Personal issue
It seems that my dad will never change. He is cruel to me, my mom keeps excusing him saying that he is just a bit dumb sometimes, but he never learns from his mistakes. The situation is stagnant and has been like this for nearly two years. I'll explain...
Last night someone asked my dad what I was doing. Her daughter was studying at university. He told me about it and said that he was tempted to say: "She's glaring at the wall!" And he added that that was a joke, like he always does, but something else lies under the jokes, something serious, sinister and very suppressed. It's often sarcastic and almost lamenting.
I will never believe that he does not mean it although my mom says that he doesn't intend to hurt me. Nonetheless, it does, and he keeps doing it despite my many angry and tearful counter-attacks and self-defenses. Everybody else is so perfect and "get things done". While I'm weak and poorly and will never make dad's dreams come true.
His problem is his fear that I will end up just like my sister. She is 31 years old and currently educating herself. She's had her ups and downs in life and still depends on my parents financially speaking. She gets money from them and wastes them om music, make-up, jewelry and perfumes that cost more flesh than a Mercedes! She never learns how to spend her money wisely and always calls my parents asking: "Can you help me with money for the train?" And she constantly shows me her newest perfume and house music CD when she comes to us in the weekends...
"Furr ****s saak, woman!" I'm thinking.
And she is mentally unstable too. My dad's fear is that I'll end up like her, like a neurotic wreck who depends on them for ages, never being able to make a living of my own.
But the thing is - and my dad ignores it or he is mad! - that Im preparing to go abroad in some time to study. I will be on my own, cooking my own food, making my own apointments, shopping, finding my way to this place and that, and studying like a horse! I'm looking forward to going out in the great, wide world. And my choice of study is not something I've done to impress my parents. Hardly anybody cares for Irish. The only thing my parents know is that it's a language, but my mom continues to show an interest in it.
It is a peculiar course with low popularity, no fancy job opportunities afterwards. But comfort is more important than being "big", to me. I'll be happy with a simple job that I can thrive in. It's not that my dad wants me to become something great, just become something!
He has no confidence in me. He secretly thinks, which I can read between the lines, that I will become an unstable, needy victim of social welfare that can never make up her mind about what to do with her life. But what he doesn't see is that I have dreams and visions and that I make a whole-hearted effort to fulfill those dreams and visions. I "get things done"! But right now I'm waiting for the answer to my university application. There's something he doesn't tolerate about me taking things slow this year...
...
The way my dad shows that he "cares" is by referring to the financial problems of students who loan too much money, to how much pain and trouble can be inflicted on me. If he wants me out of the house, why does he try to discourage me? Should he be encouraging me instead?
He also panicky about my allegedly asocial behaviour, that I'm incapable of talking to anybody. Furr ****s saak, dad, you should've seen me when I was with my mom in Dublin last year! I did all the talking, ordered meals, asked for the way, ordered taxis etc etc! My mom told my dad how well I had managed in a foreign country, speaking a tongue I don't use every day at home. I'm fluent in English, dad! Do you care for that?!
He is so worried about my mental health that it has become unfair. He is sickly possessed about it, not over-protective, just possessed. He is more afraid that he will be burdened by my need for financial assistance - which will not happen! - than by me dying in a car accident. It must be self-pity, I'm thinking.
With frustration and self-confidene I have tried to calm his worried mind, but he refuses to have faith in me.
I'm looking forward to moving to a new country with a hospitable and curious people, great education possibilities and my boyfriend was born there and lives there now. We're getting married, as many of you ZU-ers know allready. But I couldn't tell my parents about that. My dad in particular would burst in a frenzy, try to impede me, because of my boyfriend's background(which I will not say anything about). But the day I will eventually need to tell him, hte will think even lesser of me, perhaps think that I am insane, or worse... a psychopathic potential murderer. The last part seems a bit tough, but it won't surprise me.
