Two nights ago I cried pretty unexpectedly at the end of the Bojack Horseman episode, Free Churro. Have you seen it? The entire thing was Bojack giving a eulogy for his recently deceased mother, with whom he had a very strained & complex relationship. It was sad & powerful & raw & brutal & articulated so many feelings I have toward my father (& really, my mother too). Feelings of dismissal from both, but in dramatically different ways.
Read MoreClay Tillett
20 Years Ago Today /
Twenty years ago today I awoke to a world without my dad. He’d shot himself in the head in the next room while I slept. There’s something dreamlike about heading to bed one insignificant evening—with a father,— and waking the next morning without one; having someone and then so suddenly losing them.
Read MoreAlmost Like God /
Every child wants to know that their parents not only love them but love each other. I have small fuzzy memories of what could have been love between my mother and father: laughter, tickling, pet names, but those small moments had all faded and died before I was out of elementary school. From that point on until my father shot himself, my parents were strangers to each other at their best and bitter enemies at their worst.
Read MoreOnly From the Grave /
Anybody who really knows me knows my growing-up years were a bit tumultuous. My dad was a troubled alcoholic battling some pretty horrific demons. I was a painfully shy only child who morphed into a painfully shy, self-destructive and severely depressed teenager. I remember writing in my journal around the age of 15 that I absolutely would not make it past the age of 19. I'd planned to end it as soon as I found the courage because if what I'd experienced thus far was "life" why bother living much longer? It was all so terribly sad - how unhappy I was growing up and how little desire I had to be happy. In my defense, I think I just didn't know how.
Read More