Onions, parfaits, ogers….

Writer’s Group: I am of one. We are three, only two of which gather at any given every-other-Tuesday. One suspects that there is a superhero among us, and both identities are in the group.

Lisa: The professional of the group — although we other two are catching up, and will.

Daddy: Dead for decades. Diagnosed to die within weeks. He lived two very intense years, as he had things to do, setting up his family before he left. From age 15 to 37, I expected to die at the age he did. I was a little bit lost when I didn’t.

At Writer’s Group this week, I was telling Lisa the source of some of my dysfunction with Duty. I noted Daddy’s hanging on, and asked, “And what did Scotty learn from that? That, while everyone loves us just for being us, we love ourselves based on what we believe we’ve done for our loved ones. If Daddy were here, he’d hit me with a brick, but that’s part of what I carried away with me. It means that anything I want takes second place to helping someone else. Stupid, but I can’t seem to leave it behind me.”

Lisa said, “But you know it, so now you can move past it.”

Shrug. “I haven’t so far, and I’ve known it for years.”

“Then there must be something else there, too, and the two things cover for each other.”

Slack jawed silence. Then, “That’s good, and I would have thought of that if it was anyone but me. But I don’t know what it would be.”

“Maybe you learned something else: ‘When I finish what is important to me, I will die.'”

12 thoughts on “Onions, parfaits, ogers….”

  1. Then there must be something else there, too, and the two things cover for each other.

    Hunh. I hate not being as smart as I think I am.

  2. So did that sound or feel right to you? Or, were you stunned by a sudden revelation of probable truth, or by something which had not occurred to you before?

    1. Sound & Feel Right: Yes, some.
      Stunned by probable truth: Maybe. I find that I do have a gut-level resonance with “I am alive to accomplish x and y” with the implication that, if those are done, so am I.
      Stunned by something that had not occurred to me before:

      Y’know, what seems to have utterly stunned me was that I hadn’t considered there might be more than one neurotic speed bump.

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