I’ve come to the conclusion, People are like fruit!
admin on Apr 5th 2008
Unlike most people, I have never really felt a strong emotional attachment to the people around me. I’m not talking about complete strangers here, I’m talking about my immediate family. I guess this probably spawns from my upbringing. I’ve always suffered from a fierce bullishness and total self dependance. You’re probably thinking wait, these can be good qualities? Well I admit I am somewhat admired for my ability to take on almost any situation without any outside help. The problem lies in the fact that I am totally incapable of asking for or accepting that help. If my car is broken down, I fix it. If something heavy is needed to be lifted, I lift it. The underlying element here is that I have severe trust issues. It’s not that I enjoy fixing my own car, but I don’t feel comfortable letting someone else do it. I don’t even feel comfortable letting someone else drive it. I just can’t.
What broght out this confession? A few months back a co-worker of mine had her sister pass away. Normally this wouldn’t even catch my interest, but I really feel alot of respect for this particular person. In the last couple of years she is the only person I’ve worked with whom I feel is like me. She is totally competent in every respect. Having done a stint as an Air Force Mechanic the woman is like a brick. She exudes confidence and there hasn’t been a single task that she hasn’t been able to handle. I see her take on jobs that normally would have been given to me simply because nobody else could handle it. She is also quite intelligent and I find that things I discuss with her she actually understands. I often don’t converse with people simply because they aren’t in the same intellectual class as I am. (on a side note, that is one reason I really love the internet. Online I have no problem finding people who match or exceed my intellect where in daily life I seldom find that is the case.) Getting back to this co-worker, I’d say she would be wife material if it weren’t for the fact that she is much older than I am and having kids almost out of high school. Her sister went into the hospital for a surgery and didn’t survive the anesthesia.
I watched this woman whom I had almost thought to be unbreakable turn into a sobbing mess. I, having little human attachment, was obviously not real understanding. I tried to be of some comfort, but I honestly don’t understand the emotion she was going throgh. I must have seemed cold and uncaring. Probably because I am…
I think it must have been this incident that started me thinking about what it would take to break me emotionally. I tend to sit back and see things from an outside perspective. I didn’t have to wait long for something to come along that would test my curiosity in this respect. Last year I lost a weeks worth of vacation time because I didn’t get around to taking it before my company determined I had accrued too much and they diposed it. It’s not that I wouldn’t love a vacation, but I’ve made myself too damn irreplaceable at work. I just can’t take time off. The whole purpose of taking time off is to get some sort of relief. The problem is that I have so much to do when I come back that taking time off actually causes me more stress than if I just keep working.
I was determined that I wasn’t going to take a loss on any more paid vacation time so I decided to figure a way to take a few days here and there at non-busy times so I could use it up. The first installment of two days plus a weekend came due last week. I planned this thing for a month in advance. I bought plane tickets and was going to a renaissance festival with my dad and younger brother. According to them the turkey legs are good enough to die for. They must not be lying because about a week and a half before my flight my brother called from the hospital where my dad was in the ICU.
I must really be a monster because unlike my co-worker I didn’t break down. I didn’t even feel the urge to jump on a plane and head on down. Instead I went to work and thought about how there was pretty much no chance I was getting one of those turkey legs now. BTW, I am a triptophan junkie… Don’t get me wrong. I love my dad I just didn’t feel the need to rush there and sit in a hospital room.
My brother is more like me than anyone in this world. He’s a bit smarter than I am, but aside from that he thinks just like I do. Despite growing up in different places, he has the same kind of ideas and the same technical skill. If he hadn’t dropped out of school, probably for lack of interest, he would totally dwarf me in every respect. I learned through this that he doesn’t suffer from the same uncaring disposition though. While I was concearned about missing the festival and the little bit of a well deserved break, he sat in the hospital and worried for my father’s well bieng. I guess I should be thankful that bieng a monster doesn’t run in my gene’s. It’s just something I caught.
I waited it out until my flight was scheduled. Come the day my flight was to leave I packed a bag with a few changes of clothing, a book, a pencil, and some graph paper. I packed myself onto the plane with the other sardines and suffered through the trip. I then spent my couple of days vacation mostly at the hospital. My dad was still in ICU and sedated when I got there. This is where I came to the conclusion that People are like fruit. Looking at him he looked like he was a sheet on the mattress. He had lost all color and with all the padding around him that he had sunk into he just looked like part of the bed.
When a fruit is born it is always fresh looking. Sometimes it has blemishes, but it always has a look of youth. Then it separates from branch and begins the process of rotting. It may get more lustre or color as it develops, but really it is already well on its way to the grave. Humans are exactly the same way. No matter how sickly we are born, we always look fresh at birth. Separated from the cord we begin the process of life, but our growth is really just our bodies beginning to rot. We may get bigger and we may prolong our life, but really we are just fertilizer yet to be realized.
My father was finally awake and alert just before I had to catch my plane back. Though the paranoia from two weeks of lucid dreaming and the financial stress had just begun to set in it was good to see him awake. It was nice to know that he was still in there, and that his body wasn’t just an empty shell. Sadly though it looks like there isn’t going to be much left of him. They said his heart attack was bad. So bad that if he hadn’t felt sick and gone to the hospital before it happend he never would have even survived. He had to be resuscitated three times and he retains less than 30% of his heart function. Two weeks in ICU doesn’t leave much that isn’t atrophy. He’ll be another month in rehab to learn to walk and to write. Even then I don’t know how he will support himself. Like me my father worked every day of his life and never saw any other goal than to go to workand dream of the day he could retire. Working with his hands is pretty much out of the question now so aside from bieng alive there isn’t much life left for him.
Deep down inside I truly am a monster. I’m not thinking how great it is that he survived or anything like that. I’m thinking about how I can support him when his debt far exceeds the level that my income can cover. Its not all bad because I do care enough to think about him. I just know that my heart isn’t in the right place.