We Will Pay the Price

“We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost”

After seeing Rush live in Toronto for their Fifty Something tour, I have a newfound appreciation for their song Bravado. It was one of those songs I hadn’t really ever given much thought to, and now is constantly playing on a loop inside of my head since I heard it.

August 20th officially marked the 10th time I didn’t get to celebrate my mom’s birthday with her because life sucks and people die way before their time or before both of you are ready. That concert cracked something open in me that I have been trying to shove down, and my therapist has said is “a good thing” and sometimes “we have to feel those feelings” to which I promptly reply, “why?” or “no, thank you”. Which both seem like super healthy answers in my opinion.

I knew I’d be emotional, but I had seemed to completely forget in the grand scheme of things, that I shared a lot of those same concert moments with my mom and not just my dad. Which didn’t decide to hit me until the opening notes of Xanadu, and then it decided to do me the grand ol’ favor of hitting me like a freight train I never saw coming. Cool, cool, cool. Thanks for that. No warning. No buildup. Just the sudden drive-by grief thought “the last time you saw them play live, you had both of your parents with you”. And then I was crying while simultaneously trying not to and hoping every middle-aged dad around me just thought I was having an emotional criss at seeing Rush on stage. It was partly that. But more of the other thing.

The thing that is a constantly low-grade hum no matter what day, time, activity, thought, bone-deep part of my existence now that I am still (and probably forever) going to try to come to terms with. That this is how it is, and they will forever be woven into every goddamn thing I do for the rest of my life. And that is the price I pay for being able to love them and have had that love returned.

The price I paid was every moment I spent taking care of them, of always having my phone on, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always being in a position to be counted on, not doing things or taking opportunities that would have taken me away from home, every sleepless night, every spiral, every moment. Knowing how much it cost me, and without hesitation, knowing I would do it all over again. Loving them has been paying me grief dividends that I wouldn’t give up because it meant the love was there.

Whatever those years cost me, emotionally, mentally, physically – I will not count. Because the price of loving someone and being loved is the wherewithal of knowing one day it’s going to end and doing it anyways and I will pay it every fucking time.