my father was in town, mr. zurab. as always he was here only for 48 hours and has created utmost chaos.
familiar story: few friends that got to spend some time with him thought he was absolutely fabulous. he is funny, he looks like mafia guy, he buys everyone countless shots, he has traveled around the world, he philosophizes about life... but also my mother and him can't be in the same room for longer than about 24 hours. my mother begins to nag, to bring up past, why he left her, she starts asking questions about his new wife, his travels... he in return wants her to leave him alone, life goes on as he says.
meanwhile each and every time i am about to have a nervous break down and even worse than that, i get really really sad.
you see when i left home at 15, my parents were happily married. in fact very happily married. i have amazing memories of my childhood. i remember countless parties at our house with many of their friends, mom and dad holding hands and exchanging what at that time seemed too many kisses and boob/ass grabbings, i remember bouquets of flowers and much laughter.
as an exchange student after 9 moths i was very happy to return back to all this. although united states was super interesting and different and amazingly plentiful, i was happy to return to my home, my friends, my city and my parents and rest of my family. well, of course everything went upside down. the soviet union broke up, the war broke out in georgia, my parents couldn't handle economic pressure of literally being left on the streets, so they got divorced. there was no country or no family to return to. to this day every time i leave even for short periods of time, i get so scared, like really scared and worried that i won't be able to return to things as i left them.
i love my dad so much. i can't think of another man in my life that i love as much i love him. i find him totally entertaining and wonderful, but i just don't know how to be around him anymore. i definitely don't know how to be around my divorced parents together.
at times like those, i wonder what if i never came to the u.s. on that stupid exchange program, what if we were still all together when the soviet collapsed and everyone was so freaked out, what if the soviet union stayed intact, how different everything would be.
i love my own family here, i love john and dagny and all my friends. in fact i love my life in salt lake, i really do. but i feel completely detached, de rooted from what is part of my soul.
