Maybe it's because it's the holidays or maybe it's because I'm finally ready to process my feelings almost 5 years later, but I've been thinking about my father a lot lately. I spent most of my life from puberty on angry at him. I was angry at all the ways he hurt me over the years and all the mixed messages his words sent me. I blamed him for so much. I remember when I was in therapy in college for my eating disorder, my dad asked me what I talk to my therapist about. I think I meekly said something like, "Oh, just life in general. You know, school and stress," but I was really thinking, "You, Dad."
It wasn't until my recent ponderings that I began to accept responsibilty for my own role in our torn relationship. He might have been confused about how to handle my budding pre-teen hormones, but I certainly did nothing to make his job as a father easier. In fact, I was pretty nasty to him. I didn't recognize his insecurities and I took his moods so personally that I began to build up a wall around myself. A wall that I would not let him penetrate even up to his demise. He reacted to me based on his insecurities, and I lashed out at him based on mine. Self-defense in the face of a perceived attack. On both sides. A vicious cycle that only death could stop.
Soon after my father's death, I had to face my own guilt about not being able to save him. At the time I felt for some reason this was something I could have done that day or the day before. Now I realize it is a process I would have had to begin years before. I prided myself on my piety, but I didn't show unconditional and overflowing love to the man who helped conceive me and raise me into adulthood. I thought I was honoring my parents by obeying them, but obedience and duty aren't enough. I loved him from behind my wall, but not well enough or clearly enough for him to trust my love. I suppose he loved me in the same type of way, and I faulted him for that without realizing I was guilty of the same crime. We perpetuated each other's insecurities instead of healing them and so the cycle continued.
I wanted so badly to make him proud. I thought if I was good enough, he'd finally give me a clear message that he loved me unconditionally. And then I thought that I would be free to give him the same message. Now I see that he pobably wanted the same acceptance from me that I craved from him. I was so angry that I never let him feel like he was good enough. I hurt him to protect myself and he did the same. We hurt each other with our own self-obsession that further built up the wall separating us. And almost 29 years after we first met and 5 years after his death, I still have a lot of healing to do.
Posted by Kim at December 8, 2006 07:52 AM