Do you ever have the feeling that you’re supposed to do something? That there’s this big, dark thing hanging right above you, dangling like a carrot, but it’s invisible and unknowable and you have to kind of figure it out because if you don’t figure it out, boy, you blew it?
Or worse, maybe you do figure it out. Maybe you figure out that big, mysterious thing you’re supposed to reach for and you just can’t do it. You just don’t do it. Like you stare it right in the face and say, “I can’t.”
Then for the rest of your life you know what you are.
A do-nothing.
It’s like this fear that pecks away at my brain, sometimes, lying in bed at night. What is the thing? What is this thing? Will I ever figure it out? Is there even a thing? There has to be a thing. Doesn’t there? Otherwise, I’m a do-nothing.
My mother, on the other hand, is a do-something.
She has made it.
Everybody knows who she is and freaks out about her and freaks out even more once they figure out she’s my mom. It’s obnoxious.
My dad doesn’t get to be a do-something. That happens sometimes. Not everybody gets to be famous. Or a renowned something-or-other. Or even a vaguely known something-or-other.
Somehow my dad just kind of missed the boat. Maybe he didn’t have that killer instinct or whatever it is you need to elbow everybody out of the way and fly up into the stratosphere.
Or maybe he just wasted too much time being a dad. My dad.
See, while my mother was off chatting with heads of state and captains of industry, my father was teaching me how to ride a bike. And perfecting his slow-cooker recipes. And googling step-by-step instructions on how to sew a hem.
So maybe it’s my fault.
And here’s the other thing. He’s still in love with my mom. My dad. He tries to pretend he’s over it, but he mentions my mom about three times a day and what she’s doing and what award she just got, and how I should care and call her and congratulate her. It’s all under the guise of keeping me posted, but make no mistake: he’s obsessed. It really breaks my heart. I just want to shake him and say, “Get over it! She sucks, let’s just face it!” But he goes on and on about her latest, greatest achievement and something-doing. You can imagine that the fact he never got to be a do-something isn’t exactly lost on him. Like maybe it just makes him a little bit crazy.
It’s the kind of crazy that repeats itself. It’s a kind of grinding gear that goes around and around in a loop. Like this: “You know, you should call your mother because she just got an award for blah-blah.” Then, wait two minutes. Then, “You know, you should call your mother because she just got an award for blah-blah.” Like, on a loop. Over and over.
And obsessive thoughts. Like a kind of dread. Over and over. About everything. About her. About dry-cleaning chemicals. About smoke detectors. About stranger danger and seat belts and all the things that can go wrong in a world that fits inside a toolshed.
“Whatever you do, don’t forget your jacket, Cakey-pie.”
Oh, yeah. My dad calls me Cakey-pie. It’s because somewhere along the line I developed a dessert habit. Look, it’s not something I’m proud of, okay? I just don’t seem to be able to resist cake, or pie, the way most people do.
My affliction extends to other baked goods. Cupcakes, cookies. God help me, cronuts. No one can resist a cronut. Not even the Pope.
But in defense of my slightly fixated father, there was something he didn’t have to stretch to get obsessed by. There was something my mother gave him to fulfill his feelings of blind, pulsing dread.
She ran off with his best man.
Yup, that guy at the wedding who gives the speech about how great the groom is? She ran off with that guy.
There. I said it. I never really like to say it, ’cause I never really like to think about it. Like, I just like to make it small and put it in a box and put it far, far away. But every once in a while, it unpacks itself and comes slithering back to meet me, through the corners and crevices of my shoulders and earlobes, and there it is. The dumb fact.
Your mom cheated on your dad.
With his best man.
And then ran off with him.
There’s a stabbing kind of thing about it. A real “fuck you” in it. You gotta wonder what kind of person would do a thing like that. I’ll tell you what kind of person. A broken person. A person who would grab a life vest from a child on the Titanic.
So, even though my mother is a do-something and everybody thinks she’s the bee’s knees and maybe my dad repeats himself a little bit, like that guy in Rain Man, I stayed with my dad after the split. My mom says I broke her heart or something, but she’s just being dramatic. She’s the kinda person who talks big but then misses the Christmas recital.
My dad is the kinda person who is early to the Christmas recital, brings flowers to the Christmas recital, and would practically get up onstage and perform the whole Christmas recital for you if you let him.
So, yeah, I stuck by my dad. And, yeah, it’s a humble life. By which I mean we are broke-ass. He mostly works at the pharmacy, and we won’t be moving into the Ritz anytime soon. But, still, I’d rather be broke-ass than be, well, her.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s going to be some kind of happy family reconciliation at the end of all this. There’s going to be some moment where the music swells and all of a sudden an understanding is reached and my mother comes back from Europe and everybody hugs each other and there’s maybe a dog involved who we laugh and scruff on the head.
Welp, I’m sorry to break your heart, but that moment is never going to happen. This story is not about that. My mother got me in to Pembroke, and that is the end of that. If I graduate with honors, there is a five percent chance she might possibly come to the graduation. That is all. There are no heartfelt apologies, no slurpy revelations, no classical music swells as we ride off in a one-horse open sleigh.
And that’s okay.
But, let’s get one thing straight. I still do not want to be a do-nothing. No sir. I wanna be that person who grabs great things and wrestles them down.
But I also just want that nagging desire, that compulsion, to stop. Just stop. Just fucking stop. Stop tugging me, telling me I have to do more, I have to be more, I have to do something or I’m worthless, or I’m nothing or I’m nobody.
There was a kid who used to sit in the sandbox. He used to sit there all day and build castles in the sand and smash them to smithereens and build them again. Happy as a clam.
I would do anything to be that kid.
But I can put a smile on my face now. I can put a smile on my face knowing that all that will be over soon. As the train pulls out of the station, chugga-chugga-chugga, off over the plains, heading east, I can put a smile on my face knowing once I turn out the lights, that thing—that thing in me that is my mother—can never get me again.