In an effort to break out of the brain freeze that seems to have taken over any attempt at writing, I thought I’d go all Sex in the City (read: wanky) and drag the laptop out to a local café and see if I could get any ideas going in a different environment. What I did get is to witness a spoilt brat of a child actually
stamp her foot at her mother!!! who was asking what icecream she wanted. I know the flavour of icecream she’d have got from me. And her feet wouldn’t have touched the ground as she got "get into the car NOW" topping with it.
I’ve just been to see Capote. It might seem odd to be spending money when I’m not earning it, but going to the gym or going to the movies is a way that stops me becoming depressed about the lack of work. Either that, or it’s avoidance.
I was fascinated by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance. It must have been a real challenge to walk that fine line between realistically acting out the affectations and quirks of the man, and not slipping into a caricature. The little ticks and pursing of the lips, I thought he did a very good job. But I REALLY liked the Harper Lee character. Probably because the character was someone that I would like if I were to meet them in real life. I’m enjoying getting back into movie-going. Whether for escapism or for a connection to other people’s creativity, it is helping make me feel that I am linking back into the world around me again.
There have been a couple of posts from my favourite blogs recently that have made me sit back on my heels and think (well, if I
could sit on my heels, anyway. The curse of short achilles tendons).
The first was a question and answer post on RWYWHM. She has a question and answer Friday, where anyone can ask her a question, and she will answer it. It is not unusual for these to end up amusing and potentially eye-opening queries about sex and the fine line between adventurism and perversion.
The question that caught my eye was someone writing in about a person she’d had a crush on for over a year, and should she act on it or not. The response was, after a year, is it still a crush, or something else? And I got to thinking about what else it might be. Is a crush for longer than a year heading into obsessional behaviour? Is it stalkerish? Is it love? Is it some form of self-sacrifice? Self-flagellation? Complete denial? A defence against the rest of the world?
I’ve had feelings for someone for over two years now. Admittedly they grow stronger with proximity, but still, they never completely die away, no matter how much I think I’ve got them beat. It saddens me, because I would really like to be able to be friends with him, and I try very hard to, but then I catch myself looking at his lips as he is talking and wondering how they might feel to be kissed… and I become flustered and embarrassed for being such a grotty old letch.
But let’s look at these feelings. I’ve written before that I am pretty confident that if he were, hypothetically, to turn around tomorrow and say I’m the love of his life, that it wouldn’t work because we are just such different people, wanting and needing different things. I’ve written before that I know he is not even remotely attracted to me, and nor could he be, because he (like most men, and many women) needs a strong physical attraction to his partner, and that is not something he feels for me.
So… let’s be honest about what this friendship is about. It is me that keeps it going, such as it is. I am the one that initiates contact, and although he seems happy enough to spend a few hours in my company here and there, I also know that I am not the one that pops into his head when he thinks he would like to spend some time with someone. Fair enough. I seem to prompt this kind of reaction with a lot of my friends. Maybe it is because I am good at keeping people at a distance. Maybe it is that I’m just a boring old so and so. Maybe I just have some serious interpersonal relationship issues! Whatever.
So, what am I? Crusher, stalker, infatuater, user, pretender. Maybe all of the above. Sad sack? Quite possibly.
Or maybe I just need a little taste of something, even if it is completely of my own fabrication, to remind myself that I, too, am capable of these feelings. That I have not completely withered away inside. (Rat’s post leads me to that thought.) Just letting the window down a tiny crack so I can slobber all over it in an attempt to stick my nose out and get a whiff of the excitement outside before it all whisks away at a hundred kilometres an hour.
The other post that got me thinking, or rather, affirmed some thoughts that were already swirling around in my head was from MomLady. A post about fathers and daughters. About hurts and history and expectations and the distortion of truth depending on perspective and motive. I have notebooks full of faltered approaches to my relationship with my father, and Wendy’s post just helped me clarify a few of my own feelings.
