A Twist in the Plot
I'm behind in my grading and haven't worked out in two weeks. Bad deal. I'm hoping to get my butt into the gym in the morning. On the positive: Mikey won his basketball game tonight. And something else....
I got a call Monday afternoon from my stepbrother, my stepmother's youngest son, a guy I used to hang out with (and get drunk with, on occasion) when we were teenagers and my dad had first married his mom. I haven't talked to him in almost 20 years. Probably not seen him in 15. It turns out he was in Sac. on business and thought of calling me. Considering that I'm slogging through so many issues with my father, and have been in contact with my dad for more than a year, it's astounding that I found myself back in contact with this guy.
So we had lunch Tues. It was a good, and for me, validating conversation. He sees the madness in my father and even in his mother, though he seems more loyal than I. He did put in the heavy pitch at the end...you dad would really like to see you...even after I told him that my dad knew where I lived for years at a time and made little or no effort to contact me. Dad just sat around and wished I'd show up. But the betrayal I felt from my father when I was seventeen...I haven't even written about this much on this board, but his remarriage and his move out of the area and what happened to me...seeing my stepbro really brought back those feelings, so fresh. And for that, I guess I'm grateful, though I'm tired. I don't know how much I trust him, but I don't have much to lose either.
My stepbro was surprised to hear my side of the story, or part of it. I think Dad's victim view of himself has carried over twenty years across a whole other family.
I don't have time to write now, but I want to say something in my defence: my first marriage (whose story I still need to tell) was whacked, and I stayed with that girl; my second marriage presents real challenges to me, but I am loyal there also. I don't quit. Almost ever. And I quit on my dad when I was 17. I've quit on him since I guess, though certainly the neglect was mutual. At least now I'm learning, feeling, what he's really like and what I've probably felt all these years. But I'm not the kind of person who bails out easily.
Once, summer of 88 I think, I was delivering refrigerators for a summer job. My dad saw me walk into the place and parked his truck and walked in. The owner, Max, had heard me say I didn't get along well with my dad, wasn't in contact with him. But my dad walked in, said he wanted to talk to me, and there he was. We didn't say much, but it was clear he wanted to see me. We had only been out of contact a few years that time. Still, Max was moved. Even he took my dad's side. 'Your dad, he wants to see you, he's alright,' or some such thing. I don't remember what happened after that.
When I got married the next summer my dad was around, and for a while he hung out with my in-laws. The four of them even went out a few times together apart from E and I. How bizarrre is that? My father-in-law was a junior exec., and my dad? Perhaps my view of things was tainted, but my dad was going back to city college and taking accounting classes, and my stepmother used to talk about it, 'someday he'll get a different job and make millions and millions of dollars.' I remember that phrase specifically.
I saw her as rapacious, as trying to get my in-laws, who were firmly upper middle class, to rub off on my truckdriver talk to himself dad. But was I wrong? I never had serious conversations with any of the four of them about it. I do remember my dad taking us all out to a nice restaurant when I was trying to see him again. He dressed nice. But I'll tell you, he would start staring off, muttering to himself...I saw that even then. He managed to maintain some contact, and my ex m.i.l. was a bit snooty, as she could be, 'so, have you been to japan? our daughter has been twice,' bullshit like that.
So I'm looking at myself, have I given my dad a fair shake. Is my hatred, and that is the word, of my stepmother legitimate? What really happened when I was 17? Was part of the trauma my re-experience of earlier trauma which intensified my feelings? Did my father, would he, choose his wife over us? Yeah. He shouldn't have to make that choice, and I don't think I made him make it at all, but what little attention he was capable of went immediately to a very demanding woman. Even her son said that. And I and my bro were spining in the wind. Especially since she was very concerned with her own children and not the two of us. That I believe too.
But all this digging, talking, seeing the stepbro (who I'll call B I guess) has got to be good for me. I've simply avoided my father's existence, for the most part, for almost my entire adult life. I am still angry at him about many things. Hurt. Distrustful. Anxious. Very angry. But I need to look at this stuff, work it through. Without the rampant, insistent push of ocd, I might not have to. OCD is like a dredge, or a well bucket, which will bring up anything in the well. Not that I don't need to face all this anyway, for myself and my faith, but obsessions add another complex component and force me to look more closely, feel the underlying feelings.
I have to get back to the papers. Online classes. Grading in word. The glow of the screen.
