dads

A couple of my online friends are talking about how they screw up daily as parents. It kinda got me thinking about my relationship with my father. I have a strained relation with the man. But then again I don't know many people that don't have a bit of a strained relation with their fathers. Mel and Brad aside of course. Their pops both brought an interesting mix into my life. :)
Mine is a solitary man. I know he loves me and I love him... It came out at a court appointed therapy session (That's fodder for another bloc, not this one) how MUCH he felt. So I was 12 before I realized he wasn't an asshole. At least not as much of one as I grew up thinking he was.
His work took a lot out of him, so Mom says. His way of unwinding at home was to veg out in front of the T.V. when he was home and awake, and to yell at us when when made a noise when he was trying to sleep. Hell,my brother is 4 years older than me and we were constantly at each other's throats until I was 13. OF Course we made noise, we're family.

Dad doesn't get it. But he did try. Once, my brother decided to vacuum his room after I had gone to bed, and Dad yelled at him for making noise after 10 p.m (loud enough to wake the dead I might add). It was a necessary lesson for my idiot brother to learn, but the constant sound of a vacuum is always preferable to sleep through, versus a screaming match. It took me years to forgive Dad for making a stand like that.

See? Even my words have changed over the years on that matter. He really was trying to protect my sleeping, but I resented him for waking me up just as I had accustomed myself to a constant buzz of noise.
Now, over two thousand miles from my hometown, I get to understand him a bit more. Go figure.

Maybe it's my age. I'm finally getting over this stupid rebellion stage. Mel would even be shocked that I'm actually trying to keep a cleaner house, because it's MY mess and I'm tired of looking at it. there's almost a pride in it. (Not having an idiot boyfriend to leave a pizza box full of glass out for a month before leaving it out on the back porch for the neighbor kids to get into it helps)