"I want to thank everybody that
made this day necessary."
-- Yogi Berra
I've had a lot of time to think lately. About my past, my life, my future, my dreams. My successes and failures. My friends and my family. What it took to get here and who helped me. Who tried to get in the way, but didn't.
On a couple occasions over the last seven months, I've talked about my father. With my Father's Day and College Acceptance posts, I believe I clearly illustrated how strained and nonexistent my relationship with my father is. The relationship with him has not bettered over the last few months. If anything, it has worsened.
I've seen him twice, TWICE, over the last few months. During the most recent visit, Christmas Day, he proved to me beyond any doubt that he has not and will not change his ways. He will not admit to himself or to his family that he could even possibly need to change.
This visit has cemented in my mind that there is no need for me to continue trying to make something of nothing. For seven years, I have, whether I care to admit it or not, given him chance after chance after chance. I was not disappointed when he did not live up to the low standards I set for him. I did, however, still have that small glimmer of hope that it could still happen. That he could one day decide that he needed to fix the relationships he has wronged for so long. But, it has not happened.
In less than eight months, I will be moving. Moving in to my dorm. Moving on to a new school. Moving into my life as an adult. Moving into my own skin as a person.
Between classes and work, I will have little time as it is for my family and friends. Why on Earth should I spend this time on someone who is not worth it, who I do not respect as a person or as my father? I shouldn't. I won't.
I've spent the last seven years of my life trying to form a relationship with my father simple because of that... he is my father. But, that no longer is a good enough reason. I am making the conscious decision to stop trying at this relationship.
In all honesty, what do I lose from this? Besides the constant stress related to him no longer being there because I no longer worry over it, I lose nothing.
This chapter of my life is closed. And I couldn't be happier.
;Jen
1 Comments:
I'm very, VERY glad that you're closing this chapter! ^_^ I've had several friends go through agony for years, trying to create a relationship with a parent who doesn't deserve it. Most of them just get dragged down with frustration and grief.
Bravo! You just saved yourself a lifetime of pain. ^_^
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