talking about my feelings

wowwwww… i’m on a roll!  i haven’t written in months and already i have had a few blog posts in the past 24 hours or so.  anyway, so tonight i went back and read comments that people had left a long time ago, to which i never replied.  i guess i don’t have good blog etiquette.  do i reply?  do i not reply?  it took me long enough, but i finally decided to reply.

anyway, i’ve resolved that one of the best uses of this blog, other than to get back into writing and to share the mundane and not so mundane parts of my life with the cyberworld, was to be productive and talk about my dad’s sickness/illness/however you would call it.  …soooo… here it goes.

i’m scared.  i’m genuinely scared about everything.  it’s hard for me to express these feelings because… well, i feel like a lot of my feelings are baseless.  i feel like guilty or… something because i feel like my feelings are grounded in selfish feelings in behaviors.  like, who is going to be there for me.  what’s going to happen to me if and when he passes.  i know our parents die at some point in our lives, and most of us hope for it to be when we’re much older, but i want my dad to be around.  i want him giving me away at my wedding.  i want him there at the birth of my children… to know his grandchildren.

another part of me feels bad for living my life here in nyc.  if i were the good daughter, wouldn’t i move closer to home?  to be around and available more?  after all that he’s done and sacrificed so i could have a good life and great education?  shouldn’t i be around?

another part of me is scared to just even talk to him.  to ask questions on how he’s doing.  so many times i have to MAKE myself call, just because i know it’s something i should do and what he wants.  i have to force conversation and be cheery, be strong.  my dad is not an easy conversationalist, and it is even more difficult to call when every phone conversation is about a doctor’s appointment and test and whatnot.

and it hurts.  it hurts to hear him in pain.  not only in pain physically, but mentally and emotionally.  he’s worn out.  he’s tired.  he hates the doctors.  he hates the appointments.  it’s wearing on him and it sounds like he wants to give up… but is struggling not to… for all of our sakes.  and it hurts me to hear him hurt.

our family dynamic is weird.  my parents came over here from the philippines to give their future family a better life.  my dad worked a lot of hours, sacrificed a lot of things, for his family.  while we didn’t exactly understand or agree with his conventions, it was always for the family.  he rarely asked anything for himself.  (this includes my mom as well.)  growing up, i somehow understood that.  i may not have been able to acknowledge that consciously, but i understood it.  i worked hard to please my parents.  to give them what they expected of their child because of what they put into their children.  it’s the asian family respect dynamic.  it’s so strong.

i still carry that weight to this day.  i may not have the financial success (i still have to ask for money every now and then), but i try to please them.  to live out the american dream they envisioned over 30+ years ago when they came here.  since i have always tried to please them, this cancer has just seemed even more cancerous.  denying me the dreams i had for them.

and what sickens me is that i have come up with all these “back up” scenarios.  it repulses me to admit it.  for example, who is going to give me away?  i always imagined it would be my dad – what daughter hasn’t?  well, the next best option, i thought of one day, is my brother.  then it hit me:  why am i thinking about this?  i’m too scared to admit this to my friends or family.

then i think of all the regrets.  all the wounds i wouldn’t let heal.  the time i spent wasting in resentment over some juvenile and immature thing, i’m sure.  if i only knew then, what i knew now.  isn’t that what everyone says?  if i knew that i would have this specific, finite time with my dad….

anyway, so… that’s my first post about that.  hopefully the next one will be categorically different and, at least, more cheerful (in a genuine way).

(ps – what prompted this post is that my dad is recovering from heart surgery he had yesterday.  he has an afibrilated heart, along with prostate cancer.)