CAPTAIN'S BLOG
Today was father's day.
Father's Day has always been a low key event for me. My dad didn't really care for events and fuss - he'd always say the things he wants for his father's day and his birthday is a day on the golf course. And I get that. He's retired now, I think? (I heard he owns some condos.) I figure he's gotta have something like 40 years of gaming to catch up on. My dad is a smart man. I don't know how he has managed to go so far astray of the values he taught me were most important as a kid - one reality, one truth, science and reasoning being the tools that best navigate the world, emotions being relevant but distortionary forces. But he sure has. Now, he believes in a world with two sets of facts - liberal and conservative. There's even a fucking Conservapedia for fuck's sake. How embarrassing. :/ But as a great man once said, there is no easy way to suggest to someone that they may have been wasting their life. Or that their entire political and personal belief system has strayed so far from reality as to become dangerous. And I don't doubt that my father has worked very hard to get to where he is. His life story is filled with hardship and him overcoming that hardship. I wish he could see that I am still very much doing that - as I'm sure he is aware, overcoming hardship is a lifetime process. He pushed himself hard and was rewarded with growth. I don't know what gave him the energy to push himself so hard for so long, but it is a trait of his I envy. Although a transwoman such as myself living in Fort Mcmurray to make a few quick bucks (for 2-3 years) would probably not go as well as someone such as him doing it - I know other people stronger than I who have tried and failed. And, having done the math, it doesn't get me that far ahead without years of time invested, and I mean, what does it mean to say that I don't have the energy or mental stability to do that? Am I lazy? Maybe compared to my father - maybe if I was choosing to not have the energy to work for 12 hours a day for three months at a time in the freezing tundra with no drugs. And it's just true that being trans up north is isolating at best and dangerous at worst. Being pretty will help as much as it will hinder, I suspect. Tradeswomen have issues with tradesmen in Vancouver, and there is no literal shortage of women here. And maybe I'm wrong and Conservatism is right. I admit, that doesn't seem very likely - if so, liberals have constructed a vastly superior lie. The coordination required to position oneself so that every experiment or experimenter supports your point of view is staggering. I doubt my father steps anywhere near the furthest-right conspiracy theories which sincerely suggest that "the Jews run everything", but people in the party he supports do genuinely suggest such theories, and that really is how they explain away the seemingly endless liberal bias of science. Science supports the notions of gay rights and trans rights and raising the minimum wage, and replacing or supplementing the minimum wage with basic income, and socialised healthcare and decriminalising drugs and humans affecting global warming and progressive taxation and the list just goes on and on. But anyways. I appreciated and needed the help my father has been giving me for this last year. And for much, much longer than that. I have never doubted his generosity - but I have doubted his honesty. I always firmly believed in the concept of helping others to the degree that one can. Last month, his final aid, dad's money paid for half of my rent (my job paid the other half) and a bike each for the two people in this world I love the most, so that we might enjoy the simple things in life together a little easier, which is all that really matters in life. If my father can readily afford to send me 500$ a month to help me get ahead and life happily with what I have now, then yeah, I do expect him to do that. I would expect myself to do the same. I don't waste my money - I don't have enough to waste it. My biggest expenditures right now are medication, rent, and food, in that order. If he can't readily afford it - if it offers him any kind of burden other than "reducing the gain of my net worth" - then shit, keep it. I know how hard it is to make money. And I want him to enjoy his life too. I just don't know what his financial situation is really like, because he won't discuss it with me. Is 500$ a month more than like 10% of your monthly income? Then hey, ok yeah, let's talk about things and renegotiate and just be fucking real with each other. Treat me like an adult. Why are my friends and I more honest and open with our financial situations than my own father and I? I am not anticipating ever retiring. I have a job. I'm looking for a better one. Something that means something to me - outreach work. Helping my community. But I'm still negotiating with my mental health and trying to get my hormones right, and it is a looooooong process. I think I'm on the right track with getting off my antidepressants and working on getting my hormones right as a priority, and I think I feel some progress there, although medroxyprogesterone does not seem to be my bag. Which sucks, because that's the only one that is covered, and suddenly, my medication expenses have gone up again. Not including the not-really-that-optional 'optional' surgeries and hair removal that transwomen need. And this is where I'm right about being a Liberal again: My government should cover my hormones. All of them. They should cover your medication, dear reader, too. All of it. 100% of the time. It should come out of the taxes that the wealthy and corporations aren't paying. Maybe some of it could come out of that 10$ dispensing fee, too. It should not be coming out of the pockets of hard working, middle-class fathers who just want to play golf after a long life of just wanting to play golf. Or of their ex-wives. Maybe he thinks my complaints and concerns about the Trump government's similarities and ties to fascism are overblown. Maybe they are. I've never been so conflicted about being right before, and as a transwoman, I've had some real hum-dingers in my time. Getting to be right about this means that he's at least set the foothold for fascist ideas in America. Gerrymandering has weakened the electoral college, and I mean, it's all there, writ large, one tweet at a time: Don't trust the press, only me and who I tell you to trust. Deny deny deny. Fear the different. Expel the misunderstood. Turn to religion for guidance. But maybe then, I'll have the father I know is in there back - he's just a person, and people make mistakes and say the wrong things and believe the wrong things. It's a part of being human. It's part of being human. But it is hard to change those foundational beliefs. This all started because I sent him this comic, by the Oatmeal, on that very subject. I know that my Dad loves me and thinks that he is doing the best for me. I do think I have reached a point where I have invested enough of the extra money he has sent me into building a more secure future, and the extra time and support he has given me has helped me to recover mostly from surgery and start working hard on my mental health again. I couldn't have done any of it and stayed in this apartment without his help, and I really, really appreciate it. Both of my parents promised me, maybe 6 years ago? that if I moved out and needed help to make rent because of my mental health issues, that they would help me. And indeed, they have - although that promise was made before the depth of my needs would be made clear to all three of us. My mother and father both have given deep, deep, deep from their personal funds and it has kept me alive and experiencing life and at times, even enjoying it. It seems like without his help my time in this apartment will finally come to an end. I'm not sure when yet, I love this apartment and will hold onto it as long as I can, but maybe it is time for some change. Just exactly how much change, I cannot say for sure - however I can say at this early stage that I hope that it is extraordinarily incremental. Unless it involves lots of cash in easy to carry bags. And maybe this ADHD coach thing will pan out. If I could just finish something - a game, a story, anything longer than ~4-10 hours of work - that would help. But everything just always gets so boring. Like this post. Sigh.
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AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
March 2022
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