I realized this week that these newsletter titles are sounding increasingly like episodes of the O.C. I think there actually is an episode called Family Ties. Or The Ties That Bind? Could definitely google that, but isn’t it more fun to read along while I process the thought? Killed fifty words, anyway.
I’m currently in the process of trying to break up with my Dad. After seven long, difficult, and frankly awful years of trying to recover a relationship from the wreckage he left when he shafted our family (not literally, obviously), I have finally decided that it cannot be done. There is nothing left to glean from it but sadness and pain, and I think I’ve had enough of that for the time being.
It’s a pretty big taboo, voluntarily cutting yourself off from a parent. I only have one friend who has done it, and once she told me about how her parents had treated her, I had no follow up questions. No-one else seems to understand the desire. They will listen, and um and ahh and agree that his behaviour is awful, and hurtful, and inconsiderate and any other multitude of adjectives, but eventually they will always say ‘But… he’s your Dad.’
To which I want to respond with a resounding: So?
Let me put it this way: if you had a friend, or a boyfriend, or a colleague or whatever who consistently disregarded your feelings, made decisions that were harmful to you, prioritized other (*cough* homewrecking) people over you, ignored you, said offensive things to you, didn’t call when they said they would, etc, etc – would you keep that person in your life?
Unless you’re a fucking sociopath, I’m going to go ahead and say your answer is probably no. So why are parents, or any family member for that matter, held to a different standard?
He wasn’t always a terrible father. I think he was probably at his best when I was young, too young to have opinions that differed from his, too young to be brave enough to stand up to him and put a name to his bad behaviour. I will not, and never would, rewrite history to imply that he has always been awful. But I also don’t believe that in repayment for 20 or so good years, I have to tolerate who he has become now, which is, in short, a person who bears only a passing resemblance to the father I remember when I was young. Are we really expected to be indebted to our parents for the rest of our lives, living according to their doctrines, going to the universities they deem appropriate, getting jobs that they can be proud of? Surely the hold they can reasonably expect to have over us expires at some point? Or do all parents create children as some kind of masturbatory exercise, or as do-overs for their own failings in life, little facsimiles of themselves that they can mould and manipulate?
But he raised you, I hear you saying. He’s a part of who you are.
Yes, there are parts of me and the person that I was and the person that I have become that I owe to him. Yes, I am thankful for being provided with food and a home and a reasonable amount of love and affection. But he also saddled me with a lot of crap that I now have to reckon with: my quickness to anger, my oversensitivity, my grouchiness. It took me a very long time to realize that those things were a choice, that I could choose not to be like him, rather than using genetics as a blanket excuse for acting like a cunt.
I think an important distinction to make here is that I don’t wish him ill, not at all. I want him to be happy; he sacrificed a lot for our family when we were younger and worked very hard in his life and he deserves to be happy. But so do I. And we don’t make each other happy. Pretending otherwise serves absolutely no-one except the cookie-cutter picture books about families.
I am of the opinion that far too much import is placed on familial love. And yes, that’s because my family was detonated when I was twenty-four, and I lost my mother, and I can’t rely on my father. But I also think it’s true. Yes, my father loves me and wants what’s best for me. But he also kind of has to. He doesn’t like the person I have become, that is abundantly clear to me now (and confusing, frankly – I think I’m fucking great). But was it him who brought me a Pacifico with a straw in when I was glued to the sofa with depression? Was it him who wrote me letters about how great a person I was? Is it him who texts me every year on the anniversary of my Mum’s death? Is it him who reads my writing every week and sends me texts about how much he loves it and how much he looks forward to reading it? No. Those people are my friends. They are people who wake up every day and choose me, choose to tolerate me and support me and cry and laugh with me – not because they have to, but because they love me for the person I actually am, not the person they hoped I would grow up to be. And I’m sure they don’t like me all the time. But they still love me – and they don’t have to. It is a far greater feat, to me, to be loved by people who have another choice than by those who do not.
But won’t you regret it?
Probably. But is that worth putting myself purposely in the way of unhappiness, in this present moment?
One good thing:
My company took me on a field trip to the factory where they actually manufacture the books and it was pretty much the best day of my life. I was trying to be cool during the tour but when I saw the machine that folds covers onto the hardback books with its tiny little metal arms and then sends it up a rollercoaster style conveyor belt I abandoned all professionalism and said ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’ I might even have said ‘fucking coolest’. I don’t know, I was in a coma.
One bad thing:
I’m pissed because I spent 14 pounds on Hanya Yanagihara’s new book which, much as it pains me to say it, since A Little Life is literally my bible and I read it probably every six weeks, is trash – and then at the factory I saw a huge skip full of rejected copies which were getting pulped (ugh) because the font was slightly misaligned, and I could have just nicked one. I refer you again to my salary. That book cost me over an hour’s work.
Also, a woman sitting next to me on the tube ate an entire container of jelly without using a spoon. As in she just stuck her face in it and licked it out. It was truly repulsive and also kind of impressive.
A lot of your essays hit closet to home and this one reaaaaallly resonated. We really need to catch up soon. <33