“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”
- Anne Lamott
I received an email from my father at 8:27 this morning. It came in response to an altercation we'd had the night before. It was his birthday and I wanted to take hime out to celebrate. He made a comment to our server that embarrassed me and I asked him not to say anything like that again and it quickly became heated and I ended up walking out. I've pasted the email he sent me below:
Subject: Industry Worker Spills Beer...
...customer slips on beer, hits head and dies...establishment owner gets sued, forced into bankruptcy...wow what a story.
Not sure what happened, where you wanted to go with your comments because I mentioned to a server that "she needed to grab a mop, BECAUSE she spilled (not dribbled) a bunch of beer. I'm not sure who I was drawing attention to other than the server, there was no one else within ear shot or 15 feet.
So as I've had time to process and try to understand what happened, I come to three possible conclusions:
1) You just don't like who I am as a person.
2) You had a bad day and something was bothering you. Or...
3) You are still angry about something in the past.
1) It's no secret that for whatever reason going back many years, you like to think you are better than me, smarter than me, you know it all. You would take any opportunity to belittle something I've said or something I did that didn't align with your stars to make a dig. Perhaps this attitude and your mother allowing it to happen as you grew up doesn't serve our relationship well today, but however you want to line it up, its nothing more than DIS-RESPECT towards me. So I to say you Neil, if you don't like who I am and what I stand for I'm sorry for that, but just know, I know who I am, I believe in myself, I know what I want and I have control of my destination. The only thing I can control is my mind, my thoughts, my actions. Nothing else, nor can you.
2) Maybe you were tired yesterday, something happened to you, or you learned of something bothersome, and my comment to the server struck a cord in you and I was the recipient of you needing to release. All I knew at that moment, I wasn't letting you assassinate my character.
3) Perhaps something is bothering you and you are still angry about something from the past. Perhaps you want to get something off your chest and don't know how. I do know that at the time when I chose to leave your mother back in 2008-09 you were angry and blamed me for what happened. Things certainly did change that day. What you didn't know was why and at the time I chose not to say much, because 1) you wouldn't understand and 2) It wasn't yours or Darren's issue. So years have past, hopefully everybody is moving on, because life is way to short to live in misery. For the record, and will say this only once, as you have heard from only one side of the divorce. Your mother was caught red handed in a extra-marital secretive internet relationship, then she threw it in face and expected me to deal with it. When we entered into counseling, it was preparing for the end (which I didn't know at the time) but that was what was happening. I, like many people in marriages was broad-sided with your mothers actions. When people ask me what happened after 27 years, all I say is 1) things weren't bad, 2) we didn't fight 3) things weren't perfect. What we lost was respect for each other.
As I move along and learn from life I share what I've learned with many people and perhaps one day I'll even write a book. I call it "Into-id-ness" people have to be into each other, both physically and emotionally. Your mother and I perhaps never had this, didn't know how to find it. What I know today is I do have it with Linda, and its is something money can't buy. That's all I'm going to say unless someday you want to discuss the subject.
So Neil, may times I just feel like throwing in the towel with the way you dis-respect who I am. I say to myself " why should I give a shit", but I do. The ball is in as much of your court on how we resolve and choose to move forward. If you want to have a heart to heart, we can, if you wish to throw your towel and move on, that is only something you can decide. I'm good with which ever path you choose.
If you are still interested in joining us at Speeders tomorrow, that invitation is still open, again your choice.
Hope to see you there.
The following is my reply to him:
We are very much alike, Dad, in how we handle our
own opinions of ourselves. You should read some Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead is a lot more interesting than Atlas Shrugged) because I think you would really connect with her ideas on objectivism and "the self".
And perhaps as well as that sense of self might serve each of us individually, the downfall is that it muddies the way we perceive our interactions with others. We make things about us and obsess so extensively on the way things affect our own egos that we lose sight of the real issue. I am not passive-aggressively calling you out by way of second-person POV, I am conceding to an equal share in the blame.
I'll address your three options with the side note that it's never just one thing. And I'll remind the both of us that neither is in theother's head. You weren't listening to me, and as much as I'd like to think I was trying to force us in the direction of a rational discussion, I know that I probably wasn't hearing anything beyond my own need to win the altercation.
1) I don't dislike you as a person. I don't dislike anybody for who they are. We are only who are, we can be nothing more, nothing less. I don't begrudge people their character: it's just how they ended up. But I, like you, have very strong opinions and very strong reactions. And now, though I may not have many notches in my belt, I am an adult and am free to express those opinions and reactions however I choose. In that moment, I felt embarrassed and irritated at the way you spoke to that woman, and I apologize if it came across as an attack against your character, but I was simply asking you not to say anything further. It was meant to be nothing more than that. I know I have a manner of speaking that catches a lot of people off guard and can be perceived as abrading or provocative, but I had expected you to hear past that. I thought we understood each other. As for "digs", it's your own
problem if you interpret them as malicious. That is how I speak to people. If I am to respect your sense of self, you are to respect mine. You like to blame things you don't like about me on the way my mother raised me. That does two things in one action: it implies that you did not have a hand in raising me and it eschews any responsibility on your part for how I "turned out". Well, sir, we are not purely our genetics. We are not only our upbringing. I may not be smarter than you, but I am smart. I obviously don't know everything, but I do know a lot. I have read extensively since I was a child, I have experienced myriad emotional
ups and downs, I have learned from hundreds upon hundreds of people who feel and know things I never will. I was raised by so much more than my parents. Everybody is. But they both equally influenced me. So don't insult me by suggesting something as basic "you didn't get that from me."
