Father's Day

Dad, wherever you are, your death still haunts me. I feel like I was robbed of having an adult relationship with you and quite frankly I'm pissed off about it. There are some things that I'm having difficulty with reconciling. I often think about what our adult relationship would be like. My relationship with mom has undergone some incredible transformations. For years I resented her for my repressive childhood, but I guess you played a role in that too. It's really helped my heal to hear her admit that she made some parenting choices that she deeply regrets. I often wonder if you would have been willing to reflect on the impact some of your choices had on me. For a very long time I had a hard time admitting that I was wrong and would always defend and justify my actions even if they caused another person harm. I learned that behavior from you. I know you tried your best, but you were human and had a really shit childhood rife with trauma. I also know that while you were still alive mental health support for middle aged men wasn't really much of a thing. So I guess you found your support within your faith community. I acknowledge that there were a lot of positive things that resulted from you being connected to the Christian community, but there were also some really negative things that have had a lasting impact on me. I regret never being able to discuss them with you. I am grateful that you were always a critical thinker and didn't readily buy in to a lot of the dogmatic bullshit that was part and parcel of life within our particular faith community. You did buy into some of it though and held fast with an unwavering conviction and it blinded you to the harm it was causing me. At those times I felt abandoned by you and completely alone. I felt like I was imprisoned in a cage and calling out to you to set me free, but your reply was that this cage was somehow good for me. You didn't see it as a cage, but rather structure and discipline. I wonder if you were alive now if you would acknowledge that my viewpoint was valid. I guess I'll never know. I guess what I need to ask myself is if I need you to acknowledge the harm your actions caused in order to have a resolution. I want freedom and I know that as long as I hang on to the past I will never fully be free from it. I suppose I don't need you to validate my perspective because it's mine and mine only. It belongs to me, and it's valid. I will never get an apology and I don't need one because I know you did your best with the resources you had available to you. When I look at it that way, I can forgive you. 

I haven't felt connected to you in a long time and perhaps it's because I am a very different version of myself from the time you were still alive. I've learned to live separate from you. I am not an extension of you. I am my own person and I like who I am. I am a better version of me and this version of me doesn't need your approval or validation. I don't say that in a "fuck you dad" kind of way, but rather in a way that simply affirms my autonomy.