The Trouble With Finishing My Dissertation

When my dad used to pick me up on the weekends, this hard rock of anxiety would crystallize deep inside my belly. I wanted to see him. I did. I wanted to see him. I wanted to see my grandpa. I wanted to see my Uncle Max, my Uncle James, my Uncle Mario, my cousins Christopher and Christy. What I did not want to see was how he lived. I didn't want to see the bare mattress where he slept on the floor of a house where my mother and I no longer lived. I didn't want to see mismatched plates and cups, or an empty refrigerator, or beer bottles. And I definitely didn't want to help him feed the horses that I suspected he had always loved more than me. All I wanted was maybe a simple lunch or dinner at Pizza Hut and that was it. That never happened. Instead I would spend all week waiting for his truck to pull into the driveway. Studying. Memorizing every capital in the United States. Reading about Presidents, American Indian chiefs, important battles in Texas history. By the time his weathered truck pulled into the driveway I was ready. I was ready for the hour and a half drive to Lubbock. We drove past windmills, through towns so tiny they didn't even merit stop lights. Towns with names like Happy and Shallowater. Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash came through the static of AM radio. But not 15 minutes out of Canyon, the quiz started. Tell me about the Alamo? What really happened at Goliad? What's the capital of Vermont? Who was the 6th President? Who was Quanah Parker? And on and on. Maybe if that had been all that would have been great. Maybe if these little 90 minute history lessons had been it, that would have been just fine. But the visits stopped. I won't say I'm sorry. I didn't look forward to seeing the way he lived. I felt guilty as hell for the way he lived and because I had not been able to stop my mom from leaving in the first place. Then the phone calls started.

I have been sitting in front of my computer for four years. I struggle to write a single chapter, sometimes paragraph by paragraph, or word by word, and so many times I hear his voice. I told your mother I wouldn't pay her one red cent in child support. I know you're angry, Dad. I know we hurt you. I know I hurt you. I'm so sorry. You know I was really smart in school, too but your grandpa always pulled me out to go work. I never got to finish a single year. I know, I know. I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry. Working in the fields is so hard. It wasn't anyplace for a little kid. I don't even know how you survived.

We had these conversations. Twenty years later I know I don't deserve a life where I write, teach and never have to work really hard. My parents, my grandparents worked in fields. What have I done? I try to incorporate my father, my family into everything I write but really I know that nothing I do will ever be enough. All I want is to deserve to be his daughter, to deserve to be their granddaughter -- to write the thing that finally really says I'm so sorry.