Validation

Since I was about thirteen I've had a rocky relationship with my dad. I never really understood why and neither has he. Last Friday we had what some may call a "breakthrough" at our counseling session, mostly because there was a lot of crying and a lot of confessing. Oh yea-- I'm going to counseling to seek help for my family's abrupt loss of my mom. A little over a month ago when I was still in school and super stressed out from exams, papers, and my monthly visitor, I happened to mention to my dad that I wanted some counseling. He took that as his cue to seek family counseling for all of us.

After our heated session Friday afternoon, my dad called me that night and requested that we have dinner to talk about some of the things we had said to each other. I told him that I didn't think it was such a good idea to talk about those things until they were resolved and some time had passed. I explained that we shouldn't try to resolve our issues outside of counseling because that's why we're going in the first place: because thus far, we have been unsuccessful doing it ourselves. He took it as "I don't want to talk to you" and didn't understand what I was trying to say. Because he didn't understand, he continued to try to convince me that having a dinner to discuss things would be a good idea because we needed to talk about "some of the things we said to each other." From the way he said it, I knew all he wanted to do was to say that he loves me and try to convince me that he's not a bad guy. I already know these things. Every time we have a conversation about our "issues" he always ends with "I still love you" as if I were to forget at some point amidst the anger and tears. That's good and all, but it has become redundant and almost meaningless. I agreed to dinner, but I told him that it was not a good idea to talk about the issues that were unresolved during counseling since thus far we had been unsuccessful ourselves. We set the date for last night.

We went to Panera and, of course, it was delicious. We ended up talking about the things I said we shouldn't talk about, but that came to no surprise to me because knowing my dad it was inescapable. I tried to explain to him how he has made me feel over the last decade-or-so, and that he doesn't listen to me. He doesn't listen to me. Did I mention that he doesn't listen to me? I made a point of saying it a couple times to him, hoping that maybe somewhere in there he would listen. He thinks that he did something when I was younger that has made me resent him over the years. I explained that it was not a specific incident, rather, it was the accumulation of smaller incidents that have built up my resentment. It's what he has said to me and my brothers, how he treats other people, his list of priorities, his bigotry and sexism, and his unwilligness to change any of it. He is petrified of change, especially in himself, and until he accepts change as an inevitability, we can't get along in the areas we would like to.

If only he had listened to more David Bowie's "changes.."

"I can't change time, but it will change me..." or something.

Peace and whatever