This year is off to a great start. I feel really inspired and happy so far. I’m eagerly awaiting the stsaff applications to open for the camp I want to work at, lacrosse practice starts this week, and I feel energized. That’s rare for me this time of year, as I’m usually down and sad because of the lack of light. But I am noticing this year that the sun is slowly setting later and later. It’s a great feeling to not be so sad.
There’s other exciting things going on this year too, like Boy #2 graduating and going to his first choice college. We’ve got an accepted students thing coming up in April, his graduation in May, and hopefully a fun party for him as well. We’ve also got concerts for Journey and Def Leppard, Taylor Swift, and maybe Aerosmith will be rescheduled something this year. Plus theatre tickets and a couple other fun outings. There’s just so much to look forward to.
The only not as fun thing is a winter break to my parents’ house in Georgia. My dad is still acting strange. Yesterday he messaged me and I didn’t write him back for a bit because I was in the middle of something. When I did write him back, he read it and then never wrote me back. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this is the routine with him. Write me, I write back, and then days later he will finally write again. If I write him first, he may never write me back. It’s annoying. But I also am starting to wonder if he’s in the early stages of dementia. That’s something I am not ready to deal with yet, but it makes me hesitate on confronting him with anything. LIke the last time I did, he was insistent that he didn’t remember why he said something hurtful.
Confronting someone who may be losing grip on reality seems like kicking a baby. It’s time for me to start expressing all the issues I have with him to myself and people close to me and give up ever actually confronting him and expecting any change or acknowledgement of what he has done. We’ve been able to talk some things out, but the others are so deep and painful to me that I don’t think I can handle bringing them up to him with no change in his behavior. Some of the things we’ve talked about have not produced any change.
I am focused on my healing and dealing with the damage he caused in my childhood. And one day if he again confronts me with “you never seem to want to spend time with us,” I will have to try to be honest that there are reasons for that and his feelings are accurate and based on the consequences of his behavior. Why should I give someone attention and time they never had for me when I was child? Or grace and patience when all he could do was scream at me and tell me I don’t understand when it’s a good time or not.
I want to focus on the good and fun things coming up and less on the hard and sad things that sometimes haunt my thoughts when I can’t sleep or when I think too hard about the past. There’s so much more that we get to do this year than what we HAVE to do. That will keep my spirits up and keep the dread away.
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