The Bad Daughter

Last Friday after work I had to run to the store and pick up some milk and a couple of other things. Things that I didn't want to wait until the next day to get when the girls and I actually went grocery shopping.

As I was walking across the parking lot to enter the store, I saw my dad in his car, preparing to get out.

Did I stop and turn and wait for him?

No...I did not.

I'm ashamed to admit I put my head down and walked a little faster, hoping to get inside the store and down and aisle before he made his entrance.

And this is a horrible thing to have done. And quite honestly, even after reading this post, no one else will really understand why I did that. No one except perhaps my brother. Oh my goodness, would he understand. He'd have done the same thing himself, I can almost guarantee it.

See...I didn't want to be followed from aisle to aisle to aisle, listening to his monologue about what this or that friend might have said that day, that week or yes, even that year. I didn't want to hear even one more time how he couldn't financially help my brother anymore or have him ask my permission to tell my brother that.

I love both of my parents. I do.

I even like them both.

But...I actually enjoy spending time with my mom. She's a sunny, loving person, who has much to give to life itself. She converses with you instead of narrating story after story to you.

My dad? He's a melancholy fellow. I don't remember him ever really being happy.

And this makes me incredibly sad. I know that I'm part of the problem. I want him to be happy. But I can't MAKE him happy. Only he can do that.

He has self-esteem issues yet he's got an incredible ego. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? He believes himself to be way smarter than any of his friends and yet won't go out and find different friends because he doesn't think anyone smart enough for him would want to be friends with him.

The same is true for possible lady friends. He's been single since he and my mom divorced 29 years ago because he believes that anyone he'd want to 'socialize with' (his phrase) wouldn't want to socialize with him. And anyone who does wnat to socialize with him? He finds things wrong, such as the woman isn't smart enough. Or she's too self-absorbed and won't let him get a word in during conversations.

Ohhh, wow, the condescention.

And yet, the loneliness that he pulls around him like a cloak is almost overwhelming.

My heart breaks for him even as he drives nuts.

I don't know how to help him. He's 71 years old. He's very much stuck in his ways. He doesn't know how to stand up for himself so he's passive agressive and holds grudges until the end of time.

From July of 2000 until August of 2001, he didn't speak to me because I asked him one afternoon to stop bitching to me about my brother. I explained, in what I thought was a calm, considerate tone, that I am Jason's sister. I'm not my dad's peer. I didn't understand his issues with my brother at the time and I was really tired of being my dad's confidant as he bitched and moaned about any trouble Jason might be causing him.

He took if VERY personally and still brings it up to this day.

Egads!! I sound almost as self-absorbed as he is.

I knew I wouldn't be able to really get it out without sounding like an ass.

So be it. I'm the bad daughter. No matter how much I love my dad, I don't enjoy spending scads of time with him. He's tedious. He's needy. And I am at a point in my life where most of my attention is pointed elsewhere, such as at my tedious, needy children.

I pray that I don't turn into the tedious, needy parent my children bitch about in 30 or so years. I hope I maintain my independence and my joy for life.

I hope there isn't a day when Alyssa called Olivia to groan, "Your mom stopped by today. She's driving me crazy!"

And that Olivia doesn't commiserate and reply, "I know! She called me after she left your house. I wonder what Dad ever saw in her."

Because, I confess, I often wonder why my parents married. I know no one likes to think of their parents being intimate, but my parents? Are a complete mismatch. Whic, obviously, is why they divorced after ten years of marriage. But still...

I don't want to be that to my girls. Please, please, let me not be that to my girls.