YouTube decided that an Eckhart Tolle video should follow one of my favorite NDE interviews. Fucking Eckhart Tolle and his… disconcertingly soft voice. I should like him. Oprah does. During my Oprah days I bought ”A New Earth” because there was a massive, shining display of the books at Target. I was in high school.
Oprah has unleashed some wild characters on the public. I didn’t finish “A new earth.” Too much use of the word “stillness.“ It wasn’t my cup of tea. It didn’t even… taste like tea. I prefer Jesus... who would prefer me to not harbor an inexplicable dislike of Eckhart Tolle.
What a strange ass lead up to what I’m about to say - my dad is dead. Four words that aren’t shattering me as much as I thought they would. I could see it coming a few hundred miles away. He was done. And to be truthful, I was done too. Done seeing him suffer and weaken. Fuck cancer, strokes, heart disease, blood clots - and all the rest of the things that killed him. It was the most insane circus of medical issues I have ever seen in another person. He was only 64.
He was (is?) my best friend. The best friend I’ll ever have. Brilliant, clever, larger than life, complicated, complex, and kind.
He had his share of turmoil, but who would want Barney as their parent? Gotta keep life interesting. He put me in my place like no one else could. Yet he also BUILT ME UP like no one else could! I learned so much living life with him. It’s not over. I’m still learning from him even though he is not on earth.
Obviously I’ll see him again. I’m trying to stay busy and wash this grief off. I’m probably just delaying it - damn, damn, damn! It really is the price of love. The price for now. Earth isn’t my forever.
He didn’t see me get a bachelors degree. He didn’t see me walk down the aisle. Hell, I skipped prom. He DID, however, see me literally pick myself up off the floor after crying over a boyfriend. He saw me absorbed in books from toddler life on. He liked my writing. He told me I could probably tutor college students in literature. I am grateful for his acceptance. He didn’t try to imprint his personality on me like other family members tried to - but he didn’t really have to. We were wired very similarly. We were both obsessive people with niche interests (guns and dead literary figures, guess who is who.)
Yes, he didn’t see all the usual milestones. Yet he saw me grow into a woman who said “to hell with any aisle.“ He saw me in and out of the mental hospital. He helped me claw my way out my way out when I was on the brink of orchestrating my own death. More than once. He saw my disgusting ass, laundry on the floor room but didn’t seem totally repulsed by me.
I know I didn’t make him proud every second, especially as a teenager. He frustrated me too. But I don’t think he’d want Baby Bop as a daughter as much as I didn’t want Barney as a father. All humans are messy.
In the end, he just… knew me. And that was enough. He thought I was strong. He wasn’t wrong.
I knew him too. His mind and heart. Our life and our love for each other was also enough.
I am so grateful that I knew him, and that he is free. I miss him but only for my own selfish reasons. He deserves freedom and peace with God. To see his parents again. To be free of a shitty, malfunctioning, earth body that was temporary already.
This won’t get easier, but I will get better. I have to get better even when life doesn’t.
I’ve already been six feet under. Now I’m everything that flowers over it.
On we go.
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