Bye for now.
I got a call Monday afternoon from my stepbrother, my stepmother's youngest son, a guy I used to hang out with (and get drunk with, on occasion) when we were teenagers and my dad had first married his mom. I haven't talked to him in almost 20 years. Probably not seen him in 15. It turns out he was in Sac. on business and thought of calling me. Considering that I'm slogging through so many issues with my father, and have been in contact with my dad for more than a year, it's astounding that I found myself back in contact with this guy.
So we had lunch Tues. It was a good, and for me, validating conversation. He sees the madness in my father and even in his mother, though he seems more loyal than I. He did put in the heavy pitch at the end...you dad would really like to see you...even after I told him that my dad knew where I lived for years at a time and made little or no effort to contact me. Dad just sat around and wished I'd show up. But the betrayal I felt from my father when I was seventeen...I haven't even written about this much on this board, but his remarriage and his move out of the area and what happened to me...seeing my stepbro really brought back those feelings, so fresh. And for that, I guess I'm grateful, though I'm tired. I don't know how much I trust him, but I don't have much to lose either.
My stepbro was surprised to hear my side of the story, or part of it. I think Dad's victim view of himself has carried over twenty years across a whole other family.
I don't have time to write now, but I want to say something in my defence: my first marriage (whose story I still need to tell) was whacked, and I stayed with that girl; my second marriage presents real challenges to me, but I am loyal there also. I don't quit. Almost ever. And I quit on my dad when I was 17. I've quit on him since I guess, though certainly the neglect was mutual. At least now I'm learning, feeling, what he's really like and what I've probably felt all these years. But I'm not the kind of person who bails out easily.
Once, summer of 88 I think, I was delivering refrigerators for a summer job. My dad saw me walk into the place and parked his truck and walked in. The owner, Max, had heard me say I didn't get along well with my dad, wasn't in contact with him. But my dad walked in, said he wanted to talk to me, and there he was. We didn't say much, but it was clear he wanted to see me. We had only been out of contact a few years that time. Still, Max was moved. Even he took my dad's side. 'Your dad, he wants to see you, he's alright,' or some such thing. I don't remember what happened after that.
When I got married the next summer my dad was around, and for a while he hung out with my in-laws. The four of them even went out a few times together apart from E and I. How bizarrre is that? My father-in-law was a junior exec., and my dad? Perhaps my view of things was tainted, but my dad was going back to city college and taking accounting classes, and my stepmother used to talk about it, 'someday he'll get a different job and make millions and millions of dollars.' I remember that phrase specifically.
I saw her as rapacious, as trying to get my in-laws, who were firmly upper middle class, to rub off on my truckdriver talk to himself dad. But was I wrong? I never had serious conversations with any of the four of them about it. I do remember my dad taking us all out to a nice restaurant when I was trying to see him again. He dressed nice. But I'll tell you, he would start staring off, muttering to himself...I saw that even then. He managed to maintain some contact, and my ex m.i.l. was a bit snooty, as she could be, 'so, have you been to japan? our daughter has been twice,' bullshit like that.
So I'm looking at myself, have I given my dad a fair shake. Is my hatred, and that is the word, of my stepmother legitimate? What really happened when I was 17? Was part of the trauma my re-experience of earlier trauma which intensified my feelings? Did my father, would he, choose his wife over us? Yeah. He shouldn't have to make that choice, and I don't think I made him make it at all, but what little attention he was capable of went immediately to a very demanding woman. Even her son said that. And I and my bro were spining in the wind. Especially since she was very concerned with her own children and not the two of us. That I believe too.
But all this digging, talking, seeing the stepbro (who I'll call B I guess) has got to be good for me. I've simply avoided my father's existence, for the most part, for almost my entire adult life. I am still angry at him about many things. Hurt. Distrustful. Anxious. Very angry. But I need to look at this stuff, work it through. Without the rampant, insistent push of ocd, I might not have to. OCD is like a dredge, or a well bucket, which will bring up anything in the well. Not that I don't need to face all this anyway, for myself and my faith, but obsessions add another complex component and force me to look more closely, feel the underlying feelings.
I have to get back to the papers. Online classes. Grading in word. The glow of the screen.
Bye for now.
Comments
this is beautiful; sincere thanks. It gives me the courage to keep posting. I read your blog at times; I'm going to get over there more!
t