more sentimientos del 28 de junio

I am almost glad we are selling the house.  it’s a good house.  it’s a beautiful house with a wonderful backyard.  but it just feels like a museum of tears and the happy life we always wanted to live but never arrived at.  we got this house for a happy life and we got the backyard so we could play in it and the foosball table to so we could play with it and the xbox so we could play with it.  but we only played a few times.  they just sat waiting to be played with.  the house looked happy.  it was waiting for us.

the answering machine.  after my dad died and his message stayed on the machine, I would call home and it would be an uncomfortable present, a reminder of the uncomfortable present.  I liked it.  it wasn’t letting anyone forget.  and then we changed it because people said we should, but none of us really wanted to.  dear public, why is it inappropriate to leave his message there?  does it make you uncomfortable?  well sorry, but youre not his daughter, and I don’t care too much if youre uncomfortable.  your inconvenient “uncomfortableness” is nothing compared to my uncomfortableness with the fact that he’s gone.  I wish I had told my mom to just tell people to suck it up and keep our answering machine.  it could have been our memento of him, a living memory.  and now when I call my house and hear the answering machine I feel like I’ve reached the wrong house, or a fake house.  I’m hearing a voice I know, but it’s the wrong voice!  and it still is a reminder that he’s not there because it’s not the voice it’s supposed to be, so I’m not sure we succeeded in making people less uncomfortable or in helping them forget.

my skype contact list is interesting.  it includes “aetna,” “dad @ hospital,” “dad’s office,” “Josiah cell,” “st. joseph’s patterson hospital,” and “police station.”  Every time I go to call “Home” (which is usually every other day), I see “Josiah cell” right underneath “janette greenberg” which is right underneath “Home.”  And every time I think Maybe if I just call…  He might pick up right?  Maybe?  It could happen?  He faked his death and ran away?  Did Verizon give his number away?  Who would it be if I called?  How would they feel if they knew who’s number it used to be?  Would Verizon be angry at me that I told them?  Would the person demand a new number and his number become unusable because each person tells the next person that the phone number is cursed?  Would the person be a mother or a father or a 9 year old child that really shouldn’t have a cell phone yet?  If it was a father would he speak to me for a few minutes so we could pretend?

I don’t think I will ever be able to delete him from my contacts.  I will just leave that little bit of hope that he might be waiting, somewhere, on the other end of the phone line.

actually, I cant wait until we sell the house.  though I will probably cry a lot because I will feel we are selling our memories.  we’ll finally have to move his suit that he left hanging over the electric trouser press.  peel that window sticker I made for him that says “Dad” from his dresser mirror and take my sister and my pictures from his mirror.  take all his books and stress balls off the shelf.  empty his drawers of instruction pamphlets from gadgets he gathered over the years.  or we could just leave everything and make a museum for him.

[after writing this i spoke to my mom to ask her what the contraption is called that people use to press their suits, which i learned is “trouser press”.  after she told me, she asked why i wanted to know.  i said “no reason, i was just thinking about it.”  and then she said she had moved the suit that was lying there just last week because she realized it had just been sitting there.  i was offended.  she was moving things around while i was gone.  the memories i have been holding on to of the house and his room are false!  that suit we were going to move when we finally had to pack up all of our stuff was already moved!  i asked her why, “what?!  why did you move it?”  she said “it was collecting dust.”  i said “it’s still collecting dust in the closet!”]

my life is perfect, everything is “in place,” and I’m still sad.  because he’s not in it.  and he’s never going to be in it again.  so I’m probably never going to be happy.  argentina is like a fantasy land.  i can forget or pretend, it’s like living a completely different life.  and here I have two parents and a wonderful italian home.  but when i go home-home and live there for a month before school its going to be very real.  an inescapable real.  and I am afraid.