It's a strange experience being an adult; it can be quite solitary at times. I remember a while back (probably 8 years now), a friend of mine was talking about someone and made a comment about how she couldn't tell whether the guy was being candid about his experience. She said to me, "you know how adults can be." It caught me off guard. In fact, I didn't. My tendency was to think most people were pretty upfront and honest about their lives. However, the deeper I go in to this wilderness of adulthood, the more I find there are many things left unsaid.
As adults our realities can seem more messy than we ever imagined. We navigate through it all; sometimes we fail immensely in the company of others and sometimes we are the only ones around to be proud of our accomplishments. I had an artist friend a few years back named Witold K, who always said, "on the day you understand your loneliness, you will understand my art." Truth be told, I never could relate to that statement. I related to his art from a different perspective but I could never let go of how much I couldn't relate to his statement. As I get older though, I acknowledge my loneliness more and more. I'm not even sure it's a bad thing, which is what I originally thought about the concept. When I try to make sense out of what this all means (being alive here on earth), I think at the end of it all we are left with ourselves morphing into some other form of energy. Perhaps we don't need to make any sense of it at all. But then again, where does that leave an analytical person such as myself.
Tricia posted an article this week on FB and it made me think of my dad because it argued God and connectivity from a scientists perspective... and because he died two years ago. Not that the article really has anything to do with my dad besides being scientific in nature and giving me some respite about the passing of time. It spoke to my hope that though he isn't around anymore he is still around.
When I meet my sisters for dinner tonight, he will be at our table. He will be in our humor, he will be in our intellect, he will be the reason we come together find some way to enjoy this crazy thing called life. Our blue eyes looking around at each other, slightly heart broken and slight uplifted by the thought of how beautiful our father was to us.
I would be foolish not to acknowledge the amount of time and space that will continue to build since October 2010. I move forward in my journey and my dad is not physically part of that experience anymore. However, he is always in my heart and frequently still in my thoughts. He will never know the rest of my story. Sometimes it hurts to think about it that way. Then again, he always knew who I was, what my spirit was about, and I like to think that meant he always knew my story. No amount of dead can take away the love I always felt from him and continue to remember fondly.