First, to those who have left comments? I apologize. Someone {ahem…Les? 
} forgot to turn on the option where I get an email when I get a comment. I shall fix that as soon as I track down the enormous fly that has taken up residence in our living room and is driving our dogs absolutely batshit (Hi, young niece who may be reading. Don’t tell your mother Aunt Seuss uses words such as “batshit”, okay? Or your father for that matter, although there was a time…). And as soon as I also get the comment spam stuff up and running because HELLO 99 comments from crazy spam company. If you commented on my slug entry, please re-comment. Please? Because EGAD THE SPAM.
Anyway.
It’s been a melancholy week around here, and I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on why. A cluster of reasons, probably. My grandmother’s continuing deterioration, my uncle’s sudden illness, my father hounding me (nicely and in a very non-hounding way for him) about getting my old toys out of the basement of his house, the realization that The G is going through this remarkable developmental growth spurt and Mama’s in this weird funk that makes her feel like she’s missing it all. That last one I have blamed solely on PMS. Thank you, PCOS and your complete, damnable unpredictability. Curse you!
I was actually on my way out of some of the funk, enjoying some time reading and surfing the net while Hubby has The G at the store buying ingredients for tonight’s dinner, when my father called. The deal we came to on the toys was this: Mom’s getting ready to sell her condo more than likely, so I’m going to have to spend some time there in the next few weeks cleaning my stuff out. Why don’t you just load all the stuff you want out of YOUR house into HER garage and I can do all my sorting in one place. Six van loads later (or was it seven? He wasn’t sure.) he called and told me, in a tone of voice I’ve only heard from him once before, how melancholy he felt.
Melancholy: The Word of the Day.
And to my total amazement, he told me how difficult it was loading up all of these things from my youth. All my theatre stuff and movie stuff and TV stuff (yes, I was that big of a geek even back then). All the things that meant so much to me growing up. All the things he would never completely understand because he missed so much of those years. Yes, he was doing the best he knew how to do in assuring that his children had lives far more comfortable and worry-free than his had ever been growing up - he was, after all, a provider first and foremost - a job at which he excelled more than most. But he missed a lot. A helluva lot. YEARS worth of a lot. And over the last 36 hours, he’s loaded up my ‘a lot’ and carried it to my mother’s garage, finally touching, sorting, wondering about it all.
And I’m the one who’s sitting here with tears in my eyes. Maybe PMS doesn’t deserve all the blame.
My greatest fear in life is that I am far more like my father than I acknowledge. That there is some great, invisible chasm I’ll never manage to cross with The G and that, one day, I’ll be the one sorting through her things and wondering what it all meant to her. I struggle with that fear daily, and pray desperately about it nightly. There even comes a point where I worry about the evil Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. By struggling about it so much, am I creating those very circumstances myself?
It’s difficult, especially at this point in The G’s life. She is firmly entrenched in the “Daddy’s Girl” phase of life, and Hubby is an exceptional father. I see what they have right now, and I ache for it. I can play games and roll around in the floor with her, dance in the playroom, we can read countless books and even just sit and talk over comfort food, but I don’t feel the connection I see between them, and it scares me. I want to be to my daughter what my mother has always been to me - a mother, a confidante, a compass, and a friend. But am I too much like my father?
Please don’t get me wrong. I have always prided myself on having inherited the best of both parents. My father is an incredible man. Completely self-made, highly motivated, brilliant, kind, giving, and mellowing out nicely with age. I admire him to no end and love him dearly. And yet…
It weighs on me. Will I some day have the same regrets that he has now?
Tell me this passes. That the Daddy’s Girl phase has its time and the three year old becomes more balanced. That I’m not connecting not because of my own genetics, but because of her development.
Or tell me this is just a horrible bout of the PMS Melancholies aggravated by some deep note of anguish in my father’s voice. Because, geez.
Andi is invited to a party. She casio watches sneaks out of the apartment and shows up. However, she is recognized by someone who tells Dave and Heather that she is actually a foster child. Upset, she runs from the party to the hotel, where the dogs are running wild. The police storm the hotel, arrest the kids and round up the dogs. Bernie and his wife, Carol, tell them that there is nothing more they can do. The dogs are scheduled to be euthanized and Andi and Bruce are sent to separate foster homes. Dave soon shows up to Andi’s house with Mark, Heather, and Friday with a plan to rescue all of the dogs. swiss army watches They pick up Bruce, sneak into the pound, and release the dogs, which they attempt to lead across county lines. As they pass the hotel, however, the dogs run inside and a standoff ensues with the police. Bernie gives an emotional speech and tells Andi and Bruce that he and Carol are adopting them. Pressured by the media breitling watches
at the scene, the police are persuaded to allow the dogs to remain at the hotel, which is eventually restored as a full-fledged canine retreat.Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/13 at 11:22 PM