(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

I didn't sleep much last night. I got to worrying about my father. I failed to reach the person I was supposed to telephone about him yesterday, to make arrangements at the place he is living and discuss his health and care; I'll talk to them today, but I felt terrible about not calling earlier. I tried to phone him, and he didn't answer his phone, which worried me, too. I know worrying doesn't help. There's no reason he should be hanging around his room anyway.

I can't help worrying about him, and that brings on all my confused feelings about him - that mixture of anger, resentment and guilt. I can't resolve these things but I can't help wanting to. I want to love, like and respect my father... if only because he is my father. I just don't seem to be able to find the way.

I've heard it said that we pick our parents. I don't believe it, but it's the kind of idea that sticks in the head and becomes part of these complicated and contradictory feelings. Was it a trade-off? a great relationship with my mother, at the price of a painful, troubled relationship with my father?

Somewhere inside I'm still the little girl who wished her father wasn't so different from all the other fathers. Perhaps if I could understand his problem, I could come to terms with mine.

Comments

[lmondegreen.livejournal.com]

I have a very similar relationship with my father. It's hard to come to terms with both loving and disliking someone who should be a more important part of my life.

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

It must make it hard in specific ways that he is geographically so distant, too.

I hope he is okay and that you are able to touch base with him soon.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. And now I feel a sense of responsibility and concern with no mitigation of the rest.... If you ever learn a good way to handle it or solve the problem, do let me know!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the good thoughts! Yes, Vancouver seems very far away.

[maaboroshi.livejournal.com]

You'll feel a little more at ease once you talk to the people on the phone, and find out what the situation is. It's not easy dealing with illness when you already have an uneasy relationship with the person. Distance makes it even worse.

Call. You'll feel better knowing.

[maaseru.livejournal.com]

...and try to remember that your relationship with your father was created by *him*. You are and will always be that little girl who needs a father who was not there for her. You are not to blame for that.

[maaseru.livejournal.com]

I cannot understand people who say we pick our parents. Do they mean that babies who are murdered by their parents pick them? That seems like so much claptrap to me. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You're right, and the reason I was worrying so much was that I haven't called. I called today; got an answering machine and left a message. Will try again.

At least then I'll feel as if I'm doing something.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying that. I believe it but it's hard to make myself understand, you know? I think I'm getting better at it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No, it makes no sense. How could we even know what the implications of the choices were? The nice people would have loads of happy kids and the nasty people would be childless.... and that just isn't the case. Sadly for some of the kids.

[yellowsummer.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I hope you reach the person you needed to talk to soon. I suppose a huge amount of the worry you are feeling stems from the fact that you simply couldn't talk to them. Once you got that sorted out and know your father is in good care, you'll feel less edgy and guilty.

With me, it's more or less the other way 'round. My mother and I couldn't be more different. Which makes agreeable conversations impossible.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hope I reach them soon. I think it would put my mind at ease to know a little better what the situation is.

In many ways I'm like my father - which is pretty scary in itself. As a child, I used to think I was more like him than like my mother (probably mostly because she said so!) but as I age, I think I am more and more like her. Then I see some characteristics of my father coming out in me, and I wonder how and why. My choices are different. My attitudes are different. But I can see his characteristics in me and don't necessarily feel comfortable with it.

Anyway, he and I have, on many occasions in the past, had agreeable conversations. We have interests in common - history, science, languages. But he still feels like a stranger.