It was my dad's birthday last week. I've been thinking about this post for a while now, but I think it was his birthday that finally prompted me to put everything into words. I'm kind of nervous to share this because, while I meant it to be happy, and I feel like I said the good things I wanted to say, I am aware that there's a long of hard stuff here. And I don't want to hurt my dad's feelings anymore than I already have in the past. But I also really feel like I want to say all this aloud, so...dad, please take this as I meant it--and that is with the very best of intentions...
Several years ago I had a different blog on a different website. There were only about three people who read that blog and to be honest, I thought of it more like an online journal that a couple of my friends happened to read than a public forum. But apparently I had, at some point early in the blog's history, given the address to my dad and, unbeknownst to me, he was reading at least some of my posts there. He read one, in particular, that I regret to this day. I'm not really sure what it was about, but in it I talked about how sad I've always felt that I never got to have the doting father/daughter relationship I would see in movies or books. I talked about it at some length because it honestly has been a sore point to me for most of my life.
Some time after that, during one of his weekly calls, my dad brought that blog post up. He had read it and he was sad and I think a bit hurt by what I'd said. Understandably so. He told me that he'd always loved me and doted on me. I don't remember exactly what I said to him but it was something along the lines of "it's ok dad, don't worry about it" and I left it at that. I don't think I particularly believed him, but I didn't really think about it.
You see, I've long believed that, despite what they say about divorce--how it's so terrible and hard on the children and it inevitably leaves scars--my parents' divorce was the lone exception to that rule. I didn't think that I had any of that baggage that they say every kid picks up. That might sound stupid, but that is legitimately what I thought for many many years. But you're right. It was stupid.
I say that with all due respect to my mother. I know that she and my dad both did the very best they could to keep me and Dan out of the divorce. But unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in a situation like that, and so some of my mom's feelings got passed along to me. And I think I picked up a few on my own.
Because I had a hard time with my dad growing up. Not a dramatic hard time. We didn't get into screaming matches or have knock-down-drag-out fights. But that may just be because that is neither my style nor my dad's. Instead, I just didn't like him. I went through a very distinct phase of disliking my dad at every age. I remember explaining that, though I loved my dad--you have to love your dad--I didn't like him. I hated it whenever anyone would tell me I was like him in anyway--that I looked like him or acted like him or thought like him. I didn't want any part of him.
And I thought I didn't have any baggage from the divorce?
Once I hit college I thought I was over my childhood issues with my dad. We talked fairly regularly and I didn't dislike him anymore. I didn't really have any opinion about him at all. He was just there. I could honestly tell him not to worry about it when he called upset about a blog post where his daughter complained that she hadn't felt loved by her daddy...
I'm sad to say that it wasn't until these last few years that I've finally begun to really look at my relationship with my dad. Rather, I've finally begun to really look at my dad himself. Because I think that has been one of the biggest problems for me...
I haven't ever looked at my dad as an actual person.
Some several months ago I asked my dad for the first time ever why he went inactive after he and my mom got divorced. I was surprised when he told me that it was because he felt ashamed and embarrassed...just like my mom had felt.
During a Thanksgiving visit (either last year's or the year before) dad and I were walking together, just the two of us. I think I asked him about how my Uncle Phil and Aunt Vickie had started dating, but he ended up just telling me stories about all of them in college. I had never heard any of them before.
And then there was the time maybe a year or two ago. We were talking on the phone. I have no idea how it came up, but dad told me about one of his favorite memories of me when I was a baby. He said he loved to come home from work and put on music and sit with me on the floor and I would "dance" the way babies dance.
That conversation was the turning point for me.
I know it was probably just a bit of conversation for my dad, but the fact is...I cannot remember any sweet simple moments like that with my dad. Beyond that, I can't remember him ever even telling me about any thing like that. Until that conversation. At that moment I realized that I didn't really know anything about my dad, either when I was a baby or at any other time in his life.
I had an epiphany about the divorce and my baggage, and it was that I had it. I had picked up my mom's pain, and my own, and from a very young age my dad had ceased to be a person and had instead simply become a sort of blank figure that had failed to be around. And for the first time I could see that and how it had warped my opinion of him from my earliest memories till that moment. And I realized that I was not happy with that fact.
I can't really explain a process or describe an overt effort. I don't even know if, should you ask my dad, he would be aware that anything about our relationship has changed in the last few years. But I can tell you that it has. Because I like my dad now. And I love him--not just because everyone has to love their father.
I found some letters over Christmas that he and my mom had written to my Uncle Adam while he was on his mission. I discovered that my dad's cursive handwriting (at least at that time) looked exactly like mine, and it made me happy. Because I no longer hate the idea that any part of me comes from my dad. I am sporadically and strangely left-handed, which I can only assume comes from him. We both enjoy walking instead of driving. We both like debating with people (some might call it arguing). And we have a shared love of books and movies. I know that my love of analyzing and evaluating stories comes from him; he is the best and only person I call to have those sorts of conversations. After twentysome years of rejecting any similarities with my dad I am at last appreciating each and every one I can find.
I know this seems like more of a painful blog post than a happy one to dedicate to someone for their birthday. Unfortunately, the past is the past and I cannot change what was. But I wanted to make it clear exactly where I have come from so that it would be in context, with it's full significance, when I say that I love my dad and I am grateful to have him as my parent and friend. I may not have known it growing up, but I know now that he loves me. I am sorry for my behavior as a child, a teenager, and a young adult. I'm sorry for my insensitivity and ignorance. And I want to thank him for enduring all of it. He has stuck with Daniel and I the best he could and I am lucky. I admit, sometimes I'm a little bit jealous of my little brother Seth. He's getting the childhood with my dad that I never got to have.
But the good news is that we get to have the rest of our lives to make up for that.
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