I drink coffee like my father used to.
I don’t have to write this entry, but I’m going to.
My dad died when I was 17. Outside of a few random thoughts, I don’t think too much about his death, or even much about him. It’s not that we weren’t close – we certainly were towards the end of his life. But things were complicated, I guess they always end up that way between parents and children. I always sought my father’s approval of me, and I always ended up feeling like I didn’t live up to it. It happens. It’s probably responsible for a part of my paranoia about criticism and etc.
But that’s not really the point. I don’t think about it that much. or him that much. And it used to make me feel guilty but now I feel guilty for not feeling all that guilty for not thinking all that much about him. People are nothing if not inherently adaptable – emotionally, physically, etc. I could survive in the Himalayas if I needed to, and most people can survive almost any emotional trauma, however screwed up it might make them for a bit. If they want to.
All this talk about wedding stuff is making me think of my father. It’s not that I ever would have had the traditional wedding or that I was ever a daddy’s girl. My dad once asked me seriously if I was a lesbian (after which, my mother asserted they would love me “no matter what…”). I don’t think he ever expected me to get married. Which is only fair, I guess, because at that time, I expected not to see my twenties. Or hoped, is more accurate. (I shouldn’t paint that dreary a picture, really, I wasn’t usually that bad off, mentally.)
The point is, it doesn’t really bother me that my dad never met WoDM, although I’m sure they would have gotten along. It doesn’t bother me that my dad won’t be at the wedding party because I’m really only throwing that for other people’s sakes.
I don’t know if anything really bothers me about my dad not being at the wedding party and I feel like something should. It’s making me think of him, but I’m not particularly sad about the whole thing. Shouldn’t I be? I’m not sure.
I don’t think about my father as a separate being anymore, I think of him in all the little pieces he left with the world. I think of him as an extension of me, as an extension of the person I became more than an extension of the person I was. And it’s hard to miss him as a whole being when he’s ever present in my reflection.
K.
The contents of this blog entry may not reflect the views of the webmaster of doom, Michael.
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