In an attempt to get out of my "back to work" funk, I put up a mini Christmas tree in my office cubicle. (See pic on the left) I thought it would cheer me up and get me into the holiday spirit at work, but it did just the opposite. It looks like the saddest tree to ever exist. Every time I look at it, I get more depressed. The picture makes it look worse than in person...and that depresses me even more.I couldn't sleep last night. I kept thinking about my father. I have had a pretty volatile relationship with him but we have gotten along well the past few years. Actually, we have gotten along ever since I moved out of my parents house a few years ago. When I was younger and dumb, I resented my father for many reasons. I didn't agree with the way I was being raised and I didn't agree with his beliefs. Now that I am older, I understand that he was just trying to protect me and had my best interest at heart, even though it didn't really work the way he thought it would.
I have come to realize that my father is a good man. He has a good heart and wants what is best for everyone but he does not know how to express it. My father seems like he is full of anger but it's because that is the only emotion he is comfortable expressing. He has no filter from brain to mouth and will just blurt out what he is thinking. He comes across as an ogre and he can be very hurtful with his words. He can often be demeaning and spiteful with what he says and sometimes he can be considered verbally abusive.
I spent the night analysing him and trying to understand where his anger is rooted. In my analysis, I realized that my father is a very insecure person. He has many complexes and he cares so much about what others think about him. I think my father has spent his whole life waiting for his own father to show pride in him and approve of him, but my grandfather died and never got around to show him. He will never know if his own father was proud of him. He doesn't feel validated or important because the only approval he ever seeked was never given to him. So he walks around making himself out to be an important, powerful person knowing he is not and I guess that his insecurity makes him angry.
My father is also a very highly intelligent person. He is definitely one of those people that is so smart, they are borderline mental. He has so many theories of why things happen and has many paranoid thoughts, he thinks everyone is out to get him. He hates capitalism, hates the government, hates religions, celebrations, etc. There is always a conspiracy theory behind everything and I think its to make up for what he believes are his failures. His paranoia is an excuse.
I noticed and figured out so many things about him last night, but there was only one thing that affected me. I realized that my father is a very, very unhappy man. He drinks his sorrows away and finds solace at the bottom of an empty bottle. I think he expected to be someone else and is disappointed. I think he had a vision of what he wanted his life to be like and it isn't that. He thought he would be a millionaire by now. His life consists of things that he cant find happiness in and he has resigned himself to that. He isn't drinking to relax and wind down like most do, he is drinking to die. He once told me that the reason he drinks so much is to forget. At the time, I was young and didn't understand what he was trying to forget but I understand it now.
He is drinking to forget his unhappiness, his insecurities, his failures, his misery, his mistakes, his complexes, his unfulfilled desires, his lack of recognition...he is drinking to forget his existence. My father is a very unhappy man and has been for quite some time.
Realizing this kills me and the child in me is thinking it's my fault. Maybe if I would have behaved better...or maybe if I wouldn't have argued so much with him, maybe if I would have focused more on school, maybe if I would have become a doctor or went to a better school, or maybe if I would have stayed living at home...so many maybes. The adult in me knows that it's nothing that I did, that it's not my fault but I cant help but think that I have failed him.
It is a continuous struggle to balance what I give to my father and what he takes from me. My father has let me down more times than I can count. He has taken more than he gives. I have had to lower my expectations of him as a father in order to never be let down again, but what if he has had to do the same of me as his daughter? Should I give more of myself and continue to expect nothing in return? Do I stop trying to make him happy? Do I work harder to please him? I am so torn. I don't want to lose myself in trying to make him happy if he has resigned to his misery but I also don't want to feel like I gave up on him.
My father seems like an arrogant, angry, insecure, old fashioned, alcoholic ogre but in reality he is a lost little boy whose dreams never came true and no matter what happens and no matter how much he continues to hurt me, I forgive him. I know he will never apologize to me but I'm ok with that because I will continue to forgive him. He is not perfect, but he is my father and nothing will ever change that.
Title post from "These Days" by The Black Keys
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