2) Of course I was tired. I had just finished telling you about how tired I am. I was trying to express a point to you in very clear words, so that fact you say "maybe" here and then couch it in a bunch of self-obsessed, defensive rhetoric is nothing more than annoying. Occam's razor suggests that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected (Read: the simplest solution is usually the correct one). I work for eight hours in a row, several days a week in an atmosphere where everybody acts like I'm their friend for the 2 minutes that I can give them something they want, and then spend several hours acting as though I am in THEIR way, or owe THEM something, or follow THEIR rules. You are a hardworking man and I don't expect those hours to impress you, but cumulatively they begin to wear on a person. I also don't expect or ask that you pity me. I enjoy my job. I like the environment and the people I work with. But as your server or your bartender, unless you have a good story or something nice to say about our service, we don't want to hear it. We deal with hundreds of you a day and you're not our friends. If things are different in your workplace, Dad, then I congratulate you on your enlightenment. But we the serving staff, the huddled masses, the great unwashed...we're tired and we hate you. And this is where your ego has to check itself. It's not about individuals connecting with individuals. Even if she wore a nametag, that's not who she is and if you handed her a full press release with your name in multicolored block letters, you would not be Scott. You are "the guy in the jacket at table 4" or "the foreign guy with the hot girlfriend" or
"the bitch with the flat hair". This is a prescriptive world, not a normative one.
Friendly wait-staff are an illusion. And that is why I was simply trying to say, "Please say nothing further." And perhaps it doesn't even matter if SHE didn't want to hear it. She gets paid either way. But I think I should be able to request something as simple as "Please say nothing further" and expect to have my feelings respected.
3) If you think that I blame you for anything, you are an idiot. I'm sorry that's the word it has to be, but that's the way it is. If you think that I blame my mother for anything, you are equally an idiot.
The relationship ran its course. Whether it was ever a good idea in the first place is questionable, but it is what it is. Or was. You can't pick who you fall in love with and if you two ever loved each other, well at least you got two charismatic, intelligent, sexy boys out of
it. Maybe even some happiness now and then. I don't know and I don't care. Assigning blame is foolish and a waste of all this new misery-free time you have. I'm not interested in the details. If you care, I think you're both equally stupid for grinning and bearing it for so long. You established long ago that your life is separate from Mom's so don't condescend to act as though you know what I think of her. My life with you is one thing, my life with hers is another. So
mind your own business. My point, though, is that your identity as my biological father, my Dad (which is a different thing), my intermittent employer, my friend, etc....none of that factors into how I perceive the divorce. It was not, is not, a sad thing. I was emotionally aware of the lead-up to it, and essentially grown up when it finally took place. I no longer needed my parents when they decided to close up shop and though I might have acted/reacted a certain way at the time, that was more from the shock of tangibly being ushered into adulthood. I regret any anger or resentment I harboured towards either party back then, but I implore you to understand now that I am entirely beyond it. Marriages end because they need to. Yours needed to and I recognize and appreciate that. So if you're holding onto some impression of who I was then, please let go of it. I take you on only as you are, I encourage you to do the same for me.
So, Dad, throwing in the towel is for pussies. I'm your son and you are my father and we are never going to see eye to eye. But we don't have to. This is not a marriage, it is a genetic bond. To completely dismiss our interactions in between last night and whenever the last time we
fought is stupid and hurtful. You'll remember I called YOU and offered to take YOU out. I don't associate with people I fundamentally don't want to be around. I don't know if I really love anybody. I think love requires affection, of which I am in very short supply. But I do feel a
sort of innate dedication to you. Not obligation. I like you and am happy to spend a couple hours whenever possible hearing you yammer on and making you listen to my yammering. So don't think that our egos clashing once in a while is going to affect our relationship. That's naive. It's good. It means we're self-aware intellectuals. A good "Go fuck yourself" between friends is healthy once in a while. It keeps everybody in check.
So no, I won't be coming to Speeders thing. Mostly because I don't really like any of your co-workers or indoor karting. But also because I'd rather let some time pass for
this exchange to sink in for both of us. I'll call you when I have a free Sunday and we can actually do sushi.
Have a good weekend,
Neil
Sent from my Windows Phone
So I dunno. I'd like to go point-by-point an analyze the intent behind the words and attempt to define the nature of our relationship. But that seems like an exercise in futility. It may seem to some people like I'm just airing dirty laundry, but I don't see it that way. In the end, it's all words to me and I'm proud of both my words and the ideas I was able to express with them. Obviously, my relationship with my dad is very personal, but that's part of what being a writer is: divulging the personal. I mean at the very least, I might be able to give somebody some perspective into their own relationships and maybe even provide some thoughts on how to communicate with their own families.I will, however, make a note on his accusations against my mother. I obviously can't know for a fact exactly what went on between either of my parents outside of their life at home with me. But I do know that while my father moved out of the house and immediately into another house with a woman named Linda before the divorce was even underway, my mother immersed herself in support groups and therapy. She believed that until the divorce was finalized, she had no right (no interest, either) to pursue an intimate relationship with anybody. That is how my mother thinks and I therefore refuse to believe any nonsense about an extramarital affair. That being said, if it is true, I do not hold it against her as I am aware of at least one affair my father had shortly before I was born. I do not judge. Everybody is a piece of shit in this story. I just want that to be clear.
Either way, if you read through the whole thing, thank you very much,
Sad Blogger
