It took about 15 or 20 years but I finally gave up on my dad (same thing after our father’s passing, in 1996, with regard to my brother) – I had to I guess move on with my own life, which for a couple two or three decades bore a rather eerie resemblance. Last night I was thinking 🤔 “I think it was more painful, all the years of rejection I suffered at the hands of my father, then even the years of being molested” – and more damaging too! I have no relationships to speak of in my life currently; no partner; no friends; no real ties to family (the latter by choice). The one relationship in my childhood I yearned for more than any was with my father. This is especially intensified when your own mother is incapacitated! My father as they say, was unavailable emotionally. The only real attention he ever , ive me was when he felt disrespected and asserted his authority – which he really didn’t seem to have much interest in either*.

*a tad crude butt – If you want to screw your worst enemy, and in the worst possible way, raise him yourself and be as dysfunctional a parent as possible. Ya know 🤔 While many young adults in our family were out making a living for themselves and enjoying life, I was sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and sitting in counseling sessions. So many years in my early life spent in pain and disappointment – the real work was just beginning (I guess it was a good thing I really didn’t know what lie ahead for me when for me once I got sober because life as I had envisioned it hasn’t worked out at all for me – But given the selfish, self-destructive tendencies of the alcoholic, I guess it’s not such a bad thing afterall).

The next post will continue the story between my father and I, titled “HOPE IS A GOOD THING, MAYBE THE BEST OF THINGS…”

•Title credited to Harry Chapin/Sandra Chapin from the song “Cat’s in the Cradle”. 😪