8/5

Today I had a “skin appointment” which is a humbling way to say that I had a facial. I have had them every few weeks since 2020 when I decided to take a hold of my acne issues. It’s done wonders and is hands down the “bougiest” thing about me. Anyway, today I went to see my Skin Witch, a lovely woman in her 50’s who is just the right amount of hippie dippy to convince me that loving oneself does really mean going back to nature, while not so hippie dippy that she’s going to tell me that makeup is evil because it doesn’t come from Mother Earth. 

I remember she said a few months back that her father had passed away. I remember saying one of the generic “oh I’m so sorry, how are you doing?” and she gave the most authentic yet generic answer she could muster.
I now understand exactly what that must have been like.

So today, when I walked in I realized I hadn’t talked to her since canceling my appointment because I was flying home, so I had to tell her that my dad had died. She looked…devastated. Like authentically sad. And then, as I expected, my entire appointment (which often feels like a therapy session anyway) turned into a talk about grief. I didn’t tell her the traumatic parts about his medical experience, but I did tell her about the experience as a whole, and how it was weird without him. We talked about how weird it is that family dynamics don’t change even when a gigantic piece of the puzzle is gone. We talked about how things that you didn’t expect to trigger grief do and how you sometimes get into a such a long spiral of worry about things you can’t control that you’re just staring into space while someone is talking to you.

Pretty quickly, though, we spoke less about generalized experiences and more about hers specifically. I nodded as best I could while having a facial, said a lot of “oh definitely” and “ugh, I know” and let her talk. I think she had someone in front of her who knew and something in her needed to take advantage of it. During the extraction part of the facial – a favorite of masochists who love having their face picked at with what feel like pliers but is actually a tiny needle – I asked a few questions and we both shed a few tears (me because she was jabbing my chin with said needle, her because she was sad that things weren’t going to change). 

By the end of the conversation, she got quiet and gave me an extra loving scalp massage (one of the many reasons I spend the money even in months when my acne is at bay), we hugged our usual hug, and I thanked her for being a person in my village. 

As a person who naturally talks as much as is humanly possible in any social situation whether I mean to or not, I have little experience on the listening end of a one-way conversation. I would venture to guess, though, that one would normally walk away feeling exhausted, wishing they had said what they waited to say. In this case, however, I felt…sad. Not sad because I didn’t get to talk, but sad that we as a people are so grief averse that when given any small window of opportunity to talk to someone who isn’t afraid of us, or worried about sitting in discomfort, we unload. I’m sure I’ve done it. I’m sure I’ll do it again. I’m sure most people who have been through this have accidentally done so. 

I wish sometimes that I lived in Mexico or Spain or Tibet or Egypt, where grief is a collective thing. Days, months, in some cases even years are spent in open grief and it’s not seen as anything abnormal to cry in public, talk about grief, or talk to the dead even if you know they’re not there. I want to be clear, I don’t think I need to cry in public for years, or at least dear god I hope I won’t, but it would be nice to not feel like if I’m having a rough day that I can’t tell someone the real reason why. 

My dream even prior to my dad’s passing is to go to Mexico during Día de los Muertos one year, to see first hand how beautifully the dead can be celebrated. My therapist implored me a few weeks ago to make a mini “shrine” (for lack of a better term) for my dad. Nothing elaborate, just a few photos and maybe something he loved, little artifacts that he would be happy I have. She challenged me to talk to him, looking or not at that shrine. To acknowledge his presence that is still in my life and continue the conversations that I would have had with him, if even for a little while to help me adjust. I thought she was nuts. What would AA think!? What would people think if they walked into my house and saw a candle lit near photos of my dad on the mantle!? “Wow, she’s…really taking this hard, huh?” Couldn’t be me. 

Why is that!? Why are we like this? Are better-adjusted adults like this, or is this another thing I get to blame sOcIeTy for?

I did eventually make my own little version of the “shrine” after AA looked at me like I was the crazy one for assuming he’d be weirded out by it (“why would I do anything to stop you from mourning your dad? Are you kidding?” *eyeroll* of course he’s nice about this). It’s just a shelf where his hats will live, a favorite photo of he and I when we were both 30+ years younger, his coaching whistle. I put it next to my favorite artifacts from my grandfather who also passed a few years ago, and for whom I’m not sure I ever really grieved.

But I still haven’t talked to him there. That would just be too weird.

Instead I’ll probably just trauma dump on someone who admits that they, too, have a dead parent. You know, the right way to handle this.