Letters to the Kids, “No Right Way…”

There’s no right way. No right way for you to feel about this. Be angry, if you’re angry. Be sad, if you’re sad. Be neither, if you’re not. No one is going to judge you, at least no one that matters. So feel it, let it go in, through and out, like a breath. This is the reality of being here. This is the place of meeting and parting. The longer you stay, the more times you will do this dance.

I’ve come unstuck in time here and there today. When I let myself, I’m back in my bedroom. My father his kicking me into the air and catching me on his feet. I’m squealing and loving it. I’m in the apartment, your mother’s apartment, Heather’s apartment. Lillian isn’t born yet. This old man and me are fighting over “enlightenment.” It’s a fight that will break our relationship apart forever, but I don’t know that and neither does he. I’m in the back of the Galloup truck, with Omar and David. We’re on I-94 driving 55 miles an hour down the highway. The wind is whipping about me and we’re terrified and laughing. I’m at the movie theater and my father is introducing me to the woman he’s leaving my mother for, Donna. She friendly, and he loves her, and their story will be over all too soon. I’m almost as old as I am now, visiting with the old man and were doing anything and everything to not talk about the gulf that’s grown between us. Everything to let the other know that we still love them, even if sometimes we’re not sure we like them.

There’s no right way. No right way for you to feel about this. Be angry… be sad… be neither. She’s not going to judge you. That’s all that matters. So feel it. Let it come in. Let it go out. One more time, we do this dance.  We remember and we part. This is what this place is for.