It's Complicated

When my daddy didn't want to talk about something - my mother's escalating drinking, for instance, or why he wouldn't even consider the possibility of divorcing her - he would give me his sad, resigned, "you'll understand when you're older smile", and tell me that it was complicated.  Guilt, obligation, and trying to do the right thing often are, I would think bitterly.  It was a kind euphemism for "Mind your business" I realized later, an understandable reaction to a child's take on an adult relationship.  I had no idea exactly how clearly I would understand when I got older and found myself trapped in the same kind of relationship.  It's complicated, I told close, well meaning friends who offered me their guest bedrooms and recommended good lawyers.  Emotions are messy, distracting and difficult things, I've learned and here's the bottom line - it's always complicated and it doesn't take much looking to find a reason to stay and tough it out - the devil you know and all that jazz.  I could no more grasp my daddy's decision to stick with it than I could my own so many years later.

Self delusion and denial are dangerous and clever, little devices, always plotting and acting in concert to undermine reality.  Once they have you in their crosshairs, they lie back and wait patiently, winning you over with fear and fraud til one day you wake up and realize that decades have passed and you're still in the same dark place with the same dark people.  If you're lucky, it's enough to jar you into the light - shaky, afraid, unsure and terrified of failing, you take the first steps.  If you fall, you pray it's forward or at the very least, sideways.   You get used to the urge to look back because it never quite entirely fades.

I'm leaving him, I tell my daddy over dessert and coffee, I've had enough.

He's silent, appraising but not judging, not quite making eye contact, toying with his cigarette lighter.

It'll be all right, I say, wishing I sounded more convincing, wishing I felt more convincing.

He loosens his tie and clears his throat but still says nothing.

I want his approval, I realize, want him to tell me it's the right thing, that he thinks it's brave and honest and admirable and sad and that it makes him proud.  

It's complicated, I tell him, but it's clear.

He nods, adds a second helping of sugar to his coffee and sips it.  Waiters are clearing tables around us and the piano player is packing up for the night.  The maitre'd has shed his formal jacket and is thumbing through receipts - he pulls a lever on an old adding machine after he looks at each one - he looks pale and tired.  So does my daddy, I suddenly see.  So, perhaps, do I.

Truth is, it's usually not that complicated.  More often than not, we just make it that way.