“What gets missed is your experience”
I’m lying on Laura’s couch, wishing I’d remembered a dream from the previous night. It’s one of those days that I’m not sure what to talk about.
“I keep thinking about my old boss,” I finally begin, “the one from the elementary school. Just the same old thoughts, the same old mental loop. I keep fantasizing about sending him this mean email.”
“What does your email say?”
The thought of answering embarrasses me, a sign that I need to answer. “I tell him that he’s not qualified to run a school. I tell him that he’s a giant asshole.”
Laura says nothing.
“And of course I would never send that email. And of course I know he’s not an asshole. He’s a person just like me. He’s a person with his own story and his own pain. Again, the same endless loop — remembering what happened, getting pissed off, reminding myself that he’s not the monster I sometimes make him out to be.”
“What gets missed in all this,” Laura says, “is your experience.”
This is one of those lightbulb moments. She’s said these words before, but this time something seems to click. I start talking about a meeting with the principal and some colleagues that I’d shared with Laura many times before. I’d always told the story in terms of the same stimulus and the same response, the stimulus being the principal mischaracterizing my special education report, and the response being my rage. But now I realize that there must have been a response before the rage, one that couldn’t have lasted more than a flash of a second. And this flash of a second is the experience she’s talking about.
I think back to the meeting, the principal sitting at his desk, the others seated throughout the room. The principal starts to stretch the truth, and I just sit there and seethe in silence. I try to remember that flash of a second between him opening his mouth and me seething. “I felt alone,” I say. “By that point I was tired of standing up to him. I knew there was no point. I knew nobody had my back.”
“You felt alone.”
“So alone. So helpless. I’d spoken up so much that school year, and my words were pointless.”
“That must have felt painful.”
“But I didn’t allow myself to feel those feelings. That’s your point. I don’t allow myself to have that experience. I just bite my tongue and then spend the rest of my life feeling all pissed off. I learned well from my family.”
My thoughts trail off for a few moments. “I don’t know the connection, but I’m associating to this story I’ve always told people about my paternal grandpa. It’s actually the story of the last time I ever saw him.”
I tell Laura the story. “Donny,” he said, sitting in his recliner, looking at the television set, which was muted as usual, “let me ask you a question.” I remember my body tensing, for I knew what was coming, for it was the same thing that came every visit. “Donny, what do you think of Obama? Give me your honest opinion.”
“I’m voting for him, if that’s what you’re asking.” My grandpa clutched his inhaler. “I’m not saying he’s my ideal candidate.” I had prepared this speech in my head. “But he’s done some good things for the economy.”
“What’s he done?”
I began defending the Obama presidency, citing recent employment statistics.
“Oh that’s horseshit.” My grandpa threw a hand my direction.
“Unemployment’s going down,” I replied.
“Horseshit.”
I know he wanted to say more, but I had worked him up so badly that he was now puffing on his inhaler, his chest heaving. It took him several minutes to catch his breath. Horseshit. That’s the last word he ever said to me. Horseshit.
“That’s how I tell the story. It usually makes people laugh, him puffing on his inhaler, how he keeps saying ‘horseshit.’ And the story’s mostly true. Except the ‘horseshit’ part. I don’t remember him actually saying that. It just seems like something a grandfather would say. I always thought it made the story funnier.”
My chest now feels heavy. “But it’s not a funny story,” I say. “There’s nothing funny about the story. I guess this came to mind because I’ve used comedy in the same way I’ve used anger, to avoid my experience.”
I think back to the final time I saw my grandpa. “I’m trying to remember what that felt like. Again, everything happened so fast, and by the time I was driving home with Jenn, I was probably already turning it into this big joke.”
I try to imagine how he looked, sitting in his recliner, looking at me through his thick brown-rimmed glasses. “I don’t remember how I felt that night, but I remember what it felt like losing his love. That’s what it felt like all those years.”
I tell Laura about my first Christmas with Jenn. I had for most of my life been Donny the Great. “Donny the Great,” I say again, this bringing a smile to my face. “I can almost imagine my grandpa introducing me as a circus act. ‘I present to you, ladies and gentleman, the Boy Wunderkinds. Yes, that’s right, it’s Donny the Great. Listen to him recite all these baseball statistics. What a memory. And look at those beautiful hazel eyes. And that smile. Oh, and he’s funny, too. Yes, ladies and gentleman, take a close look, I doubt you’ll ever see another grandson like this.”
