interactions
I need to write about my move from the apartment and into my townhouse. I’ll do that soon, I hope. That part of my life, the time that I just concluded back in May, feels like a lifetime ago already. I am so comfortable in my new home that it is hard for me to remember what it was like in the apartment. I’ll get to all of that later.
I walked into the lake house weighed down with bags. Nice bags, bags that I make. Everyone ooo’d and ahh’d about my tan. “You must be traveling, you look so tan!” I’m just looking for a place to put everything. My dad is watching tennis on TV (when is he not watching tennis on TV?), he speaks up, “He goes to a tanning salon.” I try to explain that I don’t over the Summer, I go to the pool over the Summer and enjoy very much my time in the sun. “Oh, you’re going to get skin cancer,” they all exclaim. My dad again, “I don’t support it either.”
I’m polite and ignore what my dad is saying, although I’m not sure where his tone is coming from. Something is there, not sure what. I smile and tell everyone I’m going to live to 100 and can I just go have a cigar now? Stress is what will kill you. I drop my bags, get the food out that I brought for the picnic, grab a beer from my cooler and head down to the dock. Mozzie is already out on a paddle board, my aunt from California joins me for a bit and we catch up (her and my uncle just drove across the country to live here for a few years). She isn’t bothered by the cigar smoke.
I head back up to the house later to get a towel for Mozzie. Everyone is fawning again over how good I look, asking why there isn’t a line of girls looking to date me (no time, I say, and no line that I’m aware of), asking me how old I am. Rummaging through my bag, my dad is asking me if Apple TV is like Roku, we’ve had this conversation a million times. He thinks the Apple TV remote is nice, “Is this the latest one? How much does it cost? Oh, that’s expensive.” Money comes up a lot like this. “You spend how much for NFL Sunday Ticket?!” “You charge how much for that bag?!” “…but can I have your login?”
Another trip up to the house, this time for another beer. “Were your ears burning? They were all good things. You just look so good, your style, your demeanor.” Ok... “an artist, I just think you are an artist. You create such incredible things.” Thank you. Really, thank you. I don’t know what else to say.
I find a semi-secluded spot to eat, in the evil sun. Another aunt finds me, “are you dating? Your cousin is dating.” No, I don’t have the time right now, I’m happy for her, Jay is great.
Back down to the dock to finish my cigar. Having it on the deck was banned. “If Larry was alive he’d join you.” Why isn’t he? Why do all the good one’s go too soon? He and I would have gotten along so well. Same with my grandfather, who also passed away too soon. They were friends, Uncle Larry and my grandfather, George, aka “pop-pop”. Navy buddies. Larry introduced George to his sister, Janis, when they had leave one Summer. They got married. After the Navy, Larry ran the motorcycle shop that his dad started, my great grandfather, and George could make anything he wanted or needed, had rental units, and worked for AMP. Awesome guys, both of them. Uncle Larry got me into Tom Clancy books. He enjoyed cigars, owned a twin prop (I think a Beechcraft King Air but could be wrong), bought the lake house, had a boat, lived life to the fullest. My grandfather had the absolute best laugh and loved being at his house in Florida. They both left too soon.
What strikes me most is just how different I am from the rest of my family. I am not like any of them, they are not like me. The two that I feel most connected with have passed and I only knew them when I was a young teenager. I can only imagine what our relationships would have been like as they aged into their 70’s and 80’s and I became the adult I’ve become into my late-thirties.
And with my dad, I’m not sure. Back when I was married, had a full-time salaried job, had a house, had a kid, had a dog, had everything but the white-picket fence, he and I were cool. When my identity was wrapped up in those things everything was fine. We’d get together for breakfast at least once a month. I could communicate with him. He actively listened.
Now, I’m divorced. I live separate from my ex-wife and son but we have
very active combined lives together. I don’t have the regular “normal”
job (but neither does he). I had an apartment. Now I have a townhouse.
I’m renting, not owning. I lease my cars instead of buying pre-owned
junk. I have had to spend the last 4 years figuring out who I
am without all of the normal things people find their identities in. I
have had to rebuild myself from the absolute ground floor. We haven’t
had a one-on-one breakfast during any of this. He’s been telling me for
the past four years just how busy he is and we’ll have breakfast
together eventually. When I see him it is always around other people. He
doesn’t listen anymore.
So when he does speak up, when he comes out of his head and breaks away from whatever tennis match he is watching or talking about, and he uses that time to be so negative about how I like to have a tanned skin tone (there are far worse things I could be into...honestly)...I bristle a bit and a chasm begins to form. I don’t know you like that.
This is all happening live and I’m absolutely not sure what any of
it is or means. But something is happening.
In the meantime, I’m doing all that I can to be a good dad for Mozzie, a good friend and ex-husband for Lindsay, a good brother for my brother, a good son, a good uncle, a good nephew, a good cousin, a good friend. And so on. I know I’m not perfect, by any means, but I am doing my best to be the best human to other humans I can possibly be.
Have a groovy Sunday! Off to the pool for me!
~ Aaron ☀️