I had dinner with my dad this evening, catching up. One of the things I miss most about living with my parents is that although I see them very often, I don't spend much time alone with him these days. He was working late in town and called to see if I'd meet him for something to eat before he headed off home on his bike (a traffic solution rather than a mid-life crisis and I believe him, if only because he dresses like a Garda in the visi-vest and geeky white helmet).
It was really good to spend the few hours talking like we did, but demanding too. When you spend little time alone, you tend to make it count and I found some of our conversations difficult. Ever anxious to know how I am and how I'm getting on, he wastes no time in asking me. Asking me about yesterday's visit to the doctor, my progress, the consequences and how I'm feeling about them. Talking to me about work, how I'm doing for myself there and where I see my job going. Enquiring after my mental health, whether I still have black days and how I manage them. Congratulating me on looking well, doing well, feeling well and expressing myself with honesty, diplomacy and grace.
For my part I'm just as inquisitive, and he answers me with the same warm candour. There's a lot I don't know about my dad and where he comes from. He tells me about it over dinners like these, or when we go walking, or on long car journeys. Some of it is very hard to hear; his childhood was very different to the one himself and mam have given me. I know I can be an awful whingebag sometimes (for my own amusement, often as not) but I also know that I have a lot to be grateful for.
It was really good to spend the few hours talking like we did, but demanding too. When you spend little time alone, you tend to make it count and I found some of our conversations difficult. Ever anxious to know how I am and how I'm getting on, he wastes no time in asking me. Asking me about yesterday's visit to the doctor, my progress, the consequences and how I'm feeling about them. Talking to me about work, how I'm doing for myself there and where I see my job going. Enquiring after my mental health, whether I still have black days and how I manage them. Congratulating me on looking well, doing well, feeling well and expressing myself with honesty, diplomacy and grace.
For my part I'm just as inquisitive, and he answers me with the same warm candour. There's a lot I don't know about my dad and where he comes from. He tells me about it over dinners like these, or when we go walking, or on long car journeys. Some of it is very hard to hear; his childhood was very different to the one himself and mam have given me. I know I can be an awful whingebag sometimes (for my own amusement, often as not) but I also know that I have a lot to be grateful for.
