Day 31

Well Dad,

I’m too tired for this right now. I don’t have the emotional energy or motivation to even care about you. Everything seems like a lot, and you are, frankly, still a nothing in my life.

Today, I just don’t care to care.
AM

Day 30

Dear Dad,

I’m sort of running dry on topics tonight.  I’ll tell you something that might surprise you (or not):  I really like Sci-fi stuff.  I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG and always pretended to be LeVar Burton’s character by putting a headband over my eyes.

I sometimes think that I don’t like Sci-fi, but I totally do.  I like Alien/s; I like Terminator; I like anything having to do with time travel and/or the space time continuum.

I just do!

AM

Day 29

Dear Dad,

My house is still a wreck.  Laundry is piled in its various stages all over the house.  The floors are sticky and dusty at the same time.  And the bathroom is a disaster.

Right now, I’d burn it down and start over; with fewer things, in a smaller space, better organized.  

I’m constantly wishing I was better than who I am right now.  And hoping that I’ll reach some magical place where I’ll be the best possible me.  But I probably never will.  I’ll always want something from myself that I can’t be or do; and Lord knows that I’ll never be good enough.

I want to learn to embrace not being enough while still wanting more.  But that is really hard and something I’m not very sure how to do.  I’m starting to think, though, that doing it might be the key to living…

 

Until tomorrow,

AM

Day 28

Dear Dad,

Today, I went to Whole Foods. I’ve only been one other time.  I started to panic as soon as I started looking up the directions to get there.  It was like a whole new world to me.

I don’t know what it is about doing new things that I hate so much, but I really do not care for it.  Right now in my life, at the tender age of 24, I’ve gotten my anxiety pretty well under control (after 1-2 years of counseling and prayers of release).  But sometimes it really just rears up.

Like what is scary about going to a grocery store?  That sells things that I like?  Yeah, it’s a bit of a drive from this side of town, but it’s not like I’ve never driven to 86th Street before.  Something about not knowing exactly where everything was, or the prices, or what to expect when I got there just made me feel like I couldn’t do it.  I almost didn’t go.

There are so many things I don’t do out of fear still:  be creative– poetry, music, drawing; try to learn new skills; grad school.  I’m still scared I’m not good enough, that people will laugh at me if I try.

I think I’ve been hurt a lot, but I also think I have to keep pushing myself to do hard things.  Even if I fail, at least I’ll have tried.  Ah, how the trite and cliche rings so true…   But really, I’m scared to meet you.  I don’t know if I want to do it.  I’m still trying to figure it out.  You are slightly more intimidating than a new grocery store.

See ya,

AM

Day 27

Dear Dad,

I’m feeling a lot better but still not quite at full force.  It was really hard being sick and having the kids to take care of; they really don’t get it when mommy is not feeling well.  And, unfortunately, if you try to stick them in bed all day, they get pretty pissed about that kinda thing too.

But I made it.  Probably by the grace of God.  I prayed a lot when I was sick.  For healing.  For strength.  To say that I felt like Job (which of course is always an exaggeration… but I really connect to Job’s story in the Bible) and hated God for letting me get sick.  I also kept thinking of times when I would get sick, and not even as sick I was this past week, and all I had to worry about was school and work.  Ah, those were the days.  Those were still stressful times.  And now these are also stressful times.  Go figure.

Luckily, Lazarus is really cute, and Zoe’s quite helpful.  She would often give me things that I “needed” with a “Oh, here you go, Sweetheart.”  That sweetness probably melted the infection right out of me.

But, right now, everything is chaos and feels like I’ve lost the past 2 weeks to illness (first L’s and then my own).  And we’re hoping that no one else gets sick.  Because if Joe gets sick, well, that becomes a financial issue.  Which always causes stress.

Oh, my kidney is hurting I am so stressed out just thinking of Joe getting sick.  Or maybe it’s the massive amounts of Tylenol and cough syrup I’ve taken in the last 4 days?  I’ll never know for sure…

 

Maybe something that makes sense awaits you tomorrow?  (But I wouldn’t hold my breath.)

AM

Day 26? 27?

Well here I am again.

A guy I work with who is “gifted” with the stock market just bought a Lamborghini. Like, the car. I asked him to pay off our student loans and he didn’t really say anything direct.

