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Silence is Golden

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Holy epiphanies, Batman! Some days you learn incredible amounts of information about yourself. I have always LOATHED the silent treatment and will talk to the silently angry person until I'm blue in the face in an attempt to get them to talk to me. Whenever I've done this, I've ended up feeling weak, angry, hurt, and desperate, and the other person is allowed to feel smug. They are relishing their victory over me.

No wonder I can't handle this - it's point-blank manipulation: withholding affection - even basic acknowledgement! - from someone until she is broken to your will. It is psychological warfare - torture. Don't respond to the person until she addresses you in some way that you deem worthy of a response. It's a guaranteed way to make her feel like she has no worth apart from you - that she has no right to any opinion different from yours.

This was my dad's big, bad trick. Of course, he really didn't understand that he was manipulating me and he DARNED sure wouldn't have agreed that's what he was doing, but that was the effect of this behavior.

I will say again as I have said elsewhere that I love my father, and I have a comfort in knowing that he is home with God. Now I believe that in his perfected state, he is truly remorseful for the wrongs he did while here, and that makes it easier to forgive him. I know in my heart that what he did was not intended to harm me. It was just the easy way out.

But it was what he learned at his own father's knee. At one point during my father's first marriage (to my sister's mom), his father refused to speak to him for one entire year. (I do not know the circumstances well.) When I realize that, my heart goes out to my dad - the man who didn't know how to break the chain.

Having friends write you off is just as painful when it's your family. Sometimes more so because you don't always have the benefit of knowing what makes them tick. It just kills my spirit when people will not permit me to be nice to them. It may sound crazy, but it's true. I don't want to be nasty to people. I think it makes me the better person to be able to speak to those who have done or meant harm to me.

NOT that I mean that in a superior manner. I am just the same as everyone else, but I will not allow myself to be diminished or demeaned by someone else's actions or attitudes about me, even when it means they react badly to pleasant comments from me. They do not have the right to make me feel unworthy or less than unless I provide them that right. I choose not to do that any longer. I do not like taking the silent road myself. I know that comes as a great shock to you. (Oh, REALLY?! We'd never have guessed!)

What I am, I am. I am kind. I have more love in my heart than I know what to do with. I am selfish in that I want things for myself. I feel young. I am not perfect. I spend more money than I have and I trust people from the start. I fall in love hard. I am generous with giving. I am protective of myself but still let myself be hurt because a life that has no pain has no love. I love my family and my friends. I am a person with hopes and dreams, just like you. I do not live up to my potential. I overreach my goals. I am a paradox, but that is part of human nature.


Mother Teresa said it best:

People are often unreasonable,
illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

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Fathers and Other Hit Men

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A friend watched a movie on Lifetime last night that made her think of me: Queen Sized. "It was about an overweight high school girl and they portrayed her negative thoughts as her mother. When her mother would say something that sounded innocent enough, the thought-mother would reword it to be hurtful and when the girl was alone, the thought mother would come and express all these negative opinions and then the girl would go on a binge. Despite the depressing sound of it, it was a really cute teen movie and of course, in the end, she is elected Homecoming Queen and all the nobody kids look up to her while all the mean girls still hate her and she gets a boyfriend too. I think."

DANGIT!! I'd meant to tape that one. I'd seen it advertised. Well, shoot.

Anywho, BOY is that me. Only difference is that the things come from both my parents. My dad was more image-conscious than he was comfortable being. He was saddled with two daughters with weight issues twenty years apart. Kay* and I rarely talk about it, and she's FAR less heavy than I am, but I know from my mother that one time he introduced her to a colleague as, "This is my fat daughter Kay." W T F ? ! ? ! ? ! WHO DOES something like that?! I could really never reconcile that person with the father who was normally such an extremely sensitive, kind and tremendously well-reasoned and compassionate man.

He had one on me, too, once. Probably the single most painful moment of my life. Christmas - I'm in my 20s somewhere. We're opening presents and I get a really nice new pants and blouse set from my folks. My dad has a "haha" look on his face, and asks mischievously - "Does it come with a pole?" I am mystified. I really, really, really don't get it - and neither does my mom. My sister and BIL are not forthcoming, although I think Kay gets it.

Finally, at dinner, I tell them I give up - I have NO idea what it means. My father doesn't answer (I think, perhaps he's ashamed of himself by this time). Kay finally responds sheepishly - and I know she's sorry about it. She says, "A tent pole."

I have never so much in my life wished that the ground would open and swallow me whole as at that moment. I have also never wanted to physically harm or humiliate my father as I did then. I wanted to pick up my dinner plate and smash it straight in his face - just grind it in. I actually had to mentally restrain myself from it.

What do I do instead? I laugh. God help me, I laughed so no one would know the damage I felt inside. At that moment, and for the only time I can recall, I hated my father.

And I can't say that "It's all good," or anything because when I finally confronted him years later, the bastard didn't remember it at all. He had the NERVE to forget it.

I am still trying to forgive him for that.

*Not her real name.