Tuesday, February 21, 2006
I'm long past needing positive validation from my dad, but my god, would it kill him to pay me a compliment now and again? I mean, really, I truly don't "care" about the lack validation, I don't take it personally and I understand that he's just too weak a person to go there, it's mostly just so embarrassing for me to watch him continue to live out his life in this passive, empty state that really drives me nuts.
My mom was telling me a story the other day about how she used to help out in my kindergarten class so much that the teacher had to ask her to limit her visits to twice a week. I didn't remember her being there but I still have that year's class picture and my dad is in it as he was helping out that day. She said that a lot of people in the community still have that picture and still comment on how much he helped out (as well as on his GINORMOUS afro and sideburns--yes, we are a Caucasian family but this was 1976) despite the fact that he only assisted in the classroom maybe once a month. She says even at the time she knew it was more important to his ego to be in the photograph than it was to hers.
That sucks. My dad has sucked for my entire life but I just didn't know until I hit 30.
We're redoing our guest bath downstairs, as I've mentioned. It's taking quite a bit of time, energy, and money and we're doing it by ourselves as sort of our first real home-improvement project together. My dad and mom are also installing new bamboo floors in their house. I was up there yesterday and had brought the new, beautiful, slate tiles that we'll be using so that I could seal them in the basement while my mom watched Suzie. I can't tell you how many times I commented on how amazing his new floors looked--and they really are beautiful--but not one single time did he even comment on what I was doing. Even as we were working side-by-side in the basement on our projects. He did bring me a workbench and paintbrush though, I should give him that as that's probably the best he can do these days. I was walking downstairs and thought he finally said something nice as I overheard him say to my mom "it's really going to look great when it's finished." She replied "yeah, the stones are so beautiful" to which he replied "no, the bamboo..." like she was retarded.
Nice.
He's so amazing with Suzie. It's funny, well, you know, sad-funny, I think he probably is her second favorite person in the world. Maybe it goes back and forth between him and her dad depending on her mood but she definitely likes her granddad more than just about anybody. She has such a good time with him, squeals and screams and laughs and runs all over the house to find him. I know he loves me but I think he's genuinely unhappy with his marriage and his life and takes it out on everyone around him. It's all his own fault though, we all reap what we sow and he's sowed very few positive seeds in his life.
Save the one that resulted in yours truly of course. ;)
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My mom was telling me a story the other day about how she used to help out in my kindergarten class so much that the teacher had to ask her to limit her visits to twice a week. I didn't remember her being there but I still have that year's class picture and my dad is in it as he was helping out that day. She said that a lot of people in the community still have that picture and still comment on how much he helped out (as well as on his GINORMOUS afro and sideburns--yes, we are a Caucasian family but this was 1976) despite the fact that he only assisted in the classroom maybe once a month. She says even at the time she knew it was more important to his ego to be in the photograph than it was to hers.
That sucks. My dad has sucked for my entire life but I just didn't know until I hit 30.
We're redoing our guest bath downstairs, as I've mentioned. It's taking quite a bit of time, energy, and money and we're doing it by ourselves as sort of our first real home-improvement project together. My dad and mom are also installing new bamboo floors in their house. I was up there yesterday and had brought the new, beautiful, slate tiles that we'll be using so that I could seal them in the basement while my mom watched Suzie. I can't tell you how many times I commented on how amazing his new floors looked--and they really are beautiful--but not one single time did he even comment on what I was doing. Even as we were working side-by-side in the basement on our projects. He did bring me a workbench and paintbrush though, I should give him that as that's probably the best he can do these days. I was walking downstairs and thought he finally said something nice as I overheard him say to my mom "it's really going to look great when it's finished." She replied "yeah, the stones are so beautiful" to which he replied "no, the bamboo..." like she was retarded.
Nice.
He's so amazing with Suzie. It's funny, well, you know, sad-funny, I think he probably is her second favorite person in the world. Maybe it goes back and forth between him and her dad depending on her mood but she definitely likes her granddad more than just about anybody. She has such a good time with him, squeals and screams and laughs and runs all over the house to find him. I know he loves me but I think he's genuinely unhappy with his marriage and his life and takes it out on everyone around him. It's all his own fault though, we all reap what we sow and he's sowed very few positive seeds in his life.
Save the one that resulted in yours truly of course. ;)
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