By the time I married Jenn, Donny the Great had been demoted to Donny the Disappointment. So that Christmas, while most of my family gathered in the family room, I wandered into the main room where my grandpa was sitting on his recliner and watching a muted television. He saw me but just kept staring at the television.
I noticed that he had two new books on his side table, one about Jesus and another about a saint, and asked about them. Still looking at the television he said that they weren’t books that would interest me. My decision not to become a Catholic like him had been one of the reasons for my demotion. “You know, we’re really not that different,” I said. “We pretty much believe the same things.” He didn’t acknowledge me, just just continued staring at that stupid television.
“I definitely remember what that felt like,” I tell Laura. “Standing there, him refusing to acknowledge me. I felt unlovable. This man who had once adored me no longer even liked me. I felt detestable, like some pungent smell, like he couldn’t even stand to be in my presence.”
I can remember exactly how that felt. It hurt. I stood there and felt that hurt in my face, my eyes.
As I begin to formulate my next words, I realize that the words I need to say feel connected to my tear ducts, and it’s going to be impossible to say them without crying. “The thing is,” I begin, feeling the tears begin to build up behind my eyes. “The thing is, I loved—” And now a sharp sob prevents me from finishing the sentence. “I loved him so much,” I finally say. And now I’m crying. “I really did. And I know he loved me, too.”
I tell Laura how I used to sit in the recliner next to him, and we would just sit like that for hours, talking in front of a muted television set. We’d talk sports. He’d tell me about his childhood. When I got older, I would bring him a copy of my high school newspaper, and he would smile as I handed it to him, and he would start reading my articles, right then and there, before I even had a chance to take off my coat.
“He really loved me. And that’s why it hurt so much when he turned on me. And I guess that’s why I made our last conversation out to be some funny story. Because it was so painful. Our relationship was so special, and then it became so painful.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know what more to say. I don’t know if there’s anything more to say.”
I continue lying there. There are still tears in my eyes, but I feel different. Saying these words and feeling these feelings has made me feel more real, more like myself.
“I keep thinking about my old boss,” I finally begin, “the one from the elementary school. Just the same old thoughts, the same old mental loop. I keep fantasizing about sending him this mean email.”
“What does your email say?”
The thought of answering embarrasses me, a sign that I need to answer. “I tell him that he’s not qualified to run a school. I tell him that he’s a giant asshole.”
Laura says nothing.
“And of course I would never send that email. And of course I know he’s not an asshole. He’s a person just like me. He’s a person with his own story and his own pain. Again, the same endless loop — remembering what happened, getting pissed off, reminding myself that he’s not the monster I sometimes make him out to be.”
“What gets missed in all this,” Laura says, “is your experience.”
This is one of those lightbulb moments. She’s said these words before, but this time something seems to click. I start talking about a meeting with the principal and some colleagues that I’d shared with Laura many times before. I’d always told the story in terms of the same stimulus and the same response, the stimulus being the principal mischaracterizing my special education report, and the response being my rage. But now I realize that there must have been a response before the rage, one that couldn’t have lasted more than a flash of a second. And this flash of a second is the experience she’s talking about.
I think back to the meeting, the principal sitting at his desk, the others seated throughout the room. The principal starts to stretch the truth, and I just sit there and seethe in silence. I try to remember that flash of a second between him opening his mouth and me seething. “I felt alone,” I say. “By that point I was tired of standing up to him. I knew there was no point. I knew nobody had my back.”
“You felt alone.”
“So alone. So helpless. I’d spoken up so much that school year, and my words were pointless.”
“That must have felt painful.”
“But I didn’t allow myself to feel those feelings. That’s your point. I don’t allow myself to have that experience. I just bite my tongue and then spend the rest of my life feeling all pissed off. I learned well from my family.”
My thoughts trail off for a few moments. “I don’t know the connection, but I’m associating to this story I’ve always told people about my paternal grandpa. It’s actually the story of the last time I ever saw him.”
