Highway 30 Epiphanies

March 22, 2010 - 3:37 PM

I want to write to tell you again about the experience of seeing my mother who is both mentally and physically ill, but I am sure that if you go back through my blogs, you would find sad tales of each of my short visits to my mom's house in dismal Long Beach, Washington.

But I just can't stomach another 20 minutes of babbling about the same, tired, depressing story.
She is sick. Life is hard. A lot of things are not fair.

But when I don't focus on those things in my life that are depressing, I find a lot to be thankful for.
One positive part of this weekend was being able to travel with my father to and from my mother's house.

I told my boyfriend that he didn't have to come. Although Collin is always gracious, the experience is never enjoyable for him, and in the end, I feel guilty that he is struggling to keep a pleasant look on his face.

But my dad and I had some things to talk about.

We always do.

My dad and I enjoy our conversations very much. Even when I was a troubled teen, my dad and I could talk pretty "straight" about things while we drove around taking care of business.

So there we were again, on one of our car rides-rides that I will recall on my death bed and cherish as some of the most meaningful moments of my life.

For the most part, our discussions revolve around people. We talk about their choices, their characteristics, and their sometimes unbearable manners.

I am able to tell him about my friends' sex lives and their quirky personalities that are sometimes hard to take.

We never pass up the opportunity to talk about all the ways in which Collin is one of the best people we've ever met.

And we talk about his lady friend, whom I adore.

We always talk about my mom and how she's doing, which is hardly ever an "up" conversation.
We talk about each other too.

He tells me about the decisions he made during his lifetime. He tells me about the people he knew when he was in school, in the army, and in the real world.

And he tells me about me.

As a parent, he was aware of the things that were going on in my life before I was able to appreciate their meanings. We recapped my social life, which is also a hard conversation to have because I was always a social scapegoat because I was plagued with severe weight problems.

He and I revisited the topic of the personality that I have always had. Even though I was a little girl without any friends, I was somehow always happy at my core, and I somehow maintained some minuscule sense of self-esteem.

As we talked about it, I started to cry. I felt so sorry for that little girl-a little girl too fat for the other kids to respect. A little girl so eager to be involved that she opened herself as a doormat to the punishment children cast upon each other. I wanted to reach out to my childhood self and embrace her with all of my strength. I wanted to tell her that the happiness she possesses and that glimmer of hope she had for herself would someday pay off.

I cried as I thought about that child, and I cried as I realized what I have become.

I have become a vibrant, talented, ambitious, and well-liked young woman whose open heart and kindness, along with a sense of humor and thick skin acquired from years of coping, has led her to the doors of Stanford University.

The power of this transformation moved me to tears. And it makes me feel like I did that little girl right. I feel like my fight for success has sprouted from my desire to honor the pain I suffered as a child. It will not have been in vain. It will have been in preparation for a long, happy, healthy, love-infused, brilliant existence.