I don’t know what to tell you
I don’t usually try to shit all over my blog. I do try to take whatever small lessons there are to take from the situation I am in. I do try to figure out what it is I am supposed to learn.
But, right now?
Well, right now I am just pissed off.
I am pissed off at my dad. Pissed off about my dad. Pissed off that I can’t quite wrap my heart around him, can’t forgive him. I can’t even express to him why it is that I am so pissed off.
But mostly? I am pissed off about being pissed off. I don’t play the blame game. The “I’m so fucked up because my daddy was mean to me.” or ” that mean lady said something rude to me so I ran home and ate a pie.” or even “No, I swear it was the broccoli that gave me gas…”. I have come to a point where I own my own my crap. I readily admit my faults. I readily admit when I act like an asshole. That’s all me and I am in control of it.
Here’s the thing, though. All I wanted when I was a kid, was for my dad to be my dad. Not to be a nuisance to him, not to be the last nail in the coffin that cemented him into a marriage for which he was never ready. I sit here, in my adulthood and still all is for him to be my dad. Unfortunately, he never was and never will be capable. My needs and my pain and my wants will always come secondary to his. My broken heart will lay ruined while he gambles away what is left of him.
That is how it has always been and I don’t expect it to change. However, deep in the heart that I have carried since I was little, is a small piece, a little glimmer. Not of hope, but of yearning.
Yearning to have been adored. Yearning for him to have been present. Yearning to have seen my mother cherished as she should have been. Yearning to never have been the receiver of the frustration that comes from living a life, unfulfilled. I yearn to know how much a better partner I could be to The Boy had I known how to be completely honest. Completely myself. How my habits of hiding started so young and damn if those things aren’t hard to break.
It isn’t my dad’s fault that I am how I am. But I am pissed that the first love in my life wasn’t my dad. I hate that it has painted the way I relate to men in ways I fully recognize and in so many ways that I will never know.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:07 am
sadly, some of us will never, ever have a “daddy” kind of dad. or even one who you feel comfortable just calling dad. even though our situations are different, i feel for you. it’s one of the things that takes much working through…
January 24th, 2009 at 1:19 am
I had a great Dad growing up, so I really have no right to complain. Maybe he doesn’t always know how to relate to me as an adult. Our relationship is screwed up in many ways as well, and I’m sorry you didn’t at least get something good before…
January 24th, 2009 at 3:45 am
you know, i do understand… we drive ourselves round the fucking nut house being pissed off about being pissed off…
if you figure a way out shout – likewise i will….
January 24th, 2009 at 4:23 am
There’s a great lesson in this post for me as a Dad. Thanks.
January 24th, 2009 at 6:17 am
No real advice other than it probably doesn’t help you being pissed at something in the past, so hopefully you will let go. And we all have something like this, if not our fathers, something else…
January 24th, 2009 at 6:33 am
I’m sorry. I don’t think there is anything that makes this get better. And although I cringe whenever someone says this to me, your awareness is what will help you make changes in your own life and future. Lame, I know.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Although I’m not in your situation, I feel your pain. I never had a daddy kind of dad. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he never really even liked me as a kid. Our relationship is decent now, but I, too, yearn for the adoration.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I think you’ve got a pretty healthy perspective on it all. It sucks and of course you’re pissed off about it, but I think it is better to acknowledge that and what it does and does not mean for you, which you’ve clearly done here.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:23 am
I used to think if I were angry enough, it wouldn’t hurt so much. In the end the anger/hurt just wore me down. I will never have that daughter/father connection with my own dad. He’s too busy searching for something at the bottom of the bottle. I’m not there, never have been. In the end I just had to realize some things in life, no matter how much you want them, can never be. It came down to letting him bury me with his lack of love, or taking care of me. I chose ME…I find the peace I need for me. My dad/your dad will have to find their own. They shouldn’t have that power to take pieces of us without a price. (Hugs)Indigo
January 24th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Almost there, my dear. Anger is addictive. I still get pissed about the way things were with my father, sometimes. But I made a huge leap when I realized: He is a flawed human being just like me. Hard to be angry at him for the same flaws I had in myself. We get along well these days, I’m happy to say.
