My father was mean to me on Christmas Eve. He spent the evening sniping at me and I realized by the time we were opening gifts and he was graceless there too, that this is how he always is. Sometimes it is tempered with vague positive feelings towards me, but since the divorce, that hasn't really happened anymore. I have three siblings and he makes fun of them too, but Christmas Eve, it got harsh with me as his only target.
We drove home, my kids and I, Christmas Eve, only an 8 minute drive, and opened gifts around our own tree in my own house. And then I went to the kitchen and cried, just a bit. My children went to bed, they were leaving in the morning to go to their dad's house and down to Cairo to my inlaws for a few days, it was late, there was no time to spend together that late at night, try to linger and make my heart feel better.
It wasn't their job anyway.
I am not going to be that parent. I am not going to lean on my own children to try to make up for something I'm missing in my heart. I am going to take every criticism of my parenting that Sophia gives me (freely, her hand open, so many suggestions!) and work to be better. I am going to have fun with my kids because I don't want Sophia to be sitting in my house on Christmas Eve in her 40s and taking her family home to cry because of who I am. And never coming back.
I will not be like them.
My youngest sister brushed it away, saying this is how he always is, it's terrible but that's the way it is, that's the way they were raised and so they don't know any better, even now. Even when we are all adults trying our best. Even if I'm mysteriously divorced and Ian is a recovering alcoholic who woke up one morning and became a teacher, even if Bevin works at a grocery store and Colleen never learned how to drive. We are a mess, and yet we are adults and we deserve better.
So my resolution this coming year is to unhook my life from theirs as much as I can and to continue to throw off the bowlines tying me to their harbor. It isn't safe and it isn't what ships were made for.
Good luck with this. I feel for you. I am in so much parental turmoil, trying to accept that it's the same as it's always been, I've never been able to change it, I can't change it. But what are my responsibilities to stubborn someone in her 80s?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Bridgett. You deserve better. And there is no way you'll be like your parents are to you when your kids are grown.
ReplyDeleteFucking families. And I hope one day your children have the opportunity to read these posts, just in case they need reaffirmation of what a wonderful parent you are.
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