Its worth a shot.

Adella is still sick, and maybe I’m sick again too. Its late, I was at work all day, I’m hungry, and frankly not too thrilled to be on here. But you get a letter every day, my friend, even when it’s not pretty. I don’t really know what to say, especially since I’m a guest writer, and especially given the hungry, hungry circumstances.

Let’s just call it a draw.

JM

 

P.S. Lots of interesting pictures when you do a Google Images search on “not pretty,” including an otherwise charming portrait of Ernest Borgnine wearing a sailor’s hat. And celebrities in wind tunnels.

Guest Post 3: Son of Guest Post

Dear Adella’s Dad:

Yesterday I made a crack about you living in a mansion with 27 rooms humidified by your tears. Presumably if you were wealthy you wouldn’t need to humidify it with your tears because you could pay someone to do that (me! me!). But the idea of you being wealthy is really titillating to me for a few obvious and one not obvious reason.

1. If you were wealthy, it stands to reason that you would, upon hearing of a long lost child who is struggling to start a family during difficult financial times, might be moved to generously impart some (or all, I won’t limit you) of this wealth to said child, once you determined that it was not an email scam from the King of Nigeria.

2. While I try hard to embrace hard things in life and set my face to the icy northern wind, in my heart I am small and weak and do not like working and applying myself to things. Much of my work ethic is a contrived self used to compensate for the true weakness that underlies much of what I do. A subsidized life would be easy. I could definitely do subsidized.

3. Uncle Hernandez! A bottle of 1947 Chateau Latour? You shouldn’t have! I’ll put it in the decanter so it will be ready for the kobe beef carpaccio you brought last time that’s been dry aging in the walk-in cooler. Garcon, show Monsieur Hernandez to the Game Room. And Nandy, I say I have a collection of Persian calligraphy we must discuss after the ball.

4. For some reason, I imagine that you have this considerable wealth because you are a self-made man, a man who worked hard, sacrificed, saved and spent wisely, and through this character and virtue and Christ-like manhood you are now independently wealthy (and generous, for wealth of the purse which is earned by virtue is accompanied by a wealth of heart, as thinker and writer J. M. Manley put it). That is, since I know nothing about you, I automatically assume you are everything I ever wish I was as outlined above in #2.

And this is important to me because it might mean that Adella isn’t the only one who might gain a father-figure in her life, but maybe I would too. Sure, my house came complete with all the normal white middle-class regalia: two cars, a PlayStation (AAAANNNNDDDD a Sega Saturn!), regular meals, and notably, a dad. But I never had a Father, so to speak, and for a long time I have really longed for a man to come into my life and guide me and teach me how to be a man. Christians say God is our Father, and sometimes that means something. It helps me construct a worldview that allows me to interpret the events in my life, etc, but it doesn’t really help me learn how to work hard, suffer, and so on. I need people to help with that. I need a Father. And sometimes when I think about Adella finding you, I become greedy. And I mean gree-dy.

Sure Adella needs a dad. But I want one too.

JM

Exciting Return of Guest Post!

...and made its way to our house, 2012

 

Dead Adella’s Dad:

Poor Adella (or “Addy” as her mother’s family calls her, and you don’t need to worry about what I call her, but a hint is that it starts with “s” and ends with “panky butt mcgutt”… think about it). She is still sick! Lazarus has bounced back from his deuce of an infection, but by the rocky crags of Finland Adella is still as sick as ever.

Today her mom came over in the evening to help put the kids to bed and make dinner when I went to work. She always comes alone, because, well, she isn’t married. She didn’t marry you, or anyone for that matter. She is a tough broad who smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drank instant coffee (her description, not mine). She is interesting, too, like Adella, and they have some things in common. I wonder, if I met you, would I go, “Oh! There’s the rest of her.” I wonder if meeting you will make me understand Adella better… or is that putting to much on nature and not enough on nurture?

Her mom made blueberry pancakes and sausage. I’ll probably eat some for breakfast. It’s usually good, what she makes. You know, she’s been pretty happy being single her whole life, raising a little girl and just being tough. But when we take the kids over, its just her. And when she joins my family for holidays, its just her. When I married Adella, I didn’t get this sort of second family that so many people get. I got Adella’s mom.

