Stranger in a Strange Land

I think it started because I complained to him that we don’t talk anymore (like we used to do, feat. Charlie Puth)

So now and then he appears at my desk. “Hey Mom, how was work today?” I tell him something true, like “I made 17 versions of the same Excel spreadsheet” or “I built 20 different slides about the same topic.”

BTW I have never been the kind of parent who lectures her kid about the meaning of a job, or tries to instill some “purpose” into the idea of a career, all that BS.  For me, the highest goal in life is to live a goalless one, alongside the loved ones who live this life with you.

He usually pauses for a second to assess whether 17 versions of the same Excel spreadsheet or 20 different slides about the same topic counts as a good day or a bad day. Then he responds either “Oh, that’s cool” or “Oh, I’m sorry,” and rushes upstairs back to his room.

Recently he has been even a little more attentive. I think it’s because he noticed I had been practicing the physiological sigh, a vagus nerve trick where you take two quick inhales and one long exhale that sounds, to others, like someone who has finally had enough.

The sigh was not the only sign. Around the same time, my husband asked me something at dinner.  We usually talk in Chinese.  My brain answered him in Chinese, but somewhere between the 50 Excel tabs I was still thinking of and my mouth the words got scrambled, and what came out sounded like a person who had just had a stroke and messed up speech function.  My husband and son found it hilarious.  I found it alarming.

So one evening my son heard my vagus nerve sigh, and he approached me.

“Mom, when can you not work for a long time?”

“July,” I said. “I’ll take a long vacation in July.”

“No. Other than vacation. Can you just stop working for a long period of time?”

“I need to provide for the family,” I said, “and keep our health insurance.”

He nodded. “Oh yeah. That’s right.”

Then he gave me a quick neck massage and asked me if I know Mr. Beast, a YouTube man with some sort of game. He explained the rules. I did not understand the rules. “Maybe I should get on the game and push the button,” he said. “If I win a million, you don’t have to work anymore.”

“Aww.” He is still my sweet boy.  But maybe I should probably consider doing this game myself instead of counting on him.

“If you had a million and never had to work,” he asked, “what would you do?”

I said I would do my own research. Pick a cold case, maybe. Or interview serial killers and write their stories.

“But how do you make sure the serial killers don’t kill you?”

Obviously, I said, I would only interview the ones who are locked up. For a while I was so deep into stories about the CECOT mega prison that I read every article I could find, including ones not in English, run through Google Translate.

“What would you do,” I asked him, “if you never had to work for a living?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

“Is that OK?”

“Yeah. Of course it’s OK. I still haven’t decided between the serial killers and the long substance users for my research. We both have time to figure it out.”

Later he sounded like he was opening a formal investigation on his own.

“How many bosses do you have, Mom?”

“Technically one. But I’m in a support function, so in practice, many many many bosses can ask me to do stuff. I am everyone’s problem and no one’s priority.”

“Do you have anyone you can boss around?”

“No. I am the bottom of the bottom. There is no one beneath me to hand things to.”

“But out of all these bosses, who can actually fire you?”

“Probably just my real boss.”

“Oh. Ok. Solutions found.”

Then he reminded me of something I had apparently said to him once, which I do not remember saying. “You told me not to take on other people’s problems as my own. So stop taking on other people’s problems as your own. If they can’t fire you, just shut them down.”

I told him this was, in fact, excellent advice.

“Mom, have you ever shown in public that you were mad? Have you ever been confrontational?”

“Not really. I’m not confrontational at all. How about you? Have you ever been confrontational?”

“Oh yeah. Violence is the ultimate path to everything.”

I chose not to ask where he got this. This is not good parenting.

It was, against all odds, the most therapeutic session I had had in a while. Certainly better than my online therapist from BrightSide Health, who probably bills my insurance over 500 dollars per 30 minutes to ask me what I am trying to achieve, and who keeps trying to apply a psychoanalysis framework, which I have read too many books about.

My son did it for free, unstructured, frameworkless, while explaining a YouTube game I still do not understand.  He then went upstairs and probably did not think about any of it again.

And I thought, whoever hires this kid is getting a bargain.