my dad's job was sleeping
One day, I called my mom, and out of nowhere she brought up a story I had completely forgotten.
Apparently, when I was in third grade, our class had one of those introduce yourself assignments. One of the questions was simple: what is your father's occupation? according to my mom, my answer was "my dad's job is sleeping." (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)
The teacher became concerned enough to call my parents. And my mom still finds the story hilarious. She remembers asking my dad how could such a small child think of something like that?
At first, I laughed too. But the more I think about it, the less funny it becomes(っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ Children don't usually write essays about emotional neglect. They don't have the vocabulary to explain absence, loneliness, disappointment, or longing. They don't understand emotional availability or attachment theory.
Children write what they see. If a child writes sleeping, perhaps that was the most honest answer available to her.
Recently, other memories have been returning. I remember waiting to be picked up from kindergarten long after everyone else had gone home. Waiting on the swings while other children left with their parents. Waiting so long that even the teachers felt bad for me. Waiting on a balcony at my aunt's house, staring at a tower in the distance, wondering where my father was and when he would come back.
The strange thing is that I don't even remember being picked up. I only remember the waiting. When I look back now, I wonder if my childhood was shaped more by waiting than by anything else. Waiting to be noticed, to be chosen. Waiting to matter. Waiting for my parents to come back.
As a child, I didn't have the language to describe any of this. Instead, I became angry, I threw tantrums. I screamed. I cried until I exhausted myself.
Maybe I wasn't an angry child at all. Maybe I was a lonely child (｡•́‿•̀｡) A child who didn't know how to explain what was missing.
What makes this more complicated is that I don't believe my parents were villains. Life was hard. They had their own struggles, pressures and limitations.
I might understand that, but understanding why something happened is not the same as pretending it didn't affect me.
Perhaps, both things can be true at once.
- My parents did the best they could with what they had.
- There was still a child sitting on a swing, waiting to be picked up.
The story about my father's occupation keeps returning to me because I no longer hear it as a joke. I hear it as a clue. A glimpse into the mind of a child who answered honestly before he learned how to explain himself.
Recently, I watched a C-drama where a married couple was given a chance to go back in time. They returned to the days before they got married, but this time they carried all the memories of their future self.
It made me wonder. If I were given a chance, and could go back to my childhood with everything I know now, what would I see? ( •́ .̫ •̀ )
Maybe I would look at my younger self and realize something I couldn't see then. And maybe that is that growing older really means. Not rewriting the past, not deciding who was right or wrong. But finally seeing everyone more clearly, including my younger version who lived through it ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈ )♡