I miss my dad

Well, it's been 5 years to the day since my dad passed away.  I know that celebrating someone's death-aversery seems sort of morbid and wrong but to tell the truth, I can't help it.  The death of Jay Monahan has been one of the most significantly painful things I have ever gone through.  It just seems sort of impossible. 

I know I have said this before, but my dad and I were not very close.  We hadn't lived together since I was 5 years old and our visits since then had been few and far between.  However, let's face it, he's my dad.  Despite all of his flaws, and there were many, I knew he loved me unconditionally.  I knew that deep down he thought the best thing he could do for me was stay away.  He was always proud of me, though.  He genuinely thought I was interesting and worthy, something that no other man in my entire life has ever thought.  He would call me in the middle of the night (he was famous for these midnight calls) just to chat and see how I was.  He would always ask about the weather and even start explaining what the weather man was saying moment to moment wherever I was.  I used to find this incredibly annoying.  Hello!  I know what the weather is like in Los Angeles.  I'm standing in it!  He wouldn't pay any attention that that, though and just keep letting me know about the massive heat wave we had heading our way.

These little tidbits of phone conversations and short visits are really all I have to remember him by.  However, since he died, I feel like I have spoken with him more often.  We had him cremated and split into three parts.  One went with his Satan witch of a girlfriend who promised to sprinkle him in the Atlantic along with a case of Busch beer.    Let's face it, he would totally dig that.  One went with my grandmother who promised to give him a proper Christian burial alongside his father and brother.  I also think he would have loved and valued this as well.  And 1/3 of my dad was put in an envelope and handed to me.  I too had plans to sprinkle him at sea.  I took him to Hawaii and went para-sailing with my boyfriend at the time.  It was a very special moment for me filled with all the sadness and humor that Jay would have appreciated.  First of all, you can't spread ashes without a permit but the guys who drive the boat aren't necessarily going to throw you off if they catch you.  So, with this in mind, I took a hefty part of my third of ashes and threw them in a plastic bag stuffed in the shirt of my swim suit.  At the top of the pull when I could see all of the Oahu coast my mom and dad had fallen in love on, I released him.  It was sad and beautiful and especially humorous when the para-sail guy handed me a picture of  my boyfriend and I with a small gray cloud underneath us.  That was really a great letting go experience and maybe I should have taken the entire third with me.  I just, well, I couldn't let go.   I wasn't ready.  Over the past couple years I have kept the other part of him in a lunchbox I decoupaged myself.  It's actually a much more attractive urn then the piece of crap thing Debbie (evil aforementioned girlfriend) picked out.  Each year on his birthday or his death-aversery I take a little bit of him somewhere I think he would like and sprinkle him.  I have taken him to the top of the Big Dipper and the boardwalk, out for a swim on the West Cliff of Santa Cruz, to the roof of my old apartment building in SF where I could see both bridges and the bay and Waimeia park where he and my mother were married.  The rest of the time he sits in the box listening to me rattle on the way he used to about one thing or another.  It really has brought us closer and I have to say he is a much better listener now then he used to be. 

Anyway, I really do think it is time to let him go entirely.  I am starting to feel like I am keeping his body prisoner .  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I open him up and run my fingers through his ashes or anything, I just talk to the box.  I do this, even though I know he's not in there.  But where is he?  That's the real question that hits me like a bullet every year.  Where did he go?  Is he just gone?  Do we really just stop existing and only live on through the memories of others?  What does that say about a man who left so many awful memories in his wake?  What does that say about him once people move on and forget about him or they die?  What a burden, to carry a portion of a person with you in order to keep him alive. 

So, I really don't know what to do at this point.  I see more and more of my dad in my face and mannerisms these days.  I recognize a twist of the cheek or tilt of the eyebrow as his, and frighten and delight myself.  I see his need for excitement and buzz in me at times as well as his self-loathing desire to escape others in order to help them grow.  I cry wishing I could just hear his voice or even a recording of it just one more time and every once in a while when I have had too much to drink I hear it in myself.  I do carry a part of him with me and it has nothing to do with the ashes so why can't I let them go?  Am I punishing him for not being around while I was growing up?  Or maybe I am trying to convince him that he should have stayed, leaving didn't help at all.   Or maybe I just miss him and wish he would call in the middle of the night and tell me about the fog here in SF.   I don't know. 

