69 + 68 = 137.
In 2008, Austin had 69 days of triple-digit heat. In 2009, it had 68. Those are 137 reasons I wanted to move from Austin. I have many more.
But rather than gripe about all the reasons Austin annoys the hell out of me, I would tell people I wanted to move to be closer to Hawaiʻi. My dad is sick, I said, and it’s so hard to fly home from Austin.
That’s a more sympathetic story than my hatred of six-month summers, five-month allergy seasons and living in Texas. I’ve yet to meet anyone who grew up in Hawaiʻi whose life-long desire was to live in Texas.
I used my dad as a smoke screen. I didn’t want to be closer to him, I would tell myself. I wanted to be there for my mom, who was killing herself to keep him alive. That was the subtext which gave the sentiment some kernel of truth. But for him? Shit, Austin is actually the perfect distance.
If I hated Austin that much — and if I hated my dad that much more — I could have moved anywhere. To Chicago, where my sister lives. To New York City, where I’ve lived before.
But on paper, the west coast made sense. San Francisco and Seattle were both tech-driven cities. San Francisco has a more visible gay community, and I know a lot of people who live in Seattle. It’s also cheaper to fly to Hawaiʻi from those cities than from Chicago or New York City.
How could I argue with the facts?
I felt such an urgency to make this move that I became bitter about a long-planned trip to Japan in 2009. I wanted to divert the scant savings I amassed in such a shitty economy for relocation, but the funds had already been committed. The trip became an obstacle to the next phase of my life.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of how much I wanted to get out versus how much I wanted to go somewhere. Dad didn’t have anything to do with it — he was just a story I told to make my urgency feel legitimate.
Liar.
I flew out to California at the start of 2010 for a job interview. (I didn’t get the job, obviously.) I called my mom after a full day of standing at a white board demonstrating how little I knew about my profession. She put my dad on the phone, and I told him I was in California trying to get a job so I wouldn’t be so far away. The disease at that point affected how well he understood me, and he thought I was already moving. No, dad, I don’t have the job yet.
I’m not the type to put words in other people’s mouth, and I’m certainly no mind reader. But he knew his time was running out, and I bet the idea that I could possibly be closer to home gave him some comfort.
Tell yourself something enough times, and it becomes the truth. And I was telling myself it’s not for him, it’s for me. How well does that really work out?
I could feel the lie of my insincerity even as I was thinking it. Not for him, for me.
Bullshit.
The urgency was always about him. Also for my mom but mainly for him.
After a few more disastrous phone screens, it became apparent that the move wouldn’t happen in time. The least I could do was put myself in a better position financially and professionally to be there for his time.
So I found a new job in Austin and put aside money to pay for that long flight home.