009 - RBJ collab : my dad.

Collab Topic Details

It's hard to write about my parents.

I'm not going to go off about how mistreated I was or how they never truly loved me...that's for high school. And my parents do care for me obviously, so it would be irresponsible and ignorant of me to discuss the pain they've put me through and how hard it is to be their child with all their 'expectations'. They've given me everything they could and have more to offer.

It is, however, hard to write about my parents. Especially my dad. I could write that great father-son bonding story where the struggles are explained and the two find each other after years of separation, but that would be too artificial. And I would find myself lying through my teeth.

When I was little I was scared of my dad. Sure, he was probably a great guy, but he was the arm of the law and he extended that arm whenever I got myself into shit I wasn't supposed to...which was quite often. He was the booming voice that told me to go practice piano and to do my homework. To turn off the lights and to make sure I never left things behind. Not that it helped. To this day he still tells me to turn off the lights when I leave a room and reminds me to bring things along and to this day I can never remember to do either.

He was raised on a farm in central California, so I was raised as if I were on a farm. Sleeping in was not an option until I graduated from high school and we all had to pull our weight around the house, though I suspect he was lenient on me as I often "forgot" to do the dishes without punishment. He is also a mathematician, so I always had the best, if not the most frustrating help a first grader could want in learning how to add stuff.

I suck at math at current.

And so I grew in this household of farming and math and began to find myself and found myself growing apart from him as I questioned the world as I knew it. Obviously every kid goes through this and it was no suprise, but I think when I turned back to look we were at a greater distance than I thought we were. He is a man of logic and I've always lived in the realm of the hypothetical. He grew up working hard, catapulting himself to the top of the class whereas I struggled to get those B's, A's out of the question. He found it hard to connect to me, and I was the first suicidal person he'd ever met.

Now after a year after college in a different state and different coast, we stand facing each other. I'm starting to find myself academically, the one thing he's always asked of me, so the ice is starting to chip away. Like my relationship with my brother, however, it's still hard (if not impossible) to patch up the remnants of the past 18 years. Like a leg that breaks and isn't given the correct attention, something snapped between us and though it's cooled down, it hasn't healed correctly. I doubt it ever will.

Father day is, and was again this year, to me nothing more than a Hallmark holiday up there with Valentines day. It's sad, I know. And I myself find it sad that I can't find that connection with him, but I know that while most guys find themselves in tears after the father-son bonding stories, I'm left disconnected and unable to understand the fantasy that died so many years ago.