Chronicles of a Procrastinating Novelist Volume 37: I'm Sorry

If I told you how I really feel, you wouldn’t believe me.

You’d try to explain it away.

You’d say I’m too emotional.

You’d say I’m overthinking it.

You’d say I don’t understand what it is to be a parent.

You’d say I need to pray about it.

You say I need to ask a pastor how to fix it.

You’d say I need to stop reading what I read, watching what I watch, listening to what I listen to, associating with whom I associate,

And to stop writing what I write.

You’d say to read my bible.

You’d tell me to go to church.

You’d want me to toe the line you set when I was old enough to learn to obey.

I know because you’ve done it before.

Don’t you think if any of that worked, I’d be okay now?

Do you see that list is a string of denials?

Do you see that it is a mountain of reasons that you think something is wrong with me?

Do you see that it means I’m a disappointment to you?

Do you see that it means I’m a failed investment?

Do you understand that when that list is in the back of my head, I will never believe you when you say, “I love you,” or “I’m proud of you?”

If you wonder why I don’t call, it’s because I can hear the judgement lurking between the niceties. It’s because now that I’ve breathed the air of independence and freedom and adulthood, I find the lurking expectations smothering. It’s because if I told you all the things that I’ve learned, you won’t celebrate them. It’s because I already know the disappointment is there. I already hear the fear in your voice when I bring up the smallest flicker of a hint that I might disagree with all those years of instruction and control. I know you’re afraid that over thirty years of work have gone to waste.

And even if I tell you this new direction – the new learning, the discoveries, the lessening terror of failing to make you happy – is all from God, you won’t believe that either, and you’ll try to prove it with a stack of verses translated from an ancient language into one too rigid to convey the complexity of the original.

I’m sorry I can’t toe the line anymore.

I’m sorry I now know a different truth that is more merciful.

I’m sorry you’re going to worry. I’m sorry you’re going to be angry. I’m sorry you’ll be hurt.

But I can’t keep pretending everything’s okay anymore.

Thank you for reading.

B