A summer drive away from dying: a broken heart nothing to lose.
I know it hurts so bad just trying to please the ones you hate to love.
And I wrote this note about someone I used to know
so I’d remember how life can be so short when your left alone to wonder
how it is someone opens and shuts the door.
I know you’re cold but come home.
It’s a shame how short we all have come
Headlights by The Classic Crime
He wanted to hear his parents say they were proud of him. That’s what I came away from tonight’s session with. The desperate longing to hear the two people who are supposed to show you how to live life tell you they are proud of the choices you’ve made. I’ve always wanted to hear Bruce tell me that. But tonight it flipped.
Tonight, for the first time, I realized he has been waiting his entire life to hear his mom and dad say, “I’m proud of you.” To this day he is pouring his life into making them proud. He just turned 70.
That’s tough. Damn near impossible. Bruce did the best he knew how. What is most difficult about this idea is that he never pursued a better path. He never saw that his best wasn’t best. He may still have no idea he was wrong.
Sadness flows over me. I’ve spent so much time being frustrated with him. Disappointed with the way he treated me. I had all these pictures in my mind of how things should have been. Polaroids that never happened. Never will happen. And yet I still felt like the past could be changed. I clung to these images, false memories, hoping they’d become truth. That suddenly my dad would take me under his wing, after my first baseball game, and say, “You did great. Let’s help you get even better.” But I had to let it go. I had to release this impossible vision of my childhood. The images melted away. Boiled down to nothing. And that’s when it all became clear.
He’s hurting. He’s frustrated and saddened by the same hurt I grew up with. Worse. He didn’t even have the encouragement from his mom. She sent the same negative messages his way. And they were doing the best they could. This cold, vicious line of confusion and pain in parenting led to my life. He couldn’t break the cycle. He didn’t know how. He pushed his impossible standards, his frustration, his disappointment on us. His beautiful, impressionable children. The pain pushed deep. Our pain cycled around to become his pain again. It fed into my mother.
I’ve been asked many times by my family to enter back into his life. He needs me. He needs us. I want to help. I want to help heal his festering wounds. But I am more than just myself. I have a family. An incredible wife who has encouraged me and pushed me to break the cycle. I have two amazing toddlers that if I don’t put an end to this seemingly endless destruction of family, they will suffer my same fate. I truly don’t own him anything. I don’t own him my time. I don’t own him my attention. And through this, I can actually care for him.
I made the terrible assumption I hated him. That I was angry about my childhood. I have no anger. I have no hate. Those were the only words I knew for how I felt. But the more I dig, the more I explore, I only find sadness. For him. I love him. I care for him. That doesn’t mean I have to let his hurt consume my world.
I had put my father on a pedestal. I don’t even know how. I don’t remember looking up to him. I don’t remember thinking he was the best and I wanted to be like him. But there are other kinds of pedestals. Every little boy puts their dad up there. And it is only a matter of time until he comes down. I assumed I had obliterated this one a while ago. But I’ve been keeping him there. Hoping. Praying. Wishing something would change. All would be fixed. But he’s come down now. And not the giant, crashing drop I assumed it would be. It was a gentle, methodical deconstruction of the tower I’d put him in. He’s human. He sins. He hurts. He feels. Like me.
I don’t admire him. Honestly, I don’t respect him. These thoughts used to bring a lot of guilt with them. I’m opening up to a new way of thinking. And here I land. Solidly, perfectly in my body. Grounded. I am not he. I love him. I don’t respect him. I want to help him. I will break the cycle.
The Therapy Sessions 