part 48

I have been having some very intense memories since my dad died. They don’t feel like flashbacks, but I do feel what was happening in the past in my whole body now. It’s kind of like when my ears are blocked by a change in air pressure, and then finally release after hours of listening to the world as though submerged in water.

Once on a long flight – I don’t remember where I had been or where I was going - maybe when I was in my late teens or early twenties, I was seated next to a very old man. My ears had gotten blocked up almost immediately after takeoff, and I couldn’t really hear anything. As the flight progressed, my ears felt like they were going to explode.

The very old man I was seated next to was talking up a storm. I was able to interact with him for a bit at the beginning of the flight, but I eventually could not hear what he was saying at all. I didn’t tell him, though – he looked like he was having a really nice time talking, so I just did the nod-and-smile thing back at him.

The whole time I was watching the man talk, I was wondering in the back of my mind if my ears were actually going to explode. It was very surreal. Even though I could see just fine, and feel just fine, and smell just fine, the inability to hear turned everything askew in my mind. Also, it wasn’t a quiet, silent type of not being able to hear, it was much more of a loud, rushing, buzzing type sound.

It was pretty disconcerting – I started to get really claustrophobic on the plane and I had to keep telling myself that I just had to wait. There was nothing I could do. I was pulling on my ears and yawning and chewing gum, and the old guy just kept talking, and I just kept pretending to listen. I think he probably was what kept me calm at that moment.

I was starting to feel a little bit dazed, like I was on drugs or something. It was like my mind was separating from what was happening on the plane because the thing with my ears was too overwhelming for my entire consciousness to deal with at one time. Just as I started to feel like my head was bobbling around on my neck, I felt this sudden relief as one of my ears cleared.

I am reminded of what it felt like to be on the brink of unconsciousness when my dad would choke me. All I would be aware of was the pain under my jaw and ears from his huge hand squeezing my neck so hard that my body was practically dangling in the air below his fist. I would look at his face – he was always so calm, and his face looked like he was trying to settle down a frightened bird by soothing it in his hand and making it feel safe.

If you have ever held a small animal in your hands, you may have noticed that it takes a moment for the animal to realize that just because your hands are around it, it does not mean that it is being crushed to death or even being harmed (not physically anyway – I don’t know much about the psychology of baby bunnies or birds or hamsters when they are involuntarily restrained).

My dad’s face looked like that was what he was trying to do  - be soothing in his own expression and the stillness of his body  - but he was actually about to kill his daughter instead of calm a frightened animal. I would feel the pressure in my head from my blood, and the pressure of his hand on my esophagus. I was always surprised at how it didn’t really hurt.

The only pain in those moments when I knew he was finally just going to kill me was that weight on my esophagus. And then I would start to not be able to hear anything, like when my ears were full of trapped air. And then I would start to see spots and things, like I was watching a television screen gradually become more and more filled with static.

And then he would let go.

Sometimes I would cry, and sometimes I would not. As I got older, I would be less heartbroken at the idea that he was hurting me like that, and instead become angrier and angrier.

When he would take his hand off my neck, and when that one ear finally cleared, it was as much a feeling of shock as it was relief. Being shocked and relieved so intensely at the same time is very strange. That’s what these latest memories have felt like.

Except I wasn’t aware of the pressure in my brain before the release of the memory until the release was actually happening.

That has happened with my ears before, too – they will suddenly clear, and it feels so nice, but I hadn’t noticed they were blocked up to begin with until after they weren’t blocked up anymore.

The memories don’t feel nice like when my ears clear, though. They feel like the cold chill that goes through me a few seconds after I have been badly startled. It feels like being fully consciously aware that I could breathe and swallow and see and hear again, but simultaneously being just as aware of how my dad seemed very serene as he almost killed me – again.

Sometimes calling him “dad” seems too normal to be applied to my dad. I don’t know him as anyone else, though.

The only dad I’ve ever known had me convinced that I was about to die – literally at his hand - at least ten times during my life. That is what “dad” means to me.

When I think I about it too much, about it being my dad who had me convinced that he was the way I would die – on multiple occasions - it just becomes so irrevocably incongruent that the only thing I can do is just remind myself that it actually happened, that it is not happening now, and try to strike some sort of balance between the two without actually concluding anything.

That’s hard to do. But it’s getting easier.

And my dad is still dead, so that helps me feel better, too.