And come to think of it: Adella never had any interest in finding you until the Lord had worked on her heart, as he is known to do from time to time, and my money bets that her mom wouldn’t have helped her try to find you until these present times, after her own “softening” from the Lord, if you will. And so you are kind of like a big thing, a symbol, for both these women, and it’s funny to me, I’m chuckling actually, to think that all this is happening and you’re totally unaware that you’re the focal point of all this. You’re probably in one of the 27 bedrooms of your mansion sleeping on a pile of rare paper money, your tears keeping the humidity at a balmy 83% as you wonder why you never had a son-in-law to give all your money to.

It’s all pretty crazy, especially since I only think of this stuff when I get on her to tread water for my wife until she feels better. It seems like there are so many angles to approach this whole thing from, even from Adella’s perspective. And then you throw in the whole son-in-law business and that makes it, what, like fifty times as many? And then two grandkids and I think they don’t have math to even figure out that level yet (When I was in high school, algebra stopped at “2.” I would think by now they have an algebra “3,” but I don’t get Popular Science or anything so I don’t know).

It’s crazy man. You’ve got a lot to process. And I smoke a pipe, so its like, can you even handle it? Can you even handle our family? I mean Adella makes yogurt all the time, Lazarus is basically a puppy who chews socks and we have to sweep Kleenex and pom-poms out of his mouth, and Zoe thinks “waking up” is when you walk into her room while she’s still awake. They say truth is stranger than fiction (which is a lie because I read Jurassic Park), and we’re all pretty strange. It’s gonna be nuts.
Looking forward to it,

Probably see you tomorrow I’m guessing,

JM

 

Exciting Guest Post!

It's airborne

 

 

Dear Adella’s Dad:

Your daughter has been pretty ill these past few days. First PinkEye!, then some kind of wannabe strep thing. All after your grandson’s double ear-infection and my own ongoing battle with perfect health.

I married Adella three and a half years ago, but I’ve known her a long time. I’ve been around long enough to see some pretty incredible things, and while my wife rests and sleeps off her potentially deadly cold, I thought I’d tell you a little about her from my perspective.

Adella is probably the most fascinating non-fiction person I know. If you take the time to get to know her, to listen to her and see the complexities of all her thoughts, feelings, actions, and motives, you will find a remarkably strong, intelligent, and competent women fighting her way through a dense jungle of past hurt and present confusion. Sometimes she is like a roaring lioness with a fierce paw and a beard of fresh blood. Other times she is meek and mild, as gentle as a flower petal that a young male friend picks from her yard, writes a note on, and puts in her mailbox which turned about to be a bad idea because she really didn’t know what to make of it and I was just trying to be nice.

Adella is the main character in a Charles Dickens’ novel. Now I’ve never read any Charles Dickens’ novels, but I do know two things: 1) I forgot to watch Muppet Christmas Carol this year and 2) those novels are very thick. And if thickness is any indication of complexity, beauty, and thematic development, then my metaphor stands. As you get to know her (will you give yourself that opportunity?), you will find yourself rooting for her, fighting for her, sacrificing for her, and spending for her, even when sometimes it is your blood on her gleaming lioness beard. Before your eyes you will see the formation of a person, a whole person, an awesome and fearsome process that is wild and untamed, the truest testament to the power of a living God there is beside the flesh and blood resurrection of that God himself.

She is a glowing ember in a campfire, smoldering and white-hot, ready for fuel and ready to grow into an all consuming flame that will roast the marshmallows of children from all the lands for ages to come. She is smart and honest, a combination whose presentation is the kind that gets called “refreshing” and “real.”

She is also really funny.

I have no idea where these next few years will take us. But I hope it takes us to you, because I don’t want you to miss the experience of knowing her, and because I want to see how much more awesome my wife will become.

 

And she can cook.

JM

 

Day 22

Hey Dad,

Just another quick post saying that I’m under the weather. However, still not dead.

This is the first time in the last 3+ years of not having health insurance that I feel like a loser for not having any. I mean, pink eye? And something in my throat?

I know there’s stuff someone in our sitch can do, I just honestly don’t know what… GAH.

Maybe next time I’ll be less whiney, but probably not.
AM