I am sorry you may not get that chance for recognition on both sides. But remember that you have to let go of the anger sometime (even if that means running headlong right through it) or it will corrode you from within.
Peace to you.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:32 am
I think you still can take the lessons. I often say that our marriage works because Andy saw what it should be, and I saw what marriage shouldn’t be.
I neither forgave nor forgot my father’s misdeeds. My relationship with him remained toxic until I severed it. When he was dying in a hospital 400 miles away, I didn’t visit because I had nothing to say and nothing to hear. His death gave me some peace.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:54 am
i still have that yearning too — about my mom. she wants so much from me now and she can’t see where this distance between us started. i try. i think i’m past the blaming and taking responsibility for myself. how i am now. still, there are some things that can’t be fixed just because i’m trying to grow up. some things are just fucked up.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am
I believe in taking responsibility for our actions. For who we are. In owning our faults and trying to make them better. But I also know we spend our whole lives discovering flaws that someone else wove into our being. And trying to repair them. It’s a screwed up system. And, one, that is already taking place in my own children’s lives. And we never stop yearning, girl. I think on our death beds there will always be a part of us that still just wants to be loved and cherished by our parents.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Now you know I get this 100 percent.
All I can tell you is this (and it’s probably not going to help): You’re going to reach a point where you say to yourself “So my father was not that kind of Dad, the kind you see on ‘Father Knows Best’ or wherever the hell else they’re feeding us this bill of goods about what fathers should be. It’s okay. He loved me the way he knew how and he taught me lessons — both good and bad — that have made me this freaking fantastic person I am now. He is not perfect, I am not perfect, but I accept that. It’s okay.” There will come a time when you wake up and won’t be pissed off anymore. There will even be a time when you smile when you think of him.
This is oversimplified, but it’s a journey we all have to go on, this coming to terms with our parents (and, in turn, ourselves). Just honor these feelings as they creep up on you and, of course, if you ever want to talk about them, I’m here…
P
January 24th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Lately when I am feeling the emotions of all of my similar stories I pretend I’m filing an insurance claim or police report. Just the facts ma’am. I still claim my emotions and I claim the stories but when I separate the two I realize which one I can do something about.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:57 am
You’re totally ALLOWED to feel like that.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Oh yes. I wish I had some words of wisdom, but would you believe that I have been dealing with the same thoughts this week myself? I have no answers for this one either…I don’t even bring it up in therapy…and sometimes I don’t even think about it.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I’m always sorry when I hear that someone else is struggling because they had/have a father who just didn’t know how to be a good one. Mine was a prick of the first order, and I have to say that his death has brought some peace. Peace that I know that at least I will never have another conversation with him that ends in him insulting me or my family with whatever ignorant, thoughtless comment comes out of his mouth.
You are right in that maybe you would be a different kind of partner and person if you had had that adoration. I’m pretty sure I would have been. I yearned for it when I was younger, but in my 40s that has ceased. It took a long, long time to stop yearning for it. I did many, many self-destructive things before I got over that. I think that you have far more self-awareness about it than I did, and that’s a good thing. You can’t come to terms with it until you know what it is.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I’m sorry.
My relationship with my dad is somewhere between there, where you are, and the “perfect” dad. We’re not close and never have been. His relationship with my mom is obligatory and best… functional.. and not a good model for me of what true love is. We have nothing in common save for family. But he’s a good person and fair. And he loves my boys and I think that’s all I really want if I have to pick.
I’ve learned that I can’t depend on other people to fulfill the roles I expect them to have. I take bits and pieces from all the relationships I have in my life … and together they fulfill my needs. It’s too much for me to assign that to one person, even to S. Too much for anyone’s shoulders.
My hope for you is that you find peace and acceptance in who your father is and what your relationship is. And let that Boy who loves you so, so much, let him fill in some of the holes.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:47 am
You just said everything that apparently I only have the courage to dance around.
Last week my dad asked me to explain this distance between us, and when I showed him where to find the answers (my blog), he still didn’t get it.
I get it.
