Zander's Inside Voice

So I just had that hard conversation with my dad. It went so well. He went first and talked about how he didn’t tell me something he wanted to do when we last visited was important to him and how he wanted to get there early. He just said they wanted to go early, which I interpreted as them just being the early birds that they are. I was wrong in my assumption and he didn’t speak up about how it was important to him. I made sure to not react and just take in what he was saying without getting defensive.

We both talked about being scared to go before he went. It surprised me that he was also scared about this. I didn’t think about that at all.

Then I went. He listened and nodded. I told him how it makes me feel like a child and all of that stuff I had prepared. He said thank you for telling me when I was done and he was totally cool about all of it. He corrected himself when we hung up and we both ended FaceTime feeling great about the conversation that we had.

It really does tie back into assumptions and miscommunication. He also talked about being afraid to talk to me and admitted that both of them have felt that in the past. He also admitted that mindset was treating me like a child..an explosive child. I know how to act and I don’t need to be coddled like that. So it all was a huge relief.

So what next? I think there’s two more lessons in this program we are doing and we will see how those shake out. I hope they are as effective as some of these other lessons have been. It has been hard to say things to him sometimes, but I feel better now that we have worked through some of this. I have hope that we can move forward and actually have a relationship now. I never wanted to run from them, but I felt like it was my only choice. I am now feeling like we can stand together and fight through the pain from the past and become stronger.

I never imagined this would be possible. But I am so grateful for it.