He always thinks the worst of me and what I do, makes a disaster out of nothing, predicts the fall of Europe. All of his conceptions about me are twisted and surreal.
My mom once said after reading an article about child-raising: "You must be interested in your children!" She said it to me, I agreed. But where is the interest, mom? Why do you never ask why I like Irish, how I came to like it? Do you know what books I'm reading? What music I like? And when I tell you something exciting I heard about a whaleshark, the Moon or some ancient culture in Sibiria... why are you apathetic and appear not to be listening? And you demand my attention when you speak to me and glare at me with a dumb countenance as if you hadn't had enough sleep? Do you care? And what about the broken promises?
I feel guilty for being so demanding in my questions, but mom: I haven't asked for much. Just a chat more often. And for you to persuade dad out of his mania. It doesn't work, does it..?
And when my dad tries to advise me on how to manage my economy, he pulls it over my head like a sack of potatoes. No mild, fatherly guidance. And I never ask, because I know what to do. Why? I always have to do things on my own. And he keeps pushing his correct thoughts on me, spewing them out in the most insolent manner. I'm thinking: "How can you call yourself a dad?"
He is desperate to put me on "the right track", as if I am allready out in space, as if I am some kind of an incureable fiasco, hazardous to his nerves.
He sustains me... food, clothes etc., but at the same time he complains that I depend on his money and especially that I will do that the rest of my life. And spews it out in the most unexpected manner. I am often taken so aback that I become speechless. The moment is too short for me to analyze it and all I'm left with is a boiling rage that I often repress because I don't know what to say to defend myself.
Often I leave the place and mull over it in silence.
And speaking of my "asociality"... he wants to palm off congregation activities and meetings and pistol-shooting on me, which are his primary interests. When I decline, he asks me: "What else is there to do?" Hah! His stupidity is so ludicrous that I could cry. And I often do that too. "You can't sit on your ass all day," he continues.
Well, dad, I don't sit on my ass all day! Are your acitivites the only answer to a worthy life? He seems to have the recipe for a correct living!
So what do I do? I do push-ups and sit-ups in the mornings, read as many books as possible, write fiction, prepare for my journey to Ireland in September(he'll get rid of me then!), and I take care of the few friends I have. Actually I'm soon going out with a friend from my previous school and looking forward to it. We have a lot in common and will have a pleasant long conversation. Furthermore I prepare for the subject I'm going to study. But not right now, because my best-friend's family has just had a tragic accident where her little sister died. So things are a bit tough at the moment, dad!
I want to be a writer and his instant reply to that would be: "And how can you make a living out of that?" With a tone that indicates that he allready knows the obvious answer. Namely the only answer that is obvious to him.
And I don't waste my money on gaudy finery. I should get a job, you complain about that too, but I take my time. There's no rush, and making money won't help too much either, because I will have to loan money anyway. And I'll work while I study too!
Another vitally important thing that my dad doesn't understand is that I have a need to spend time alone. I'm comfortable in my own company. That's when I'm creative and get things done. My dad on the other hand, thinks that my retreatment from the civilised world is a sign of me being mentally ill and getting iller.
I have suffered from depression before, but I recovered from it years ago and am now motivated, life-loving and adventurous, and I have met the man in my life.
Dad... calm down. I'm good!
It's unfair that he never accepts it. That I can manage and am not sickly. The only sickly thing is that he makes me feel like a burden, compares me to a psychologically crippled sister(she has my compassion!), and feeds me with his conviction that I can never become anything: I'm destined to become like my sister. Indecisive, dispirited, apathetic, indolent, depending, indigent, not belong anywhere.
Is he ashamed of my choices, my living, my 'slowliness'? Or is he one of those who obsessively looks for mistakes in other people and tries to rectify them? And if he can't find any mistakes he has to make up something? He sees only what he wants to see.
Should I see anything benevolent in him? I can't really.
And now I feel guilty for criticising him. Life isn't easy...