Background.
Well, it is sometime after 11:00 PM. The shift has changed and certainly it’s not time for breakfast. Other than that, who knows what time it is.
So, as I sit here between Thursday night/Friday morning, not sleeping and giving myself an asthma attack, I thought I should probably be vertical instead of horizontal. I have two things on my mind, running around in the old gray matter, disturbing my shot at escaping into the land of Nora Roberts.
The first is how lucky your kids are to have a dad like you. I know I have said this before, but it came on strong again tonight as I lay in bed reading. Your Dad was always there for you. Okay, maybe not always, but things like the notes you said he sent you at college are the way I surely like to think of him.
Now, your kids still have a dad that is there for them. Yeah, I know I wanted things to be better for my kids and to some extent in the early years I was really there for them. But, with the divorce and then my illegal activity, well I certainly blew any chance of doing a better job than my dad. It is not something I am proud of or certainly planned on doing.
Having gotten the letter from Mom and Dad today did cheer me up a bit. The news of their impending visit is met with initial elation, but around now the anxiety is sinking in. This breeds some stress, causing coughing fits and precludes all hope of a peaceful sleep.
I have popped open a Hershey’s with almonds and I am munching on that as I write this.
I know you have expressed your frustrations on various life plans, but my anxiety is due more to the little boy inside me that hopes, for once I will get a Mom and Dad who love me! I know they love me, if in their own way, but I have tried to express lots of ways that they can share their love with me in a meaningful way, but alas nothing changes.
As you can see from their letter they are already setting the visit length, one and a half days. They only made one trip to see me all of last year. They used to average three trips a year. Yes, I know it was a long trip. But now even though it’s a much easier trip, all Interstates, and much closer, I am still getting the one and a half day thing, and then they will be away for over two months. Argh!
This is more related to that passage from the book. My parents (since Dad writes most of the letters) both exhibit the "sunny side of life" approach, except for the one time when I mistakenly asked Dad to tell me how he really felt and he got sore, made a fist, and told me how he wanted to punch me into a wall!
Well, the alternative is this sugary sweet thing. Even during the visits, Dad tends to nod off and Mom runs down the list of activities of her extended family.
So, you might ask why wish for visits? Well, on the one hand any visit is better than no visit. Also, I hope someday for a breakthrough. Yeah, still a dreamer, I am.
Part of it arises out of the conflict of ‘my Dad’ and ‘my Dad the preacher’. Why can’t he forgive me? Yet, if I turn my back on my faith (still strong) and remove ‘Dad the pastor’, I then find myself stuck with, how do you see a man who has spent his whole life doing something that you do not believe in?
I may not be making myself very clear, but to oversimplify: If there is no redemption or forgiveness possible, why go on living? No, DO NOT be alarmed. I am not going to hurt myself!
The point is, if ‘my Dad the preacher’ cannot forgive me, where is my future? OK, I can understand limits being placed, (although even that is not necessarily foolproof) but a denial of my worth as a person? Sometimes I think that the longer I am in prison, the easier it is for my Mom and Dad.
Like the last visit when they turned down my offer to become their caregiver. I then said in that case, no, I did not want to live in their town. I might as well live in North Carolina.
The second day of the visit Mom was all so smiley and stuff, saying how good my ideas for North Carolina were. I tried to say they were not all that great; I would still be facing a ton of obstacles.
But, hey, that is what I find missing, the inability to acknowledge a less than perfect situation.
I know (the hard way) that life is unfair. I live with that belief finally and am actually grateful for it. That is what I think somehow I missed in growing up like the book says the thought that I must be crazy because what I see and feel is not real according to my Mom (and Dad too, but mainly I was raised by Mom) and the really tough part is I never gave up the hope that Mom would finally see what I was feeling. Now, although I can tell you I understand it, it still is tough to swallow, especially when I know Mom and Dad are coming to see me.
So, what does the preceding background stuff mean? Well, if I think about it, it fucked up my ability to maintain a decent relationship with my ex. I do not really want to rehash my marriage because it is not really as simple as my fuck-up of a relationship with Karen.
As I have related to you, Karen was, on most counts, the dream girl for me. How did I screw it up from the get go? Well, if what I was feeling was always turned around to the good, or corrected so that I should not be feeling the way I was feeling, how could I do anything different with Karen? She says she is feeling neglected, unloved, and having a tough few days and bingo I say, "No, you’re not. Your feelings are wrong." And, off I go to do what I want.
Yes, in the romance novels most of the happy endings end up with one or both of the main characters being independently wealthy but the road to the end is usually marked by the feelings of the woman finally being recognized by the male. At some point he stops thinking with his dick. So, if I have no empathy and was never on the receiving end of empathy, how could my life be anything but fucked up?
I express this stuff to you now in hopes that you might be sure you do not shut off the empathy in your kids. I do not think you have; you have expressed to me some of your concerns such as them not giving 100%, but as long as you are open with them in some way i.e. "I am happy with where you are, but I think or feel that you could do better", they will someday come to realize the gift you gave them. Just because you think or feel that your kids can do better does not automatically translate into them feeling it.
Jump ahead ten or more years; your kid comes back and says, "Hey Dad, why didn’t you push me harder?" You can say, and I bet he will remember, "I did tell you I thought you could do better, but you did not feel it!"
Does that make any sense? Is this perfectly clear to you and I am just getting it after forty-something years? Or do you see the problem in my life?
So, now that the chocolate is gone and I think I have laid out the problem, let me try and get some sleep.
Thanks for listening to me. It does make me feel a little better. Or maybe that is just the chocolate working its magic. Ha ha ha!
