Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

As this past summer wound down, my younger sister Lydia and I did some unwinding of our own. It was ugly. Our daily routines paralleled those of the housewives featured on Intervention. (Well, ours excluded the substance abuse, but only if you rule out Pirate’s Booty and television as abusable substances.)

I don’t know exactly what made my father snap. Maybe our body odor gave him headaches. Maybe he was offended by our brazen renunciation of his Tele-ban practices. Maybe old man was just jealous that we’d been spending most our time living in a languor paradise. He never even thanked us for the many gifts we left for him around the house (including but not limited to: sneakers, DVD cases, and string cheese wrappers).

Bottom line, he snapped. Unfortunately so did his logic. I guess we drove him to an unreasonable state of mind, because his chosen method for curtailing our free-spirited ways was to hold the car keys hostage.

I've often wondered how he arrived at this decision. Perhaps the thought came to him when he was holed-up in his sanctuary, a square home office approximately the size of two tollbooths. Comfortably surrounded by his political biographies and jazz records, he’d rub his hands together and imagine the fruits of his genius.

“They won’t be able to leave! Bwah! Those lazy daughters of Susan have probably forgotten how to walk! And then they’ll have to be productive, or else they’ll never earn their freedom!!!” 

...then he would maniacally laugh. (That, or just go back to programming software.)

The next afternoon when Lydia and I came downstairs for breakfast, Dad watched with smug anticipation as we padded around the kitchen, his two little trolls scavenging for grub.

After a couple minutes, he realized he couldn't wait for us to notice the empty key rack on our own because, knowing us, that could’ve meant days, or whenever we ran out of cereal.

Just as Lydia and I began to settle into our regular couch positions, Dad cleared his throat to make an announcement. He started his speech, using pauses rather than volume for dramatic effect.

“Ugh. Get on with it, Lord Jim…”

“Tell me about it, sister. Booo.”

Lydia and I were using our secret eye-rolling code language to communicate with each other.

Soon, a familiar bark interrupted our exchange.

“Hey! Did you girls hear what I said?” 

We looked up and he repeated himself.

"I've taken away the car keys."

*            *           * 

Mere days before this lecture, I had seen the movie 500 Days of Summer. In one of the scenes, the ideal and the real unfold simultaneously on a split-screen. On the left half of the screen we see how the protagonist had imagined a party was going to go, and cringe as it increasingly veers from the night’s actual course of events on the right.

I believe my father had a similar experience when he delivered that lecture. To illustrate:

However, [500 Days of Summer split screen + my dad's backfired plan] does not merit the conclusion that all planning or optimism leads to inevitable disappointment. In fact, I know I could greatly benefit by having more of both in my daily life.

Sometimes I let plans scare me because I think that I'm committing to an exit-less path, but that's not true. I can always turn back. I can't necessarily make a perfect U-turn, but I can always choose a new route.

Equally true is the fact that some paths will end before I want them to.
Part of growing up is getting dumped, graduated, fired. They're all moments in life when someone tells me that I have to move on before I feel ready or want to do so.

When these moments come around I don't exactly freeze so much as I move at an immeasurably slow pace. In the face of uncertainty I don't know what to do, so I do very little at all. I say I'm in shock; anyone else would say I'm a mess.

However, I have confidence in my baby steps during this unfamiliar stage of my life thanks to support from familiar people. I rely on my siblings to make me laugh and tell me that I'll figure stuff out. My mom, the CEO of our family, helps me determine what I need to do next and makes sure that I follow through with it. And then of course there's Dad, the molder of my (sometimes too) wacky sense of humor and keeper of our house.

Given that we're both currently "working" from home, we spend a lot of the day together. This intense proximity has strengthened both my love of and impatience for his idiosyncrasies. I have a knack for bringing the 'dis-' to his 'order,' and we both have a range of roles that we play whenever that cacophonous union occurs.

He's the man who makes sure to smile as he critiques my dishwasher-loading technique, and I'm the girl laughing his seriousness. He's the man who gets mad at me when I "forget" to pick up the dog's poop before the lawn is mown, and I'm the girl lying to his face, promising him that next time I'll remember.

He's the man who, in the midst of my summer of sloth, impounds my getaway ride and holds me hostage in a house that I already know basement-to-attic, on the same old road where I've lived for my entire life.

And to this man, a man who finds me irksome yet keeps me close, who ties me down when I am barely moving, I should not be the girl who rolls her eyes.

To this man, I should be the girl who smiles genuinely and tells him, "Thank you. I enjoy your company as well."