I called my parents in Taiwan this afternoon to remind my father to have the doctor there prescribe Parkinson’s meds for mom. I explained that I had spoken with a few people about the lesser known variants of Parkinson’s and turns out, immediate response to the meds confirms the disease.

He agreed to discuss with the doctor at her appointment tomorrow. Then he asked about this weekend. I said John was back East again, and I was doing open houses. He sounded surprised I was working again… he shouldn’t be surprised but I dunno, he was. Then, he made another unexpected statement. He said he was proud of me. Then he added, “but what’s most important is that you show concern and care for us.” I’m telling you. This aging shit is a game changer. I mean, to be honest, I almost don’t even know how to respond to this level of acknowledgement. I feel like my whole life I have been trying to show my parents that their energies and efforts and investments were NOT wasted on me. Even when they were visiting recently, anytime my father mentioned his friends, as soon as he said their names, he would follow with their kids’ names and their kids’ cv. Seriously. Like last week, he told me this story about how his friend has been trying to convince dad to sell his own real estate in Maryland. Like do a For Sale by Owner. Omfg. “So XYZ was trying to tell me to do FSBO. His daughter Jennifer is an orthopedic surgeon at Hopkins, and his son is a PhD of biochemistry at Harvard.” Blah blah, that is seriously how the conversation went.

So it is really weird now to hear that he is happy my real estate career is growing, but that’s not what’s important. I mean, clearly he and mom were very grateful for their visit. They genuinely had a good time, and my dad sounded kinda vulnerable saying these things to me. That said, it’s a welcome reversal and yet it feels so foreign. Yeah, I’m still kinda perplexed tbh.