Home for a 3-day weekend. Last time it was a week and I was left entertaining and flirting with the concept of death. Anything, really, to keep from having to take part in the shameful charade any longer. You come home. We sit in front of the TV, we ignore and tune each other out as we stare listlessly at the screen for hours on end.
Is that all that life has become for you? Don’t you want to talk about anything of substance, anything at all? Why can’t you just be civil for once? Why is every word out of your mouth an insult, a put-down, abusive?
I envy Mother for immersing herself so deeply in a fantasy world. I continually hover along the fringes of my own, reluctantly called back again and again by your pitiful complaints. Yes, Father, I do love you, but I do not love myself.
I think I do. But perfect love casts out all fear, and I fear you greatly. More than you could ever imagine. So perhaps I do not love you after all?
It is a tricky thing, the heart and mind, bathed in endless waves of apathy and despair.