Last night I went to bed at six in the morning. Two hours later I woke up in order to clean house because my parents were at the doctor’s office and I work better alone. That is, without my father looking over my shoulder. You know how it goes, too many cooks in the kitchen. Anyway, my plan was to spruce the place up for company coming tomorrow and be back in bed before my parents got back home–like a surprise, even though I’d told my mom this was my plan. So not like a surprise at all. Well, three hours later I was almost done. I just had a little vacuuming left, and–boom–in walk the parents. Busted–caught in the act of cleaning.

Okay. How do I say this? So I’m pushing the vacuum around, basically because my dad asked me to earlier this week. And I wish I were a saint and didn’t need any gratitude for fulfilling such requests, but I’m not, so I’m thinking a little “Thank you, Marc” would be nice. I mean, a lot of things would be nice, like 20/20 vision or winning the lottery, but sometimes the world isn’t a nice place. Well, you’d just have to know my dad, or know my dad and me, because he skipped over the whole gratitude thing and said, “It doesn’t look like you vacuumed under this rug over here–see how there’s a wrinkle right there?–that was there when we left.”

Wash the dishes, Cinderelly.

I said, “See, this is why I waited until you left to start cleaning.”

“So I wouldn’t be telling you what to do?” he said.

“Right.”

I’d like to extend as much grace to my father here as possible. This type of back-and-forth has gone on with us about one thing or another since I was a child, and I know he comes by his part honestly. I remember watching my grandfather come in behind my dad and redo things “his way” even when my father was an adult–like I am now. Also, I know that I’ve come in behind others and redone things in an effort to get everything “just so” or “perfect.” But it sucks to be the one it happens to, to be told whatever you didn’t wasn’t good enough, especially when you’re trying to do something nice for someone else. Maybe this is why everyone gives gift cards anymore–we hate it when our gifts are returned.

This afternoon I took a nap. That helped. But then I got my blood work back from the doctor’s office. And whereas there were no major problems, my cholesterol was high. It’s always high, but apparently now it’s even higher, despite my mostly healthy diet. (I know, cholesterol is inherited, but I hate that.) Anyway, I already feel like my body is falling apart and that I don’t have any answers, so it was a letdown. I just feel like everything in my life is so–broken. To his credit, my dad said, “Marc, don’t worry about that–we can get that under control. And everything else is going to work out, I promise.”

Oh, and he thanked me for cleaning.

The rest of the day has been jam-packed. I worked on some therapy material, journaled, meditated, and spent an hour composing an email for a business meeting tomorrow. Around midnight I went to Walmart to buy groceries for both me and my parents. The cart was full. Midway down the juice aisle, I noticed that I felt absolutely wiped out, depleted. For a moment I started to push, to bear down and just “get shit done” in my usual fashion. The word that kept coming to my mind was “grit,” and I can’t quite explain it, but I know I’ve been doing it for a long, long time. It’s like my body tenses up ever so slightly, and I start to shut my feelings down, like, I just can’t do this right now.

This method of walking through the grocery store or life works for a while, of course. But the problem is that after twenty or thirty years, you’ve walled off so much of yourself that even you don’t know who’s inside you. There’s this whole range of emotions you no longer have access to. You end up being a mere shadow of who you could be. So tonight on the juice aisle, I told myself it was okay to feel whatever was there, to even cry if I needed to. I mean, I was wearing sweatpants in Walmart, so clearly my standards had already been relaxed. Oh hell, I thought, let’s go a little lower.

Well, I didn’t cry at Walmart. When I got home, Mom and Dad were asleep, so I put the groceries away solo. Then I futzed with the jigsaw puzzle we worked on over Christmas. Earlier today I glued it together in order to get it off the kitchen table. Wouldn’t you know it, the glue kind of clumped up in one corner, and a little fleck of the puzzle got ripped off. I fixed it with a black marker, but for a moment it was more than I could take. The straw that broke the came’s back or whatever. Maybe that’s how Dad felt about the wrinkled rug. Like, life ain’t easy and his wife has cancer, and can’t one fucking thing go right? Can’t I even control this rug?

Can’t I even control this puzzle?

I don’t know if y’all do this, but sometimes when I listen to a song I pretend someone else is singing it to me. Sometimes it’s a past or future lover, and sometimes it’s even God. For the last year or two, sometimes I pretend I’m singing to me, or like a part of me is singing to another part of me. I guess it’s like affirmations (you’re good enough, you’re smart enough) set to a steady beat. Anyway, my favorite song to do this with Rick Astley’s biggest hit. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.

What can I say? I love the eighties.

After I got all my “chores” done, I put a chicken pot pie in the microwave because I’ve heard those are good for cholesterol. Then I put my headphones in and put the song “Lego House” on repeat. I fell in love with a new version of this song earlier this week, and it’s got a great “to me/from me” vibe. So I’m looking at my reflection in the microwave, the lyrics start to break my walls down, and the tears come. It’s dark in a cold December, but I’ve got ya to keep me warm. If you’re broken, now I’ll mend ya, and keep you sheltered from the storm. I’ll pick you up when you’re gettin’ down … I think I love you better now.

I can’t tell you how important I think this is, promising yourself that despite all the things in life that are beyond your control, you’ll never fully abandon yourself, seeing to it that the walls you’ve built up are brought down once and for all. It’s like you think you’re protecting yourself by putting up barriers, by stiffening your upper lip and gritting your way through life, by not feeling. However, you end up living life a stranger to yourself, and that sucks. But I truly believe that the more you let your walls down, the more you’ll like the person who’s been hiding behind them. Brick by brick, everything will change for the better–I promise. Then one day while looking at your own reflection, you’ll finally know–of all the broken things in your life, you’re not one of them–and you never have been.