Hi All,
I just re-read my last post about "my story." It seemed so clean, hopeful, true. Too bad I cant seem to stick with my own story. My monkey mind is just jumping around bouncing between blaming myself, blaming mental health professionals, blaming my Dad, blaming is so increadibly unproductive, so totally misguided, and (at least for me) so full of pain. When the pain of the loss gets too much I realize that I begin to blame. It doesnt matter if I blame myself or someone else it all feels ugly. It all feels wrong. To be honest, it feels exactly like what my Dad would not want me to do.
My Dad was proud, maybe to a fault, rigid, and the product of military school, the 1950's, and male patriarchy at its finest. He was a chauvinist, I think,without even really knowing it. He grew up in a world that encouraged him, a white, college educated, military man to excel because of course he would, should. Throughout his life I think my Dad was confounded when things did not go as he expected or planned. When things were not as they should have been. Often I felt as though he simply refused to accept things as being different than what he wanted or needed them to be. Ultimately, I think this proved to be isolating and painful for him and for the people around him too. His inability to accept a life that was not at all how he felt it should have been.
There was love, beauty, and kindness all around my Dad but I fear it did not look as he thought it should and so he missed it. My Dad is not alone in this...problem. There is a lesson here and it is for me too. Life is painful. It is. People disappoint us. Life maybe disappoints us and it is hard and it is not what we expected. If we are prone to black and white thinking it is so easy to feel as though things have not turned out right. I feel that I am on the edge of that kind of thinking right now. I feel the pull of the darkness, the sadness, the hopelessness as I walk thru my day but I notice it as...well...ok. I notice the sadness as ok. I try not to think I should anything. I just am. I seek love, beauty, and kindness in unexpected places, in any and all places. I am trying very hard to get the shoulds out. No more judgements, no more disappointments, only what is true--I loved my Dad and he was exactly as he was supposed to be, all of the time, and even now. xxK
I just re-read my last post about "my story." It seemed so clean, hopeful, true. Too bad I cant seem to stick with my own story. My monkey mind is just jumping around bouncing between blaming myself, blaming mental health professionals, blaming my Dad, blaming is so increadibly unproductive, so totally misguided, and (at least for me) so full of pain. When the pain of the loss gets too much I realize that I begin to blame. It doesnt matter if I blame myself or someone else it all feels ugly. It all feels wrong. To be honest, it feels exactly like what my Dad would not want me to do.
My Dad was proud, maybe to a fault, rigid, and the product of military school, the 1950's, and male patriarchy at its finest. He was a chauvinist, I think,without even really knowing it. He grew up in a world that encouraged him, a white, college educated, military man to excel because of course he would, should. Throughout his life I think my Dad was confounded when things did not go as he expected or planned. When things were not as they should have been. Often I felt as though he simply refused to accept things as being different than what he wanted or needed them to be. Ultimately, I think this proved to be isolating and painful for him and for the people around him too. His inability to accept a life that was not at all how he felt it should have been.
There was love, beauty, and kindness all around my Dad but I fear it did not look as he thought it should and so he missed it. My Dad is not alone in this...problem. There is a lesson here and it is for me too. Life is painful. It is. People disappoint us. Life maybe disappoints us and it is hard and it is not what we expected. If we are prone to black and white thinking it is so easy to feel as though things have not turned out right. I feel that I am on the edge of that kind of thinking right now. I feel the pull of the darkness, the sadness, the hopelessness as I walk thru my day but I notice it as...well...ok. I notice the sadness as ok. I try not to think I should anything. I just am. I seek love, beauty, and kindness in unexpected places, in any and all places. I am trying very hard to get the shoulds out. No more judgements, no more disappointments, only what is true--I loved my Dad and he was exactly as he was supposed to be, all of the time, and even now. xxK
No comments:
Post a Comment