processing my grief, 8 months later
brain's been itching a lot and i've found myself doing nothing for hours late at night during my off-days so i suppose i should try to manifest a semblance of productivity by writing about how things are in my life as they happen.
since i moved out, i've unpacked a lot of emotional baggage ranging from my earliest childhood disappointments to all the emotional maneuvering i'd had to do on my own as an adolescent just to get by and prevent myself from ceasing to exist (there were several attempts). it was nice to be able to unload all that with someone i trust and love (i would later do this with my cousins, which was also a nice give-and-take experience).
the peace that came with finally getting away from that still-living stormcloud was something i never thought i could experience, and it felt liberating.
this newfound high was a a little bit of a fake-out, i'd later realize, because the more i reveled in my solitude, the worse things got back home.
my parents had a tumultuous relationship. i would learn to pick sides every now and then, not fully understanding who was in the wrong. they fought a lot in every way you could imagine (if you factor out extreme violence, but there was still some there), and they would sometimes make me and my brother choose who to support.
the thing is, i never thought i was close with either of my parents. somewhere down the line, i just stopped trusting them to understand or be interested in anything deeper than what i showed to the world. i would learn, much later, that it was because i grew up with this knife pointed at my back, and acting outside of their expectations would hurt me. i was constantly afraid of what other people would say (i still am), how other people would treat them, and how they would treat me in return. it was always them and other people, them and other people, with no space left for me to express how i felt.
anyway, at the time, i developed a kind of indifference towards them, despite still actively seeking their help with the tedium of late high school and through the entirety of college. the fighting got worse and worse until it just got exhausting for my dad and he just started refusing to speak. even then, it still got worse.
as of this moment, i can confidently say that i was closer to my dad than i am to my mom. unfortunately, my dad's gone now, so that realization came way too late.
before my dad's passing, i often convinced myself that i hated both my parents. it was such a toxic household it was difficult to see anything positive about it. the energy of our home was so suffocating, it was easy to heave and just blame both of them for their own problems. they were kind of a package deal to me emotionally.
it was only when my dad passed that i got to really think about the times he tried. a few of my relatives would also tell me this. see, my dad kept to himself a lot. it's a dumb machismo thing that dads typically do and it annoyed the hell out of me because that kind of behavior robbed me of a healthy relationship with at least one of my parents. my dad generally despaired over a lot of things in my life, i know this to be true. he was the only father in his friend group who had a queer son (well, two), and i was deliberately shattering everyone's expectations when i turned 20, so he had absolutely nothing to talk about that would be of any interest to his friends. again, this problem stemmed from worrying more about what others thought and less about me.
going back to him trying, there were small attempts to be a dad to me. he'd offer to drive me to school/work, when i started collecting action figures he would ask a few things about them, and he'd sometimes fix some faults in my bedroom so i could sleep better. a lot of that flew past me because of the problems he had with my mom. man, the worst thing i had done to him was pick my mom's side without any hesitation when she came to me a wreck about his behavior towards something i choose not to specify.
anyway, this happened fairly recently, and it broke him. i would learn after his passing that when i moved out, he thought it was because of him. he thought i hated him so much i decided to leave. of course that was false. while i did leave because i wanted to experience peace, i didn't do it specifically because i hated him.
so that was a long fucking walk, and i apologize for the length i had written just to get to my point.
last night i experienced the end of god of war: ragnarok, and a certain dream sequence struck me like lightning. one of the main themes of the game was about preparing for death, and preparing for the grief that would come after it. it was said that to grieve deeply is to have loved fully, and that was it for me. eight months after my dad passed away, i was finally able to process the grief i was never able to grasp back then. it also hurt like hell.
i didn't get to say goodbye to my dad. though we got to talk a day prior, he passed away while i was asleep. i still feel so much guilt over that, although i convinced myself being able to talk to him the day before would have been enough, it really didn't feel true.
my dad died thinking i hated him, and the entire time i was away from home, i would later learn that he grieved. and it took a video game to make me realize what that meant to both of us.
this is my grief: knowing too late that i was loved deeply. constantly. not in the best kind of way, but in a way that would have been enough. words cannot express how sorry i am to have been unable to tell my dad how much i appreciated him and his cumulation of little gestures throughout our time together. how much i appreciated him trying, and how much that meant to me. it's too late to reassure him, and every time i say to the wind that i loved him, the wind would bite back with the uncertainty that he would hear me.