I don’t think this is a good idea.
Participating in Holidailies — no, not a good time. But here I am.
I make it a point not to talk about family. I run under the assumption that somehow, somewhere, someone I know can read this site, and given my tendency toward … mature language, I prefer those readers not to be related to me.
But events from the past two weeks which have dominated my life deal directly with family, and despite my reservations, I feel some misguided responsibility to log these events for that nebulous notion of posterity.
My dad passed away a week ago and a day.
You probably have some knee-jerk reaction to say something comforting at this point because perhaps you have filtered that last sentence through your own experience, or you’re trying to picture your own life without someone so significant.
Hold off on that sentiment for now.
We can most likely agree this situation is all kinds of suck, but what compounds the suck for me is ambivalence. I can’t say I liked my dad, and manners prevent me from being more forthright.
The gap he leaves in my mom’s life is heart-breaking, and the fact that he’s gone — not just away, but flat out gone — is something that probably won’t make itself apparent till a week from now, when he is buried.
Damn. Happy holidays.
Take this entry, then, as a caution. I’ve managed to complete Holidailies every year I’ve participated. I endeavor to do the same again. But I’ll have a wealth of experience from which to draw which will most likely put a damper on your holiday cheer.
For now, I may as well do the customary introduction.
Hello.
Welcome to VexVox. I wrote an online journal from 1996-2006 named 日々の本. I thought I was done with journal writing back then, but I really wasn’t. I started up a site on Vox called VexVox. Then Vox shut down a few weeks ago.
I transferred those entry to a Typepad site, which I then re-imported here on my personal domain. This site is VexVox V.2. (VVV2?)
日々の本 has been squirreled away behind a password, and I no longer link to it (but it’s not impossible to find if you know where to look.) I do most of my writing on Musicwhore.org these days, when I’m not distracted by my home recording studio project, Eponymous 4. In an effort to reach my Holidailies quota, some of that content may spill over here.
I pay the bills with web development, but in the past I’ve been a journalist, a desktop publisher and a record store clerk.
Yours is the first new blog I’ve come to through Holidailies. I will offer condolences on the death of your father. I know the ambivalent feelings when the relationship with a father has not been there. No matter how you felt, it’s a rotten time of year to have to deal with a death.