Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy 'Unhappy' Father's Day

“The longer your parent lived, the more memories you have to cherish. Likewise, the more regrets you have about things you did or didn't do.” 
Maybe some day I will come back and edit this...but here are my thoughts and all their roughness...

So, I guess in some ways I’m glad my dad died when he did. Although, I wish I could have been the person today that I am now, and he could still be alive to see it. In many ways, I am neither as accomplished nor am I as strong in the way that our culture idealizes. That is scary. But, I am also a stronger individual death than I ever was before my dad’s. But I still have tunnel vision. After four years even.

Even when I was a kid, I was terrified of my father dying. I would imagine the ways in which it might happen.  And it was always sudden death. My dad and mom divorced when I was 12…but they started “divorcing” in court when I was 6, it was so drawn out and full of resent. But my dad left before I had any memories of he and my mom being together.

It’s funny how you learn to compartmentalize when you’re in emotional trauma. Even as a child. And how that compartmentalization becomes fractured memories…and a fractured sense of self.   

I won’t lie. I had good people in my childhood. But good people can be bad together. Dysfunction. Fighting. Manipulation. And love. Abnormality sometimes lends itself to good coping skills when it comes to “abnormal” situations. But it also lends itself to an inability to comprehend normality. At all costs. It’s too scary to think everything is and will ever be “okay.”

What would I do then?

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