And I’m sorry this is your experience. You deserved better. We all do. Frustrating that our lot in life is to learn to accept that we didn’t have better than we did.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
i so get this, the yearning. i suppressed my own yearning (and a whole childhood), until the day i got the call that she had passed. and that’s when i finally found that yearning i didn’t know was still there.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Oh Christine.
We are sitting in familiar puddles.
All I can do is nod my head in unfortunate understanding.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
It’s okay to be pissed. It really, really is. But don’t let the anger define you. Let it change you, resolve to be better because of it. You can. Because you’re better than that and you deserve more. Be the change you want to see. Trite. But true.
January 24th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
My father was, as Kat says “A prick of the first order.” And he went out of his way to turn my screws. I had to learn to not let his antics get to me. Sometimes I still run into him and get upset by his actions, but I don’t simmer in the shit like I used to when I was a little younger. I am feeling good about me today, even though I still have to deal with dad, I can’t change him. I just need to work around my anger towards him. If I work through the anger it goes away, even if the things he does leave collateral damage that still needs to be repaied.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I wish I knew how to make it better.
I know those wounds, and that yearning.
I think it’s just ok to be pissed off and let it stand. We can take it.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
You have the right to be pissed. I’m one of the few lucky ones as far as dads go. I can’t even begin to comprehend… You’re right you’re dad should be your first love. I’m going to go call my dad now
January 24th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
My (new and very good) therapist said to me, “We ask so little of our parents, and so it is heartbreaking when they cannot deliver it.”
January 24th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Your dad was/is a selfish bastard, which sucks.
My dad had a pretty high fence around his emotional self and uses a mean wit and ridicule to push others away to keep himself safe. I wish he could change, but now that he is 90, I don’t hold out much hope.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Ah, this one. I have this problem. I stepped into their (my parents’) roles about 12 years ago. I watched my in-laws. They made plenty of mistakes, but, overall they were always a family. They were in it together, flaws and all, and everyone was loved no matter what.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Flutter, sometimes there’s a real disconnect between our expectations of a person and who and what that person reall is. I live this, too. Fall victim to it, time and time again. And each time it’s my fault. I’ve faulty wiring, deep in my heart of wants.
You too, it seems. We’re flawed. They’re flawed. And sometimes it’s ok to just be downright pissed about it.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:14 am
It’s difficult to achieve closure when someone becomes deeply mired in aging and each passing day they fade to a lighter hue of the passion that once made them human to us. Slipping away one tiny sliver at a time. I have no right to offer you advice, you know yourself too well.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Forgiveness is a hardass; not negotiation possible, only acceptance and letting go.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Oh flutter, let it all out…I suspect I will be tormented with all this when I have to face closure with my mom–it’s tough–I’m sure of it. You’re doing the right thing by letting it all out.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I know you can’t tell you dad about your feelings but I’m thankful you share them with us.
Like another poster said… It is a lesson to us parents to remember to treat our children tenderly. Thank you for that.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Oh, how could you *not* yearn for those things?
Your level of self-awareness, though, is astounding. How many people can even recognize, much less mourn, the things you do. It gives me immense hope for your future, blooming happiness, my dear.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I’m sorry, dude.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Seems like you’re opening the gate a bit further to some well-deserved anger. I don’t think women know how to “do” anger, as it’s so culturally taboo. I also have to say, personally, that, while I agree with owning your own stuff, it IS okay to place blame, especially when it’s deserved. It’s more exhausting to let asswipes off the hook than to look them dead-on and be honest.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:37 am
However, deep in the heart that I have carried since I was little, is a small piece, a little glimmer inside. Not of hope, but of yearning.
May you come to know the “yearning” you carry is more along the size of an aircraft carrier. Glimmer shmimmer.
And how living in this awareness means initially traveling alongside deep rivers of grief until the ferryman comes to take you directly into the currents of emotion and across the miles of anger and tears before coming to rest on the shore of acceptance.
The heart is wide, the journey a long one. Pack for all kinds of weather.
And keep the wind to your back, beautiful you.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Oops, forgot to say how much I enjoyed your final sentence.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:02 am
“Yearning to never have been the receiver of the frustration that comes from living a life, unfulfilled.”
