I wondered, today, if my dad feels lonely.
It’s a little bit out of the blue, I know, and maybe I shouldn’t write something like this in a place that’s public and with my name on it, lest it gets back to him (and maybe I want to start a different blog, one a little more private, or at least not so immediately connected to my name, for posts like these), but it’s an honest thought that I want to explore, so here I am (for now).
I heard/watched somewhere that for men, the biggest indicator of their happiness and wellness is being married. Why? Because for most men, their wife is the one person they can turn to for emotional support, since most men tend to participate in activities with other men, and don’t often open up about what’s on their mind and in their hearts unless it’s in a parallel activity with others (think fishing, hiking, golf. These activities place men side-by-side instead of facing each other, a position that is less confrontational and helps them open up.) Being married, and therefore having someone they can speak to about their emotions, allows men to healthily process, and therefore live healthier, happier lives.
Women, on the other hand, are more likely to be happier and healthier when they have a circle of girl friends, with whom they can get together, talk, and offer each other emotional space and support. The afternoons or evenings of “girl talk”, according to the person I watched/listened to, were not frivolous, they were the healthiest thing women could do for their emotional, mental and physical health.
I want to say this study does sound a bit sexist, even as it also rings true. There are men who can talk about their emotions, who have emotionally supportive and open friends, and there are women who talk to their husbands for emotional support instead of their girlfriends. (I keep wanting to type girlfriends as a word, as separate from just friends, or female friends. Girlfriends are the ones you love and who love you back, the ones there with you and closest to you, and who are there like best friends, but there’s something about girlhood in them, and it’s more an energy than a gender…)
I am typing walls of text today. Visually unappealing and very unusual, and I guess I have a lot on my mind.
Back to my dad, or, maybe, men in general.
What happens when your marriage isn’t as supportive, emotionally? What happens when men are in a Chinese/Asian context, taught to be stoic, to show no emotion, to “man up” and bear the burdens? When seeking support or help or therapy is a sign of weakness, or worse, madness?
What happens when men don’t have a place to gather, or if they do, all they talk about are the glorious heydays of yesteryear, repeating stories that show their victory and valor, and none of the real worries or stress or sadness or grief?
What if they never learn that it is safe, it is okay, it is human to be unsure, overwhelmed, unhappy, upset?
What if they die holding on to all the grief and sadness and trauma, thinking that’s what life is, having to be the rock, the stability, the income-earner of a family, and nothing more?
What happens to a man when the last time they cried was when they were a boy? When the only other time was when they were drunk, or alone, or after the destruction of a raging storm, when they were sure no one would ever see, or know, and judge?
What if, in all the silence in my home, filled in by the sounds of the television or social media reels and videos, or angry disapproving unhappy noises from my mother, my father sits, alone, silent, lonely?
(Why am I making myself cry at 12:39 a.m. on a hypothetical, perhaps my father is happy!!)
But what if, my father, the man who sits alone at the dinner table, who watches the videos on his phone a little too loudly, who watches television shows late into the night, who doesn’t speak much, who takes on the work, who has been weighed down by the pressure of feeding, housing, clothing a wife and two kids, who didn’t know any better, who’s living this life for the first time too, who has lived a whole life outside of being my father, sits, in silence, wondering, “is this it?” and swallows his bite of food, moving on slowly, quietly, to his death.
[Spotify is playing a jazz playlist and the lyrics “no regrets” is repeating at me. Alright, now I’m sure this is my mind and heart tugging at me, for my own attention to my life, and maybe not fully about my dad.]
What does all this mean for me? Does it mean I want to take my dad out, to hang out, to build our relationship? Ah.. not really. I know what happens when I’m with my mom or dad separately. They tell me all the problems they have, and sometimes it’s problems I don’t want to know about, because they complain about each other.
It does mean that a relationship doesn’t magically happen. I don’t talk much to my dad because he wasn’t around when I was growing up, and now we don’t say much of anything. Could it be built? Yeah, with a little bit of effort, with a little bit of try each time. It reminds me that my relationship with Jarrod was like that — a little bit of effort, a little bit of try — and something grew out of it. We both put in that effort, we both wanted to try. And what we have now can grow with more effort, more trying, or it can fade and wane if we stop.
I’m also reminded to build and reach out to my girlfriends, because it’s a healthy sign and part of life. I’ve been reminding myself recently to continue to pay attention to my own dreams and desires — this is a new addition, to also pay attention to my social life and friends. Writing, channeling, even roller skating can be incredibly lonely. Building a business definitely. And a social circle is important to have. Girlfriends are important to have. More than just having a therapist. To have girls to laugh with, cry with, go be silly with as well. To explore life as I want to, nevermind the “should have” or the “wasted time with idiotic men”. To explore girly drinks and girly places and just be girls again.
Two more things I’m learning from my parents. No, three.
Keep the spark alive. If I wonder/worry that my dad asks, “is this it?” and it makes me cry, that question is for me. I cannot, will not, change my parents’ life, but I am in charge of and can change my own. If I ever look around my own life and wonder if this is all there is to it, then I have not tended to the spark that lights me up, and my flame has gone out. Very much like Charmander from Pokémon, if the flame goes out, I’m as good as dead. (Would that make Char my starter?)
I need to be — I want to be — chasing little side quests, going on little missions, following whatever hyperfixations happen. Finding and following things that delight me, because life doesn’t have to be about purpose and mission and focus all your life. Joy is found in many places, and having that light, that beauty, that life, is also what life is. It’s both side quests and main story.
