“We’re taught from childhood to stay in ‘your right mind,’ which usually refers to the intellectual mind. Yet what we ‘think’ is so often in conflict with what we ‘know’ in our hearts. I would rather ‘know’ from my heart than to ‘think’ that I know.”
I “thought” I knew what was best for me, even if I needed to sell my soul to get it. The house. After one year of renting, my father threw himself into one huge tailspin.
“You are wasting money, Kathleen! We need to buy you a house,” he said.
“But, Dad...I pleaded. “I want to do that with my future husband and on my own,” All the while, feeling stupid for not taking him up on what seemed to be a generous offer. What am I, crazy? I have cancer and need to make sure that I will be secure. My mind banter was relentless, continually pleading to my parents that I wanted to do these adult things without their help. I no longer wanted to live under their dictatorship, and I thought that the only way out was to not accept a penny. I know that for many people this may be difficult to comprehend. You could be thinking, Who wouldn't want their parents to buy them a home? Under many conditions, I would agree. And under mine, I knew that there was a hook. I knew that I would hear about this home, what he did for me, and how I would be nothing without it or him for the rest of his life-even from his grave.
My father wouldn’t have it. His rationale was that he was going to die soon and that he didn't want the government to take his money. He wanted to make sure that I was taken care of. A screaming match would ensue at the kitchen table while my mother served us food and cleaned the kitchen. Besides our private walks, that’s where most of our arguments took place. Meanwhile, Jay was continually on his own surf trip, telling me that I was selfish in asking him to commit one full day to “us” on the weekends. After all, the surf may be good on that particular day. One can only imagine what my big wave rider created when I told him that I had relented to my father’s persuasive tactics and that my mother had just found a new house under construction twenty ADDITIONAL miles south from his favorite surf spot (already fifteen miles away). He didn’t seem to care that he would be living in a private community, multi-leveled, four bedroom home. I experienced him as obsessed with the local surf spot, the hierarchy of who owns the ocean, and his thirst for a “good shot” in Surfer Magazine. Despite it all, I knew that I was to move into this home overlooking an old, majestic oak tree. One of the many reasons, I knew it was to be mine. At the same time, “thinking” that I was beholden to my dad for buying it. I was twenty-five years old.
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