Disconnected

“I don’t think I love them, most of the time I don’t even like them.”

“Course you do mate, would you cry if they died?”

“Err… I guess.”

Outside English class at secondary school, early teen years, talking to a football friend about what I don’t remember. But I distinctly remember uttering those words… about mum and dad.

Twenty years on, my parents have not been around, or felt relevant, for any of the major changes, highs, or lows, of my adult life. Partly by living in a different country, but even before, a different type of distance.

Yes, we all lived together, and I owe them my existence and a safe and free childhood, but even then, I never felt warmth, love, and support like I have since with friends and partners, even partners’ parents. It’s always felt like an unsupported journey, precarious, but over time it becomes familiar and more at ease. But not always. Reminders of discomfort come from outside.

Around Christmas time, when everything is about “family”, everything is about “togetherness” and “love”. I find myself going through the motions, devoid of any authentic feelings of love or warmth to my own.

Every time I mention, “oh my parents live abroad”, people ask, “Do you go often?” The honest answer is no. I don’t like going, I feel instantly numb going there, stifled. It’s a mixture of boredom and frustration that I can’t be myself or connect to them in a way that feels genuine. It’s back to the quiet child role of old. I can’t be myself; we can’t talk about anything meaningful or interesting, small talk is the only bridge I have to those, society demands, I’m closest to.

In the 50-minute car drive from the airport to their place in the mountains, a familiar scene. Safe talk of the weather, describing things they have done or seen, an ambitious question like “what projects are you working on?” But no follow ups, little sign of listening or interest; a safe retreat to hobbies or commuting time soon follows.

The frustration starts early. Invariably I’ll start answering a question and Mum will interrupt with something; either a tenuous closed follow-up question, shutting down the conversation, or at best, demonstrating she’s not interested in the answer to the original question and has been forcibly trying to think of something to say and has blurted it out as soon as it comes to mind. Dad has an equally quirky way of telling you the answer he expects you to give in the question he’s asking. “You mustn’t like working from home much?” And because most of the guesses are off, you are forced to start from misunderstanding and plot a course back to truth. The trick is to soften and shorten that journey. “Oh yeah, I recognise some people wouldn’t like it, but I...” Words travel back and forth – as so do the interruptions, the closed questions and the expected-answer-questions – but no conversation occurs.

I genuinely get an instant sense of anxiety from my mum, a social anxiety and nervous tension that feels catching. Over the last 10 years I’ve noticed she holds her hand to her face more and more, to the extent that it’s now there almost all the time, often covering half her mouth, so I can’t hear her fully. It’s like a shy girl hiding behind a fringe, partially hiding, self-comforting perhaps. She almost rubs her hand on her face, crumpling up her cheek, but in a tense and fragile way, compensatory for something I don’t yet know. It makes me uneasy.

Dad’s conversation is of the senses, I ate this, I saw that, we went there. Never straying into the realm of ideas, emotions, society, anything that floats my boat. Although that said, biking has helped give us some talking points, and I can always join in the I ate this, I saw that, I went here. But this is on a level of connection you might get with a work colleague within a week. Nothing more nothing less.

Later at dinner I watch Mum eat with her mouth open while anxiously darting about from task to task, from half question to half answer, scatty. It used to annoy me, the eating with the mouth open, but I’ve gotten used to it over time and any number of polite and impolite mentions doesn’t seem to have done anything to abate it. Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep chipper and keep the conversation alive by throwing out as many avenues for conversation as I can muster. But one by one they shrivel. Slowly the enthusiasm is eroding inside. I left myself back home. Whatever life is left, is draining away fast, whatever soul travelled across the sea, is wilting.

I have felt more insights into the hearts of others in three months than I do my own creators. Maybe that is the core of my frustration. It seems like we could all do much better. But I, we, have tried and failed, and I am struggling to accept the new reality that this might be it. I don’t remember when I first gave up trying, and consciously tried accepting, but it was gradual, and not without a few U-turns. A tough road.

When little I moved to a town from the countryside. Kids would turn up to the door and ask me to play football, I’d say yeah, and step out the door. They’d say, “wait, don’t you need to tell your parents where you’re going?” Unthinkingly I’d say, “they don’t know where I am.” They have not known me, and I have not known them.

Because I’ve known no different, our relationship only really comes into focus by comparison with others. Not a healthy thing to do, but what else do I have?

Getting dropped off at University I noticed others having dramatic goodbyes, “call me this evening” or “call me at the weekend” they’d say, as they’d finished unpacking and turned for the off. I felt little, just a “see you” with the awkward subtext that we’d made no plans to actually see each other or communicate at all.

In the first few days, weeks, and months I realised how distant our bond was. People would be phoning home constantly, emails, letters even little gifts. I had no desire or plan to go home and seemingly my parents were on the same page. They’d know my degree, because they helped cart me to induction days and I’d changed the subject three times. But now I was in another place, it didn’t feel any more distant. I was doing my thing, they were doing theirs, as always.

Graduation day, we go to the ceremony as a three, I’ve said my goodbyes to friends days before, but I keep getting asked, “where are you going after the ceremony? “Home”, I say, “No, where are you going with your parents to celebrate?” “Oh”, I say, embarrassed that I didn’t know this expectation existed, and we’re just going home to have sarnies and do nothing, “we’ll probably head out another time.”

I do have a lot of respect for Mum and Dad, they are good, fair, decent people, but in the realm of genuine human to human understanding, warmth, or connection, it is all a bit tepid. Maybe it’s because our way is unfussy, underwhelming, muted.

Celebrations, only Birthday’s really, were semi-annual trips to the chain pub a half an hour drive away, feeling like a mini excursion given our neighbours were fields for miles around. After feigning the ability to try something new with a few minutes of menu reading, often aloud, Dad invariably has scampi, half a cider and some sort of sundae that comes with a long spoon. Mum has fish and chips or a pie, half a cider and some heavy chocolate cake, sticky toffee pudding or brownie. Both are flustered when the waiter comes over, they’re feeling the pressure to order early but are too shy to ask for more time, or unaware that’s even possible. Mum’s hand has crept to the corner of her mouth, Dad seems to be figuring out how the light fittings work.

This is it.