Good Advice

Dear Vivienne,

Life is interesting. You promised me that it would be. I remember you told me it would be difficult. No one else ever said that. Mom was fair about it; she promised that if I worked hard then I would reap the benefits. Dad said that things would not be handed to me in life. For a work ethic, they basically imparted that I had a lot of shit to do if I wanted to get anywhere. You said that however hard I worked, I would be met with resistance, troublesome people who would stand in my way or say no I cannot do that or no you must not do that, and sudden realization that because I truly want something does not automatically mean I will get it.

Earlier, I thought that meant, well, then why work at all, hard or soft on projects or love or commitment or schedules. Just fuck it all, seriously. Fuck It All Seriously. Do not take anything for granted, but accept the things that come and seriously ignore adversity, move past it, and try to find something else that works instead.

Now I am not so certain. I should have asked you to be more specific. It seems that all the good advice I ever got was in metaphors. That's lovely, but what happens if I'm interpreting it wrong? What if I took it wrong? What I was wrong? It only now occurs to me, likely dozens of years too late that the people giving me advice could have been wrong.

Even you, my dear Vivienne... you have lived sixty-seventy-some years and you must know by now that through those turns and twists that you had to turn and twist backwards to get to where you started and try again. And it must be that the advice you gave me at 8 or 18 must have been based on what you learned. But in those 10 years, you must have learned something as well that may contradict what you earlier said. So who do I listen to... the grandmother (yes, Vivienne, I know) that told me so at 8 or the grandmother (yes, Vivienne, again) at 18? All in-between? The days between those years, you spoke to me, were there clues to transitioning opinions? Surely.

Am I asking too much? I can't depend on you to know everything or tell me exactly what to do unless I was I researching to play you onstage (sometimes I wonder if I'm not). So maybe I think that I ask too much of you, am expecting you to give me all the answers when you had to struggle them for yourself. But can't that be the benefit of at least going through it all? To know, triumphantly, that you can impart what you had to go through so the one you love does not have to go through what you needed to go through to get through it all.

Vivienne, I must confirm: I have no idea what in the hell I am doing.

My love to you this holiday season,
Viktor