Howdy gang,
I’ve
been trying to make up for lost time, in more ways than one. I’ve gotten so far
behind on my posts and it seems like I am playing catch-up in so many aspects
of my life right now. I’ll quit playing coy here and I think it is just best
for me to hop in…so here I go. (Quick disclaimer/warning: This post isn’t my
typical sad-clown type of post. This one is a little more sentimental, but I
promise that I will sprinkle in some nuggets of humor.)
If you’ve
been following Fatterhood, you will most likely recall that my dad left when I
was very young. From what anyone can remember, we last saw each other when I
was either 2 or 3 years old (I turned 30 earlier this month). To say that I
have some very complex emotions regarding the whole situation is like saying
that String Theory is “pretty complicated”. It just doesn’t do it justice. I’ve
ran the full rollercoaster of emotions over the years. Ranging from apathy to
sadness to anger and everything in between. Lately though, I’ve been doing a
lot of thinking about my past, my present, my future and how those play in to
my emotions regarding each one. I found that I was holding on to one hell of a
grudge for no particular reason. I mean, the situation was shitty growing up.
No argument. But what bearing did that have on me now? Very little since I
turned out fine regardless.
After
celebrating a wonderful Father’s Day with my family, I found myself on Facebook
and I saw that my Dad (we added each other about 7 years ago, but rarely
communicated) was, frankly, baiting me into speaking with him. He posted
something to the effect of “Father’s Day isn’t a happy day for everyone. I wish
my son could realize that being divorced doesn’t make me a bad dad.” Now…normally
I would have either completely ignored him or lashed out with some sort of
angry rant with a fervor that I usually reserve for drunken political discussions.
This time though, I took a step back. I realized that this is a man that is
essentially a stranger and he is literally begging for interaction from his
son. I decided to put my own hurt feelings and irrational anger aside for once
and reach out.
I sent
him a message via Facebook. I was pretty scared to reach out. We had traded a
few messages back and forth via Facebook over the last 7 years, but I never
initiated them and my replies were usually pretty short and cold. I decided to
just put it out there. I’ll spare you the mushy details, but essentially I just
told him that I had been very angry for as long as I could remember, but that I
didn’t think that anger was doing me any good. I told him that I wanted to know
his side of the story and I wanted to know what the hell he had been up to for
the last 30 freaking years. I told him that I was happy that he seemed to have
gotten his life together and that I wanted to take some responsibility for my
own actions. For instance, he would write letters from time to time, but I
never replied. I told him that I saw a narrow path for us to build a
relationship and if he was willing to be patient and “play by my rules” that I
really want to pursue it. I hit “send” and I just waited nervously.
I got a
reply that I was afraid to open. I let it sit for the evening and decided to
read it the next morning. I think I managed to shock him with my honesty and
just by taking the initiative to reach out. He sent back a very nice reply
though. He seemed to be genuinely understanding about how awkward this whole
thing was for me. He was just happy to hear from me and asked a few questions
about me growing up and ended it with a “I love you”. In my reply, I realized
that I was going to have to break his heart. I just wasn’t ready to say “I love
you” back to a person that is essentially a stranger. I had to tell him that I just
couldn’t bring myself to do it yet. I did want to give him some hope though so
I told him that the way I figure it…I wouldn’t be as angry as I was if I didn’t
care. If I obviously care, who’s to say that it can’t become love. Basically, I
told him I wasn’t ruling it out, but that I just wasn’t ready.
I also replied back with answers to his
questions, but I had questions of my own. I wanted to know his side of events.
I never got the impression that my Ma ever lied to me, in fact most of the
really bad stuff I didn’t find out until after she died and I found her old
journals, but it was only one perspective. I wanted his take on how things went
tits up. I also asked him why he never wrote more. His response made sense, but
it kind of broke my heart. He said that he would write those letters and never
get anything in return, so eventually he just assumed either I wasn’t getting
them or I didn’t want to write him back. We found ourselves in a vicious cycle.
I wanted more letters, but didn’t want to write him back and he didn’t write
more letters because he never got the replies he wanted. He didn’t want to make
excuses or put blame on me, but he told me that once he figured I didn’t love
him anymore that it drove him in to a deep depression that lead to drugs,
alcohol and violence which then just lead to more jail time which lead to him
being out of my life even more.
He genuinely
didn’t mean to, but he kind of exploded my entire understanding of the events
that took place! I mean, essentially I had grown up my entire life thinking
that he abandoned my mother and I and that he chose drugs over his own son. As
it turns out, if I had even once picked up a pencil and paper…then my life and
his life could have been so different. It was a strange realization to find
that I had let an irrational grudge destroy (at least partially destroy in my
case) two lives. I hit me hard. Harder than the stank from one of Elizabeth’s
poop diapers. Knocked me on my proverbial ass just like it though.
We’ve
traded back messages now a few times a day since Sunday. It has been a little
awkward, but it has been nice. It is hard to pack in 30 years of happenings,
thoughts, feelings, and stories in a Facebook message, but we are slowly
plugging away. I think if we continue at our current pace, I may get the courage
to call him on the phone or even one day meet up with him in person and have
coffee or something. Not sure how things will end up, but I’m enjoying the
painfully awkward process al the same. I’m still really kicking myself for not
doing this sooner though.
I’ve
spent the majority of my life pissed off. I’ve held on to this grudge for so
long that I couldn’t even properly express why the hell I was feeling the way I
was or how I actually felt about it. Once I realized that this anger was
weighing me down (My fat ass doesn’t need any more weight. Physical or
emotional poundage just isn’t need currently.) and was starting to manifest
itself in weird ways, I knew that I needed to either do something about it or
let it go completely. I found that I couldn’t let it go. There was too much
there that needed some form of closure, so my only option was to face it head
on and do something about it. I feel so much better though! There have been
some hard truths to come out of this and I’m not sure that the tangled web of
feelings and emotions has gotten any easier for me to follow, but I just feel
like a great weight has been lifted off of me. We still have work to do of
course, but it feels great to give up that anger and become a happier and more
present father. I hope we keep it up.
In
short, I don’t think you can really ever be a great parent if you are carrying
around that much emotional baggage. It haunts every freaking decision that you
make. I was constantly thinking, “What the fuck do you know about being a dad?
Are you sure you’re up to this?” That kind of shit. I’ve gained a certain
amount of emotional intelligence out of this and found a type of clarity. It
has only been 3 days, but I already feel like I am more “in the moment”. I
think it will just get better from here. My end goal is that maybe my children
will be able to have a relationship with their grandfather. I don’t think it
was fair that my grudge was stopping them from having family either. I guess
time will tell though.
I would
like to thank my wonderful wife for being so supportive during this process. She
has been with me for almost half of my life and this has been a part of her
life for that whole time as well. As usual, I thank you for reading. I have
some more posts in draft phase and I will return to my normally humorous
sad-clown type of posts in the future. So check back soon. And check out
Fatterhood on Facebook! Prost!
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