I asked Dad to start repacking his things. If he can’t get the Vitamix and his juice glasses to fit, I need to ship them. I would rather ship them, knowing that UPS will pack everything properly to prevent anything breaking, but Dad thinks he knows best. I remember he helped me pack my things after college, including a beautiful collage of a poster and photos framed by my roommate. I told him I was worried the glass would break. He dismissed my concern, and it arrived broken. Of course he didn’t care. It wasn’t anything special to him. The lesson I learned was that my stuff, like my feelings, don’t matter. It’s been a hard code to rewrite.
Awareness of my childhood programming has been trippy. I used to think that my choices were all conscious. Instead, I’ve come to recognize the tire tracks, or grooves of my behavior patterns that were carved for me. My parents may have done their best, but as their marriage disintegrated, both felt like parasites on me, pitting me in the middle of their civil war. They disregarded my needs as their child and took advantage of my hard wired need for their approval, and I allowed it. Recently I second guessed our decision to place Dad in a home. I texted as much to my brother and he set me straight. Those grooves run deep. As the middle child and only daughter, I bear a weight that neither of my brothers ever carried. But only for a few more days.
My mother asks me to do things for her that she doesn’t want to do for herself. I typically comply, though with little understanding of how much she has contributed to her own problems. My need to help people, this need to be needed, stems from my parents programming me to abide by their requests, before I can ask myself if it’s something I want or can do. I need to start pushing back. But it’s easy for me to slip back into default mode, especially under stress. I wish I could program myself to hit a pause button before any response.
Perhaps I’m a bit jealous of my younger brother. He extracted himself from our family years ago with no intention of returning. I get it. It pisses me off, but I get it. I still think he’s irresponsible, but I suspect his wounds haven’t healed. He will have bigger problems when our parents aren’t around for him to resolve them. I’m not sure what kind of relationship I want with him in the future. I’m grateful I’m able to confront my childhood programming while my parents are still alive. It’s an evolving process, and having the chance to help them, in my own way, has been healing. I hope that when they die, I will have a restful heart.
Epilog 