Letting go

[beetiger]

A few weeks ago, when I was packing up piles of business clothes that were unlikely to fit me in the case that I ended up going back to a suit-requiring workplace anytime soon, I also packed up and gave away a bunch of artsy sorts of T-shirts that I collected from my father's closet after he died. I loved them, both because they were his and because they were cool, but they were mostly white-based and really too large on me and I never found myself choosing them to actually wear.

This morning I'm packing up a bunch of old watches that were his, that I collected at the same time, right after he died, and I'm sending them to marrionettegirl, who makes steampunk jewelry out of old watch parts. I hope she can use them. I'd forgotten I had them at all until I decided to clean out one of my drawers of jewelry and stuff.

I haven't visited my father's grave in a few years, not since my son was born for sure. It'd take me some work to remember where it is, actually. I think about him a lot, but I don't feel any need to go to the place. I get a vague feeling that it would matter to him, so sometimes I feel like I should go, but life is so busy and I know I wouldn't find it satisfying at all, so I haven't made the time and effort.

I feel very attached to the gifts that people g ive me, but stuff that I just took, those reminders? Apparently not so much. After a decade they don't have the scent to them anymore, and when I looked at them, they're just stuff. Pictures are good, but the only scent I have left is A Bachelor's Dog, from BPAL, which evokes my dad in a leather jacket to me.

But relationships with dead people, even if they are some of the most important people in your life, don't give anything back, at least not to me. My husband still has a quick chat with my dad at Samhain every year, but for me? The last few years if I do that I just feel like I'm talking to the void.

My father and I were extremely close, as close as I've ever been to anyone in some ways, and I would not be the woman I am without him, though we also fought over many of the kinds of things that have become more and more core to my life today. I see bits of the energy he put out to the world in my own son.

It's a step back, being more than a decade away, and I guess I'm just consciously noticing myself taking it.

Comments

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Thanks for the insight.

[marrionettegirl.livejournal.com]

it's been a decade(this aug) since my gma died, i dont have much from her, but i do have a huge black scarf/wrap she crocheted (before my mom was even born), and even though it's been washed a zillion times, it still smells like her..

i think i'll hafta make you something special with the parts :)