I went to see my therapist this afternoon. We spent most of the time discussing my anger since I’ve come back from San Francisco, and we also touched upon the upcoming Vancouver trip that Chris and I are planning to take my parents on. It will be the second trip that we’ll be taking my parents on, the second trip we’ve taken altogether when Ed has not been around. It will be the second trip that we’ll be paying for.

My therapist said she thought it was extremely generous and thoughtful to want to take my parents on these trips, and she asked why I wanted to do it not just once, but a second time, particularly given we know how difficult these things can be and my differences with my parents in general in life. I thought about it for a second, and I responded that my mom always wanted to travel to see other places, but my dad, being a hermetic and antisocial and anti-change homebody, didn’t see a reason to. My mom’s lived a really hard life and has had to experience and witness things that no one should have had to go through, I said. She deserves to see at least a little bit of the world, and if I want that to happen, I need to do it myself. No one else will take her — not even my dad. “And frankly, I’m scared that my parents will die one day never having seen anything of the world,” I said.

What this is ultimately about is that I just want my parents to enjoy life and be happy. That’s all I really want. I want them to do things they’d like to do that they may think are frivolous, but things that they’d gain happy moments from. I don’t think this is a lofty or esoteric type of wish; it’s actually quite simple. But with my family, the simplest things always have the potential to get extremely complicated.