I have trouble approaching my relationship with my parents without a sense of guilt. Although to speak of them as ‘my parents’, as though they are a unit, would be completely misleading. I, like many others, grew up in a household where my mother put her life into ensuring that I, and my sister, had what we needed, and what she felt would make us good people, and my father… well, my father has never, to my knowledge, considered putting the wants or needs of his children ahead of his own desires. I doubt he would agree with that, but I doubt he would even think of it. He would just lash out at the accusation. In that, both my parents are similar. To question history is to make a personal attack. It makes it difficult to understand who you are, and how to understand yourself, when you walk on eggshells to find answers.
I don’t speak to my father any more, other than times like Christmas when I simply cannot avoid it. I requested that he not phone me, partly because I am home such odd hours that it was difficult for me to return his calls, partly because I really didn’t want to speak to him, and partly because whenever we did speak, it wasn’t a conversation, it was just a monologue while I acted as the audience.
I suggested that he email me instead. My mother says he used to write lovely letters when he was young, so I know he has the ability. But obviously not the inclination. The only emails I receive are group emails with cute furry animals doing wacky things, and chain emails that are supposed to make us all feel good about ourselves. I know these are initiated from his wife. All these emails do is confirm how little there is to be said between us. Like seemingly every other relationship in my life, the only way it will be sustained is if I do everything the way that the other person wants it.
I am having trouble lately getting invented conversations with my father out of my head. It’s nagging at me, and I know from past experience that this is the perfect cue for me to be writing about him. The story is pressing to be released, except I cannot see where the story is heading, and that frightens me. Just write it, I hear the world say. But it isn’t a story; it isn’t formed into a linear narrative. It is just a series of little snapshots; accusations juxtaposed against fond moments. Where do you even begin to write about something so mammoth and elusive?
I know how boring it is hearing our complaints about our parents, our upbrings, and to sound like a petulant child is certainly something I want to avoid. But at the same time, this writing, this blog, is really just supposed to be somewhere for me to think through ideas and thoughts in a safe, relatively blameless environment.
So what holds me back? Who can it hurt if noone who knows, or cares, reads? Why am I responsible for other people’s happiness at, possibly, the expense of my own?
I’ve thought that I should write a letter to my father. A personal, hand written letter, to try and explain why I feel the way I do. To try and give him the chance to understand the hurt his actions and lack of actions still have on the family he walked away from 26 years ago. Isn’t it ridiculous… the ripples never completely fade away. But what would I say? And how would I feel if it hurt him? And I know that it wouldn’t achieve anything. His attitude is that he is willing to say he was a bad father, but it’s all in the past and we should just get on with it. True, except that it isn’t really in the past. I’ve been chasing after his attention since I was three, the first time he left, and if it were up to him, I’d still be doing it. And how can it be left in the past if it has an affect on how I view all my other relationships, and how I feel I should be treated, and it underlines, and undermines, who I believe, truly believe, I am, and what I deserve in life?
Big enough and ugly enough to look after myself.
Isn’t there something just a little perverse in a relationship where the father doesn’t think twice about using his daughter as an emotional crutch to help him through his marriage break down, saying hurtful things about his current family, and the family he first left, ringing and ringing and ringing, at work, at home, regardless of time or place, not wanting help but just someone to agree with him, and turning sullen and angry when his words and actions are questioned. And when the daughter’s marriage breaks down, she cannot even imagine phoning her father for support. He is not someone she can rely on. He is not someone who would understand.
How do I write to him? How do I reconcile this? I can let go; I have let go. I expect nothing from him, but then he rings and upsets my sister, quizzing her as to why I won’t speak to him. The ripples never stop.
I’m going to have to put the stories here, because I don’t know where else they can go. I’m sorry. If I don’t, if it keeps going on around and around and around in my head, well, I don’t want to be responsible for it all any more. I am not responsible for his happiness. I am not responsible for making our relationship work. I am not going to chase after him forever, believing I am only worth the scraps of attention that others have for me. It’s a terrifying concept… am I better off with nothing than with the little amount that reminds me of how little I am worth? How do I learn to believe I am worth more?
