I watched a video of a kid graduating from Harvard’s commencement speech. The message was to listen as if you were wrong. That we’ve gotten so lost as human’s with the way we interact — always thinking we know best, that the goal of a discussion is to win it. That you have to pick a side and you have to defend that side with every fiber of your being.
My dad taught me that, while you should remain steadfast in your convictions, there is always something to learn from someone who thinks differently than you. Entering into conversations with people always invites an opportunity to learn something. Whether it be about a new topic, a topic you thought you knew everything about, or just simply learning why someone else thinks differently (or even the same) as you.
If you surround yourself with likeminded people, you are never presented with alternative points of view. Our algorithms are perfectly curated to show us what we are interested in, what we like vs. what we dislike, etc. further reinforcing whatever ideas we’d already made our minds up about. Personally, I’m not convinced that’s a great way to ensure you’re a well-educated member of society. And I really wish I could talk to my dad about that more.
I used to think that I was smart. Not in the book smart way (and definitely not math) but in the human smart way. I’ve always been a people person. A social butterfly. Someone who prefers to interact with others than be alone with their own thoughts. As I get older and continue to reflect introspectively, it’s become rather clear to me that it’s not necessarily because I’m “good with people” — it’s that I learned to become empathetic and in tune with people because I had to for survival as a kid.
Growing up with an emotionally volatile and unstable mother with an emotionally inept father required a lot of emotional growth and rapid maturity at a very young age. Learning to evaluate your parent’s emotions before understanding the quadratic formula is an interesting language, but one I’m quite fluent in.
As I’ve grown up — both in years and mentally — it has been a common theme of mine to meet the question of “what do you want out of life” with a long pause and rapidly searching the file cabinets of my brain to figure out which answer would most likely appease the asker.
Which, if I’m being honest, isn’t really an honest answer. But that’s because the honest answer has always just been “I just want to be happy.” And that’s a really weird answer to come from someone who’s always been perceived as being happy. Loving life. Joyful. Extroverted. Excited about things.
Don’t get me wrong — I do get excited about the little things. I get overly happy at the smell of summer rain. Freshly brewed coffee. Really good pasta. Excellent wine. Whiskey with big ice cubes. A cool play in baseball. A really good movie. A pretty woman with a vibrant outfit. My friends excelling in life. My family members reaching milestones. Those things make me happy.
But I think there’s a difference between being happy in the moment, and truly being happy in life. I think in order to be happy in life — an understanding of what makes you happy or what would make you happy is a pretty good start.
And I don’t know the answer to that.
I used to watch a lot of TV and movies (let’s be real I still do) but I especially did as a kid. I wanted to go to the New York Film Academy DESPERATELY when I was younger. So much so that I sent in a request online for a catalog of classes to try and convince my parents to send me. Obviously, that dream never worked out.
But what I don’t express, at least usually, is that I watched shows and movies so often because I could imagine being the characters on screen. I was so good at pretending in my day to day life that I figured I could go do it for a career.
Somewhere along the lines I did end up doing it as a career, but not in the sense that it has ever made me money.
It’s made me cry. Lie. Hurt people. Hurt myself. Made me angry. Happy. Scared. Depressed. Excited. All of it, at some point, in some way, throughout my life. But it has never provided monetary gain.
What that little girl who pretended to be so many other people (in her mind and often also in reality) grew up to be was someone without any kind of sense of self. Someone who has no idea what their needs are. What they truly want as a career. What they want their legacy to be. Half the time she doesn’t know what she likes to do for fun. Whatever sounds good in the moment. Maybe that’s why she hates being asked to decide where to eat — and if she does decide, it’s most assuredly going to be 1 of 5 places that she has the menu memorized but always orders the same thing. Somewhere along the lines she managed to get herself a good career and a few solid friends who’ve hung around for the madness over the years, but she’s so so fucking lost. The girl who spent her whole life making rash decisions (and half of them terrible, for the most part) has now led her to an interesting crossroads.
So, that little girl is 35 and she’s going back to therapy and going to try and figure all of that out before it’s too late. To be fair, I’m only 35, not 95 — yet somehow it feels like 65.
That little girl who sought approval and confirmation her dad was proud of her but he’s no longer alive to give that approval to her, is learning that he gave it to her a long time ago, she just didn’t see it.
That little girl who has spent so long letting outside people and things dictate her emotions that she’s left with the inability to manage her own so she feels absolutely insane most days, is going to figure it out.
The downside is that little girl has been lost for a long time.
The upside is that not everything that gets lost remains unfound.
The downside is that she’s hurt people because she doesn’t know who she is.
The upside is that she knows it wasn’t malicious and she can forgive herself for that.
The downside is that she feels a lot of things all the time — everywhere, all at once.
The upside is that empathy she was forced to learn at a young age has grown into a superpower.
The downside is if you don’t learn to harness your superpower, it will be the end of you.
The upside is you can learn to master it, just like The Incredible Hulk did.
“Denying half of your being is no way to live, trust me.” – Bruce Banner
Kansas to Viva 