I had one of those weekends that just leaves you tired. Tired in the soul and tired in the heart and completely exhausted in the parts of the mind that are straining to get all this out.
We arrived at my grandparents’ house Friday afternoon, and no one was home. My parents settled right in and started watching TV. Grandma and Grandpa came home two hours later with news that my grandfather had colon cancer, and a tumor the size of his fist. From there it was arguments and spats about doctors and hospitals and where this and that was and how bad the traffic would be the morning he was scheduled for his surgery and whether or not he’d need to wear a pouch and howstupidareyounothingmeansnothing-he-eats-nothing-the-day-before.
My grandfather said nothing, except for the one joke when Grandma told him to get out of her way. Maybe I get out of your way soon. Go away forever. Ha ha ha.
I don’t know my grandfather. He’s the quiet old man who got quieter and skinnier every year until his head looked like a skull loosely shrouded in skin. He used to pick me up by the waist and twirl me in circles and tell the dogs I was here and what day I’d be leaving when I was five. He stopped at some point. He hasn’t said a thing to me in years. I feel like I should be devastated that he’s dying. But I’m not.
What will never cease to amaze me is the negativity and the pain in this side of my family. My father hates his older brother and his casual cruelty and stupidity. He’s constantly angered with his younger brother and his ignorance and the stuttering he can’t possibly control. Nobody does anything right. Frugality has evolved into simple, mean miserliness without joy or care for anyone else in the world. I don’t think there’s any sort of happiness here outside of inflicting pain. My uncles and grandmother make so many assumptions about my life that I can’t begin to explain or refute, so I nod and I fume and I seethe and grow more and more tired still. This is not how I want to live.
We drove right by an old friend’s neighborhood on our way to dinner Saturday night. Right by the bald lesbian’s coffee stand and the lot where I park my car. I could have made a break for it. I could have run out of the car screaming and crying and dashed off down Delancey toward the Donut Plant and what I hope would be open arms and a more beautiful view of the city, where things are still amazing and everything is meant to be tasted.
But I knew my old friend probably wouldn’t be home anyway.
And I’ve given up on the man I’m in love with. This has nothing to do with anything, not with my family or my friend or anything but too much time. I know I don’t know him. I know it’s beyond the point of worthless. I only wish that I believed it. I only wish I'd forget what color his truck is or stop trying to think up more things I can tell him next time we're in the classroom and I get those precious awful five minutes that I know I should just give up.
But that has nothing to do with anything except me.
All breakfast long my father and grandmother screamed at each other in a foreign language I don’t understand, and I think that might be a good thing for my sake. It’s easier to tune out the hate when you can’t make the words make sense.
It was a long long long drive home with the Yankees and the Red Sox on the radio and me bored to distraction, my mother slowly growing less than amused with me and my stuffed hippopotamus and our songs and snippy comments and my tendency to have it murmur ‘hippo’ to try to keep myself happy. My seventeen-year-old brother with his brand new learner’s permit drove half the way with my father nearly shitting his pants every time he touched the gas, Dad screaming at him when he could figure out the buttons for the cruise control going 60 miles an hour for the first time in his life and making him practice changing lanes until I felt seasick for the rocking.
Tired.