These last 2.5 years, I find myself spending far more time with my dad than I have in the last 40 plus years. This has been both wonderful and trying. Wonderful because we have had to forge a new relationship, since my brother and mother have both died and there are only the two of us. Trying, because the new dad I have discovered after 40 plus years never stops talking. It's not really a conversation, its mostly just a monologue that consists of every single thought that crosses his mind, unfiltered and largely unconnected to anything I (or anyone else) may say or any response given to his previous statements.
Often (really often!) its the same set of repeated stories of his working days, with some repeating childhood memories thrown in there, and all the freshly polished memories that he can dredge up about the past. None of these stories are about the future. Granted, I too may well be feeling and experiencing and living this when I am 78 years old and don't believe that there is much of a future remaining.
But after 2.5 years of this, and after trying 15 different strategies to break through and have an actual conversation (which I admit, happens occasionally, but nowhere nearly often enough!) I have started to wonder what kinds of stories will I tell at this stage of life? Those pieces and experiences of my past that I value are so radically different than my dad's, it has really made me pause and think about this.
I have been to 50 countries and have lived in five. I am extremely well traveled and speak multiple languages. I have accomplished things few even dream about in the world that I grew up in and where my dad lives. But unlike my dad, I don't think my stories will be about my jobs, nor all the nuances that are a part of my work. Even if I told those stories, I think few people would understand them and especially not the significance of them.
So I don't think I will detail all the jobs that I have had, cars or machines I have driven, nor how hard I worked, nor how the big people put me down. The stories that I think about are much more about the experiences I have had like visiting the temples at Angkor Wat, riding my bicycle across the entire United States, or the people who I had the privilege to challenge and lead, and the lives I intersected with in all these places. It's about the people you changed, not which activities you did or didn't do or got credit for or denied along the way.
Often (really often!) its the same set of repeated stories of his working days, with some repeating childhood memories thrown in there, and all the freshly polished memories that he can dredge up about the past. None of these stories are about the future. Granted, I too may well be feeling and experiencing and living this when I am 78 years old and don't believe that there is much of a future remaining.
But after 2.5 years of this, and after trying 15 different strategies to break through and have an actual conversation (which I admit, happens occasionally, but nowhere nearly often enough!) I have started to wonder what kinds of stories will I tell at this stage of life? Those pieces and experiences of my past that I value are so radically different than my dad's, it has really made me pause and think about this.
I have been to 50 countries and have lived in five. I am extremely well traveled and speak multiple languages. I have accomplished things few even dream about in the world that I grew up in and where my dad lives. But unlike my dad, I don't think my stories will be about my jobs, nor all the nuances that are a part of my work. Even if I told those stories, I think few people would understand them and especially not the significance of them.
So I don't think I will detail all the jobs that I have had, cars or machines I have driven, nor how hard I worked, nor how the big people put me down. The stories that I think about are much more about the experiences I have had like visiting the temples at Angkor Wat, riding my bicycle across the entire United States, or the people who I had the privilege to challenge and lead, and the lives I intersected with in all these places. It's about the people you changed, not which activities you did or didn't do or got credit for or denied along the way.