This is what I fear about raising my own kids. I am not what was intended, and I let that seep in to all that I do. I’m working on it . . .
January 26th, 2009 at 8:27 am
I get this. And I think it’s good that you are putting it down.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:27 am
So your dad was human, with clay feet. He didn’t love you enough because he didn’t know how. I doubt he ever learned to love himself either. It’s hard to see our parents as they are. We think of them as different from us when they’re not. They’re the same as us, messed up, messing up, deeply flawed humans and they happen to be our parents.
Being angry is okay. Eventually you can let go of that and move on. It took many, many years for me to forgive my father but I did, before he did. I’m thankful for that. Didn’t make it any easier to deal with him but I was able to let him go more easily.
So what am I saying? I don’t know. Parents are human, we’re all fucked up, well most of us. We all try our best, just oftentimes our best sucks.
Sending a hug sweetie because I know, it hurts.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Not before he did, before he died. My bad:)
January 26th, 2009 at 11:30 am
One of the most disappointing things about the universe is that self-understanding does not lead instantaneously to healing and freedom from those things about us we would like to escape. I can see where I am going wrong – I just can’t seem to deflect my path.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Oh Christine. This one really hit me.
My husband is a loving man, a father of four children. My daughter is his third child…the oldest two are with his first wife. We also have a younger son together.
My husband has absolutely no relationship with my daughter. He was never the loving, caring father who took her places and did things with her. All she has ever gotten from him is judgments and disapproval. And there’s nothing I can do about it. He has a problem with women, which stems from his relationship with his own mother, and at the age of 63, he’s never going to change. I worry every day what my daughter will have to go through to be content in life, and now, reading this, I wonder if it’s even possible. She’s 19, has never had a date, and is overweight. And I blame him. And so does she.
Sorry, this blog is about you, not me and my kid but I had to tell you…I know how you feel.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I am so sorry you never got the father you most certainly deserve.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Here’s the thing: whenever I think I haven’t earned this anger, I remind myself: me and my parents were not on equal playing fields. I can’t judge my own emotions, give them the credit I would give to a peer, because parents are not peers. They aren’t supposed to be. They are supposed to be above us.
When they’re not, it’s okay to feel anger. It just is.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Oh flutter – I am one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who had a dad who told me I was pretty and smart and all the things dads are supposed to do….and I still stumble through the world of men. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being pissed off…but what comes next?
January 26th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
ok so this isn’t funny. but i was totally picturing you shitting on your blog wearing those kick ass heels.
and then i thought, well if i tell her this, she will have to laugh. there’s no other option.
i love you
January 27th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I feel that. Too well. My father left my mother and became rather like the rich uncle who dropped in from time to time. Which meant that I had no real relationship with him until about 10 years ago, when his second wife threw him out. And I’m pissed that I didn’t have that.
But you know? Pissed off is better than depressed.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Being pissed is a hell of a lot more productive than being a doormat and getting walked all over, but even being pissed has to pass away at some point, or it consumes you and you’re left being the very thing that you’re pissed at.
I know girl, it’s some fucked up shit our parents bequeath us, isn’t it? My parents are both some serious pieces of work, so I’m feeling you.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I read this and did not expect what came next, tears. I read this and kept thinking, my very own teenage son could have written this, maybe some day he will actually write the words out but for now he is stuck in the teen struggel of not caring, pretending, not owning all those terrible feelings of abandonment…
January 30th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I’m so sorry that you missed that relationship with your father. That he isn’t there for you, and wasn’t there.
I have deep admiration for you that you were able to meet The Boy, who is kind and loving, and have that relationship. For that… you know is rare.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:37 pm
i’m looking around here but I see no shit around your blog.
I loved what you said about wanting to have seen your mother cherished. I think that is very important and there is a key something in there.
you have struck a deep and resonant chord.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Through my own past horrid depression inner mental rages, what can be offered? This: blow your emotions to the wind, sit under a tree–watch the sky, moon, stars, clouds. Conclude that you are a unique individual, constructed from the past fuck-up neglects, etc. Find your inner child, self. And just be you. Just you.