I tell Laura the story. “Donny,” he said, sitting in his recliner, looking at the television set, which was muted as usual, “let me ask you a question.” I remember my body tensing, for I knew what was coming, for it was the same thing that came every visit. “Donny, what do you think of Obama? Give me your honest opinion.”
“I’m voting for him, if that’s what you’re asking.” My grandpa clutched his inhaler. “I’m not saying he’s my ideal candidate.” I had prepared this speech in my head. “But he’s done some good things for the economy.”
“What’s he done?”
I began defending the Obama presidency, citing recent employment statistics.
“Oh that’s horseshit.” My grandpa threw a hand my direction.
“Unemployment’s going down,” I replied.
“Horseshit.”
I know he wanted to say more, but I had worked him up so badly that he was now puffing on his inhaler, his chest heaving. It took him several minutes to catch his breath. Horseshit. That’s the last word he ever said to me. Horseshit.
“That’s how I tell the story. It usually makes people laugh, him puffing on his inhaler, how he keeps saying ‘horseshit.’ And the story’s mostly true. Except the ‘horseshit’ part. I don’t remember him actually saying that. It just seems like something a grandfather would say. I always thought it made the story funnier.”
My chest now feels heavy. “But it’s not a funny story,” I say. “There’s nothing funny about the story. I guess this came to mind because I’ve used comedy in the same way I’ve used anger, to avoid my experience.”
I think back to the final time I saw my grandpa. “I’m trying to remember what that felt like. Again, everything happened so fast, and by the time I was driving home with Jenn, I was probably already turning it into this big joke.”
I try to imagine how he looked, sitting in his recliner, looking at me through his thick brown-rimmed glasses. “I don’t remember how I felt that night, but I remember what it felt like losing his love. That’s what it felt like all those years.”
I tell Laura about my first Christmas with Jenn. I had for most of my life been Donny the Great. “Donny the Great,” I say again, this bringing a smile to my face. “I can almost imagine my grandpa introducing me as a circus act. ‘I present to you, ladies and gentleman, the Boy Wunderkinds. Yes, that’s right, it’s Donny the Great. Listen to him recite all these baseball statistics. What a memory. And look at those beautiful hazel eyes. And that smile. Oh, and he’s funny, too. Yes, ladies and gentleman, take a close look, I doubt you’ll ever see another grandson like this.”
By the time I married Jenn, Donny the Great had been demoted to Donny the Disappointment. So that Christmas, while most of my family gathered in the family room, I wandered into the main room where my grandpa was sitting on his recliner and watching a muted television. He saw me but just kept staring at the television.
I noticed that he had two new books on his side table, one about Jesus and another about a saint, and asked about them. Still looking at the television he said that they weren’t books that would interest me. My decision not to become a Catholic like him had been one of the reasons for my demotion. “You know, we’re really not that different,” I said. “We pretty much believe the same things.” He didn’t acknowledge me, just just continued staring at that stupid television.
“I definitely remember what that felt like,” I tell Laura. “Standing there, him refusing to acknowledge me. I felt unlovable. This man who had once adored me no longer even liked me. I felt detestable, like some pungent smell, like he couldn’t even stand to be in my presence.”
I can remember exactly how that felt. It hurt. I stood there and felt that hurt in my face, my eyes.
As I begin to formulate my next words, I realize that the words I need to say feel connected to my tear ducts, and it’s going to be impossible to say them without crying. “The thing is,” I begin, feeling the tears begin to build up behind my eyes. “The thing is, I loved—” And now a sharp sob prevents me from finishing the sentence. “I loved him so much,” I finally say. And now I’m crying. “I really did. And I know he loved me, too.”
I tell Laura how I used to sit in the recliner next to him, and we would just sit like that for hours, talking in front of a muted television set. We’d talk sports. He’d tell me about his childhood. When I got older, I would bring him a copy of my high school newspaper, and he would smile as I handed it to him, and he would start reading my articles, right then and there, before I even had a chance to take off my coat.
“He really loved me. And that’s why it hurt so much when he turned on me. And I guess that’s why I made our last conversation out to be some funny story. Because it was so painful. Our relationship was so special, and then it became so painful.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know what more to say. I don’t know if there’s anything more to say.”
I continue lying there. There are still tears in my eyes, but I feel different. Saying these words and feeling these feelings has made me feel more real, more like myself.
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