realizing mom and dad are getting old is such a bliss. we never talked much about anything in the household. almost all our conversations now concern the cat; the cat is the glue of my family: without him, mom would have nothing to yell about (keep the cat out of the bedroom!!!!) and dad wouldnt have any problems to ignore (the gross ringworm on the cat’s skin that he denied for years and only agreed to let me and mom take him to the doctor recently). i live 20km away from them and only visit once or twice a month (one time i took my parents to see a play and our dinner at the Cha Ca restaurant lasted for 20 mins), and my sister 6 hours away. our next family trip to London will consist of my parents going on a guided tour, my sister continuing her life as usual, and me probably wandering around the city alone or falling asleep on her couch.
idk exactly how this started. when my parents were still working, they hardly stayed up at the same time. dad went to bed at 7pm then woke up around midnight to grade his students’ papers, then went back to bed at 5am then back up again at 7am to go to work. mom stayed up busy with the chores until midnight, then woke up at 5 to start the day, prepared breakfast then left the house early. dinner time was the only time we were together, and maybe that was why i took forever to finish my portion while my sister kept falling off her chair.
we just never had the habit of talking about anything really. just about now im starting to wonder if it’s too late to “reconnect” with my parents, and suddenly it is. career advice for example. up until very recently, my parents tried to ask me and my sister about our work life (dad: very long emails, mom: rephrasing my job to explain it to her friends). we never knew what to say, because what we do now is so different to what they used to know. and no matter how many times we explain, next time they’d just ask the same things. so we just never talked about our jobs. just now, when i finally feel a bit guilty for not talking about my life to my parents enough (yes because im old enough to admit i do need their advice), they happen to be old too, to admit that they’re too tired to care anymore. i just asked dad about my job options today and this is the first time he didnt give any advice, but only said: “i dont have any experience in this”. and mom, of course, was off on a trip to the beach with her friends.
just like last year when my sister went home without telling anyone, dad was very happy that from then on, he was released of any airport drive and parking hustle in the future.
and this is bliss. that my parents dont worry about us anymore, and we feel less guilty about each other, and we are happy together as 4 adults and 1 cat (yes the cat is the glue of this family).
i just read this book of Milan Kundera and there was this sentence of a girl describing her nose as a cauliflower. at first i thought she meant what inside her stuffed nose when she was sick made she feel like there was cauliflower in her nose, but then i read on and found out that she (or the author) meant that the nose looked like a cauliflower on the outside. who else thought the same as I did? Im gross.