Either way, today, I am going to take some time to just give him a little life back.  I want to think about some of the ridiculous and funny things he would say.   I am going to remember riding roller coasters, water-slides, and gravitron until we were both sick.  I am going to feel the sun on my face and listen to the ocean the way he used to like to.  I am even going to think about the last conversation I had with him and try my best to remember that regardless of it all, his love for me was unconditional and in the end he wouldn't hold what I said against me.  After all of this, I am going to sit down and drink a Budweiser from a can, eat a Philly Cheesesteak, and toast to an imperfect and troubled man who was always the life of the party, placed no provisions on his love, and always thought the best of me.  Slainte, Dad!  I will love you forever and as long as I am here, you will be too.

The years of Harry Potter

I just returned from seeing the final Harry Potter film.  I know that everyone keeps saying this, but it really is the end of an era.  It's at least the end of an era for me.  I feel like I can somehow link all of the significant moments of my life in the last 10 years to something Harry Potter related.   I could write 50 pages on that but I won't.  Suffice to say, a lot has happened in 10 years and I will miss my time in J.K's world of magic.

I was in college dealing with a break up when I read the first couple books.  I listened to the entire fourth book on an elliptical.  I waited in line at Borders in the middle of the night for the fifth book.  I saw the first movie as a bootleg in a friends living room in Russia where one man translated the entire movie into Russian while you still heard the English spoken underneath.  I listened to the sixth book while I had walking pneumonia as a  Kindergarten teacher in Watsonville.  I bought the seventh book in my first weeks of graduate school and didn't do any homework until I finished reading it.  I cried when Dumbledore died and rejoiced at the moment I learned of Snape's innocence.   I made these characters a part of my life through the books as well as the movies and today I sat by myself in the movie theater during a time of great change in my life and I am not ashamed to tell you  I will miss having this little bright spot to look forward to every couple of years.   I found myself sort of twisted up as I felt the movie coming to a close.  I was, of course, wrapped up in the story but also so sad to see it end.  I have truly fallen victim to the mania that surrounded this series and after 10 years of it I am pretty grateful.  Even though I was a young adult when I first met Harry Potter, I do feel as if we grew up together.  I love the idea that help will always be given to those who ask for it (or those who deserve it).  I love that it doesn't matter where we came from, the magic will find us.  I truly hope love can protect us from evil and most of all I desperately hope that killing that ugly evil growth inside myself will not destroy me entirely.   Good, evil, nature, nurture, etc....Harry Potter followed many life themes and definitely resembled some dark moments in history but in the end it was really nice to have a hero.  I will miss you, Harry Potter. 

Beginning

A not so good friend of mine often blogs about the ins and outs of her life and while I don’t really know this woman all that well I have come to enjoy her fun loving stories about how she came to be a single woman in her thirties with 5 pets in a small apartment, or how she deals with the tragedies and turmoils she faces each day.  I am always touched by the small details she reveals to the hundreds of people who take the time to read.  I am often in awkward places when I come across these stories and I find it helps me work through some of the horrible positions I find myself in.  I recently read one of her entries while I sat in the SFDPT waiting for a boot removal.  It was bright spot in dark hour if you will.   I like to think that the doling out of her life experiences in a public forum and knowing that I am there to receive the information and be comforted by it brings her some sense of satisfaction.  So, here I am in a moment of great change in my own life and I find the need to tell whoever wants to listen about my feelings. 

Basically, I am in  my early 30's, single, and attempting to build a new career in some form of production.  I have tried a lot of different roles on lately and I just can't seem to find where I fit in.  I know that it is not necessary that I absolutely love my job but I guess there is a selfish part of me that feels that since I don't get to have a partner of any kind to help me through this life, I should at least love my work.   I also figure that with the amount of debt going to school has put me in, I deserve some sort of relief in my day.  I think that might happen if I had a full time job with a little bit of stability in it.  Anyway, the point of this blog is not to complain about my job, or my friends, or boast about myself.  I just need to feel heard (or read in this case) during this time of great change and ultimate confusion.  I have been keeping a journal for years and I think it might be nice to share some of my entries from the past as well as those that come up in the future.  

 I should warn you that I am not a writer and I am definitely a little bipolar in my thinking.  I contradict myself all the time and if you play a significant role in a humorous, upsetting, or interesting experience, you may find yourself (nameless) included in an entry or two.  

Thanks for reading.  Please come again.