The last couple of days, I wote nothing at all for Nanowrimo. Nothing! Which is the worst thing EVER to do during this month of writing feverishly, because once you lose your momentum it is quite difficult to get it back. However, I was able to write over two thousand words today, so YAY ME!
In fact, if I can make it a goal to write two thousand words a day (and this was already my goal, except that this was an exceptionally busy week and I totally failed to do it at all until today), I am not behind. Again, YAY ME! I congratulate myself and invite myself to make a batch of cookies in my honor.
Wait, that means I have to get up and MAKE them. Okay, maybe later.
In other news, my dad checked himself into a detox/rehab hospital on Friday.
Um… I really don’t know what to say about that. He and I have had the worst history of relationship FAIL that I have ever experienced. He is controlling, emotionally abusive, and (apparently) ALWAYS right about everything. Oh, and very handy with the guilting people. It has taken me most of my adult life to move beyond most of the pain I carried with me from childhood because of how and who he is; which is why this is probably the best time in the world, right now, for him to need anything from me at all.
When a guy whom you have trouble respecting, for a number of reasons, admits to himself and his family that HE HAS A PROBLEM, and that HE CANNOT FIX IT ALONE, and then voluntarily checks himself into a facility expressly for giving help to those who need it – this makes you question your assumptions about that guy. I saw him, along with a few other family members, on Thursday evening for dinner. His birthday is today, but he was checking into the hospital before that, so we got together early.
Normally, I don’t send him a birthday card. I don’t call him on his birthday or on Christmas or Easter or whatever. We normally only see each other over Thanksgiving or Christmas, and only for five or six hours, and only within the confines of a large family holiday gathering, during which we smile and hug and try to remember both why we don’t get along very well, and also why we sometimes keep trying to have some semblance of a relationship when it seems like it should be easy and yet it is not AT ALL.
He moved several states away after he and my mom divorced – which happened the same year that I, a relatively mature eighteen-year-old, got married for the first time. That was twelve years ago. So for twelve years, he has lived his own life apart from all of us, and I was happy to leave him alone to do just that. Perhaps you can understand just how unusual it was for me to go to a birthday dinner in his honor, and maybe it will blow your mind as well that I offered, of my own accord and without being guilted into it by anyone, to come and visit him at the hospital if that was what he needed. I even said that I would come and let him talk to me if there were things he needed to say, even if they weren’t things I wanted to hear.
I still don’t know why I am okay with doing this, but maybe, just maybe, I am still a little girl inside. Maybe one of the things I have always wanted is for my daddy to love me for who I am, and to let me love him back, without all the controlling behavior or the fake cheerfulness or the selfish stupidity that characterized so much of him back then. Maybe there is still hope that my dad is a real true person inside, and that he can, in fact, admit mistakes and partake in redemption.
Maybe being pregnant makes me more prone to believing fairy tales, but you might too if you had seen him on Thursday. None of the arrogance or the bravado was there in his voice. He was quiet and somewhat weak, and he gave me a real hug – not one of those over-the-top fake ones designed to make you feel badly for not caring about him as much as he OBVIOUSLY cares about you. He talked with me like I was a fellow adult, and interacted with my kids as if he really noticed they were there. It felt real. It felt normal. It was kind of weird.
One of my faults, which is not always a fault, is that I am swift to forgive, even when the pain I’ve experienced would excuse me, in most people’s eyes, from having to offer it at all. And I have not wanted to offer him much forgiveness beyond that which I had to offer him in the privacy of my own soul, in order not to be scarred for the rest of my life; but now, it seems, I may need to offer even more of myself. I might get hurt again. But how can I say no to him now? What if this is not about me at all, but about him? How does a person participate in an act of grace for their parent’s sake, and not screw it up?
I don’t know, but I am going to try and find out. Wish me wisdom, and blessings, please. I need them. And, now that I think of it, so does he.
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{ 2 comments }
Congrats on your word count, Rach! Good luck with the daddy issue :S I’ve been there, myself.
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My own father had the same sort of problems with his kids from his first marriage (he was a WWII vet). He was married a second time to a fine woman but she dies two years later from leukemia leaving him to raise his two children alone. He was a battered child and unfortunately, because of it, he became an abusive father to them.
To make a long story short, he got it right by the his third marriage (the one where i was born). It could be harsh at times but all in all he was a fine father to me and my sister. His (adult) children managed to forgive him before he died at 84 but I know they’ll never forget.
Forgiving is one thing, it keeps you from getting bitter and vindictive (a total waste of time). Giving the guy a chance to change his ways for the better is another and also a good thing to do…but not over and over again if he keeps on slipping. It’s something you have to take as it comes.
But letting your guard down is a whole other matter and something your not likely to do easily and that’s okay…it’s one of them natural kind of things. That works out as time goes by…it can’t be planned.
Talking to him is a good thing to do since it’s about both of you not just one or the other. Forget about screwing up and just go with the flow…don’t make plans or go through “what if” scenarios, less stress that way. And none of this means you have to start spending any more time with him than you already do until you’re ready to do so (if ever).
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Sending all those good thoughts your way.
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