Today was not a good day. I felt publicly disrespected and quite unwanted. I readily concede that I am touchy this way, and easily feel unwanted. It is a default setting in my character, and a legacy of both genetics and environment.
Today was a day of thinking about legacies.
One legacy is that I don't feel very at home anywhere. Conversely, I can feel as at home one place as another. I grew up in a home filled with violence and disorder. Emotional violence. Screaming. Name-calling. Wishes for death and unbirth. Physical violence and violation. Death and disease. My sense of 'home' was engendered by TV and visits to a couple of my friends, where I saw order and civility. I spent only 9 days in my 'home' after I graduated college. School was not my home. I was teased alot. Some of that I earned (I am an awkward man and was an even more awkward boy). Some of it no one earns. Human relationships were not home. Most of what I learned from humans was to avoid them and their violence, duplicity, teasing and outright hatred.
Such 'home' as I feel comes mainly from a sense of having done my job, of being a work animal who has done their daiy toil. As is said in 'Lethal Weapon', he thinks of a reason not to kill himself every day, and that reason is his job. If I am unliked and unlikable, ugly and now fat, I am capable. I struggled hard to be that, feeling that if I was not wanted I had to be indispensable for my abilities. You may not like me, but you have to respect me.
My house in Chattanooga is not really my home. I inhabit a 5 bedroom, 5 and one half bath, 5200 square foot dwelling within which I have a bed, a fan, two small tables, 4 mismatched chairs, a pool table (I don't play), and my modeling bench, desk and books. I live like a monk within a giant cell. Every night I lie down to sleep alone in a king sized bed, book, phone and glasses in their same place (the caution of a near-sighted man), and every day I rise to go to the work for which I came to this place, and from which I derive, as noted, most of my sense of worth and definition. And today a chunk of that was taken from me.
And what of family legacies besides home violence? My father died when I was 13, and I can't honestly say that I have a great deal of his values because I never knew what they were. My mother was disorganized, a hysteric, a smoker, messy. But also brilliant. And tough beyond all telling. Tough. Thrown out of a second story window and paralyzed, and learned to walk. Sent to boarding school as a small child. Beaten and screamed at. Cheated on by a mortally ill man for whom she provided care. Insulted by children for whom she provided care, food, home, schooling. Tough.
And she worked hard to provide us enough money that we could each have a transplant if we got sick. And we both got sick. And she did not know that healthcare would change, and that our transplants would be covered by insurance. Blind and mostly demented, living in what she called 'a home', she still got great satisfaction (and got it again and again because in her dementia she forgot it every time) from having enough money to be dependent on no one. And her efforts, saved as cash and invested, paid off our homes and sent a second generation of children to college.
And now, today, I have in an account in my name, the remaining legacy of her life. A lot of money. A lot a lot. I can't be at home in a bank account. But she has provided a measure of security that is mine now. And it provides a little insulation from the world, a little space and reassurance. But she gave me something else too. Tonight, I will lie down and put my book and my phone and my glasses in their accustomed places. And tomorrow I will go to work, conscious of the degradation I endured today, but determined to do my job as best I can, because I have skills and knowledge that most people don't have. But also because of that other legacy from my mother.
I'm tough. Real tough.
Today was a day of thinking about legacies.
One legacy is that I don't feel very at home anywhere. Conversely, I can feel as at home one place as another. I grew up in a home filled with violence and disorder. Emotional violence. Screaming. Name-calling. Wishes for death and unbirth. Physical violence and violation. Death and disease. My sense of 'home' was engendered by TV and visits to a couple of my friends, where I saw order and civility. I spent only 9 days in my 'home' after I graduated college. School was not my home. I was teased alot. Some of that I earned (I am an awkward man and was an even more awkward boy). Some of it no one earns. Human relationships were not home. Most of what I learned from humans was to avoid them and their violence, duplicity, teasing and outright hatred.
Such 'home' as I feel comes mainly from a sense of having done my job, of being a work animal who has done their daiy toil. As is said in 'Lethal Weapon', he thinks of a reason not to kill himself every day, and that reason is his job. If I am unliked and unlikable, ugly and now fat, I am capable. I struggled hard to be that, feeling that if I was not wanted I had to be indispensable for my abilities. You may not like me, but you have to respect me.
My house in Chattanooga is not really my home. I inhabit a 5 bedroom, 5 and one half bath, 5200 square foot dwelling within which I have a bed, a fan, two small tables, 4 mismatched chairs, a pool table (I don't play), and my modeling bench, desk and books. I live like a monk within a giant cell. Every night I lie down to sleep alone in a king sized bed, book, phone and glasses in their same place (the caution of a near-sighted man), and every day I rise to go to the work for which I came to this place, and from which I derive, as noted, most of my sense of worth and definition. And today a chunk of that was taken from me.
And what of family legacies besides home violence? My father died when I was 13, and I can't honestly say that I have a great deal of his values because I never knew what they were. My mother was disorganized, a hysteric, a smoker, messy. But also brilliant. And tough beyond all telling. Tough. Thrown out of a second story window and paralyzed, and learned to walk. Sent to boarding school as a small child. Beaten and screamed at. Cheated on by a mortally ill man for whom she provided care. Insulted by children for whom she provided care, food, home, schooling. Tough.
And she worked hard to provide us enough money that we could each have a transplant if we got sick. And we both got sick. And she did not know that healthcare would change, and that our transplants would be covered by insurance. Blind and mostly demented, living in what she called 'a home', she still got great satisfaction (and got it again and again because in her dementia she forgot it every time) from having enough money to be dependent on no one. And her efforts, saved as cash and invested, paid off our homes and sent a second generation of children to college.
And now, today, I have in an account in my name, the remaining legacy of her life. A lot of money. A lot a lot. I can't be at home in a bank account. But she has provided a measure of security that is mine now. And it provides a little insulation from the world, a little space and reassurance. But she gave me something else too. Tonight, I will lie down and put my book and my phone and my glasses in their accustomed places. And tomorrow I will go to work, conscious of the degradation I endured today, but determined to do my job as best I can, because I have skills and knowledge that most people don't have. But also because of that other legacy from my mother.
I'm tough. Real tough.
It is always impressive to think about the things parents leave their children - both good and bad.
ReplyDeleteThe illusion of indispensability was brought home to me during surgical residency. Even for all of the responsibility that each resident had, whenever anyone went on vacation, the hospital did not fall apart: patients were still seen, operations still done, conferences still took place. And, of course, residents graduated each year, so no one individual was irreplaceable.
Takashai Nagai was a Japanese radiologist who contracted leukemia from all the radiation he received in his work during the 1930s and 1940s. His hospital in Nagasaki was not far from the epicenter of the 2nd atomic bomb explosion in 1945 and though he also survived this, the last five years of his life until his death in 1951 were spent in bed.
He, too, was a highly motivated physician whose research, published articles, and hard work all contributed to his sense of worth. But after he contracted leukemia and became bedridden, his perspective changed. During this time, he wrote, "God has never said you have to perform great deeds for your country and humanity to have lived well. Where would that leave all the sick people in the world? Look at me, for instance, needing to be assisted all the time. You wouldn't say that we sick and bedridden of the world are 'useful'! But usefulness is not the point. Our lives are of great worth if we accept with good grace the situation Providence places us in and go on living lovingly. A sick person who has grasped this will live so full a life that there will be no room for morbid death wishes."
I like those thoughts...
-D-