Never let contempt, resentment, or distrust take root. Beyond the Gottman Institute’s study about the four horsemen of divorce (criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling), I’ve seen what happens to a marriage when any of these enter and never leave a home.
Choose to see the human side, the kid still there, choose to love and to ask questions about intent. Choose to allow for mistakes, exhaustion, bad days and hard days. Choose gratitude. Choose to see that you’re both choosing to be there. Choose to have the hard and scary talks. Be kind and loving and honest. And know that you both could walk away just as much as you both could walk together.
Don’t let yourself get hardened. By excuses, by despair, by age… Mom’s been given medication for higher cholesterol levels. The side effects? Dizziness, muscle aches… The same effects of exercise and then worse, because the meds will affect her liver. She could take the pills, or she could exercise. Or do both. She’s also been given vitamin D pills, and to me that’s ridiculous, the one vitamin that’s free. The eye supplements, well, fine.
But what I mean by hardened is how I bought skates at 36 years old, and my dad said he couldn’t, because he’s too old and fragile. I would get my mom to go out and walk with the rising or setting sun for 10 minutes, but that’s an impossible task. I see when people are stuck, holding on tightly to their aches and pains and traumas and old ideas… and I worry if that will be me one day.
It doesn’t have to be the way. Age doesn’t mean the same thing for everybody.
If I can buy roller skates at 36, if I can think about, and actually migrate… so long as I write, and keep an eye on my own thoughts, and learn, why should I stay the same? Why should I be stuck in old ways, blaming the world for beating me out of shape, when all I have to do is let go and live and that means I am changing, and moving forward?
We’re human, not pokémon. There is no clear path for evolution, and there is no final evolution that is the last stage. We get to keep growing and changing and living, only so long as we want to, and I want to. Sometimes that means we won’t have the answer, and we’re unsure, and that’s okay. It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to be overwhelmed. It’s okay to say it.
We get to live this one life, no do-overs, no going back to the past. Best we can do is look around at the ones around us, learn from books and others and studies, and pick our way forward.
Put in a little bit of effort, a little bit of try. Find and grow my circle of girlfriends. Keep the spark alive. Choose love, and choose life and growth and change. Allow yourself to be human, and everything that being human entails, the hope, intelligence, vulnerability, and the truth that we’re both limited and infinite in this single moment of present reality.
And while I cannot change my parents’ life, I am changing Jarrod’s everyday reality, and in equal measure he’s changing mine. I could end this post by telling myself to love him the best I can, but that’s not really it — pouring from an empty cup means you pour nothing at all.
I have to choose and love myself the best I can. Then, and only then, do I have an overflow of love to give. It’s like when we first met: I was busy loving me, completely absorbed in my own experience, filling my own cup with enough drops to begin an ocean.
[Spotify: “Build your dreams to the stars above”… Don’t go to strangers, Etta James.]
When Jarrod came around I had so much love for myself I was able to be me, and to make decisions that came from a place of love and security, openness and curiosity, a really good place to be in. I made decisions and when they turned out to be bad decisions, I ended them. I made decisions about Jarrod and they’re turning out to be good ones, even if some made him question some of my actions later, but I knew what I wanted.
Right now I’m losing myself in our relationship — a me problem, and one that has been repeated before, with less intensity now — and I am getting unsure of my decisions, and making decisions for strange reasons that I might not have otherwise. Yes I have my team, and I listen, but what I hear isn’t what Jarrod hears, and I quadruple-guess myself and stop moving out of fear.
I don’t like that. And I know what I need to bring myself back, but how do I balance it with being in a relationship? Because somewhere, I believe that being in a relationship means I’m available every time and anytime my partner is and wants to connect, which is faulty thinking.
I need my days. My days of work, of play, of rest, of socalising, of doing nothing, of recharging and cleaning and resetting. My hours of this, typing and writing and getting to know me. This isn’t about decentering men, this is about breaking my belief that I must be available in a relationship or I have no value or claim to being in a relationship. (Hello problem, good to see you. Now move.)
I am loved no matter what I do. And when Jarrod says he supports me, it’s not empty words or promises. He’s often said he wants me to go do my thing, even to the point of poking me with it, for my own movement. He’s here, and he’s not going to leave.
Just because I get busy doesn’t mean I am violating some unwritten rule of our relationship — that rule doesn’t even exist. It doesn’t mean I’m leaving, or that it is grounds for separation. It just means… we need to be more active about reconnection and having enough space and time and energy for each other. It’s intentional.
Okay? Can I centre my attention to me? Fill me and my own cup? Jarrod and I can work this out, we’ll still be together. Just this time, I’m full, and I’ve got more than enough love to give. Just this time, I can make my own decisions, and end the bad ones…
[Spotify: “On my own…” Misty, Dakota Staton]
end the bad decisions on my own, no need for angst, anxiety or blame. Keep the good decisions going. Do things for my own reasons.
Rearrange myself to being the girl Jarrod fell in love with, anyway. Just that now I also love him back, because he fell in love first.
Girl, he fell in love first, and I’m worried about changing?
Re-center. Center. To me.
✒️✨🧭
Image of roller skates mine, wearing my first pair for the first time in Decathlon, an Oxelo Jr quad skate. Yea, it’s meant for kids, but it was the only quad skate left in store.
3:49 am and the rain and wind started. Interesting. Good night/morning.
