Christmastime is always stressful no matter how far I run away from my childhood. My sister is having trouble too, and I was feeling sentimental so I thought I would spill some guts.
Hi Lori, and merry Christmas. Wow, what a powerfully emotional day of the year, huh? I usually try to insulate myself pretty well away from the outside world on this day, every year, these days, lol. I am sorry for being so rude and obnoxious by posting comments on your FB wall back when I was on FB. I have always been me, and I have done what seemed like the thing to do at the time, and yet when I look back I wonder how I could have felt in such a way as to have said those things or held those opinions. I suppose that is a commentary on the ever changing quality of a life, but it is peculiar nevertheless. Like you, I have made attempts to reconcile with dad. Like you, my efforts are always thwarted by stepmom. Like you, that makes me angry and sad and that doesn't even mention the subconscious reactions we must experience as well. But, unlike you, I have given up on ever being able to establish contact with dad. I say establish instead of reestablish because he and I have never really bonded the way a father and son must bond in order to be a father and son, with the myriad different and subtle things that make that relationship apparent. I have grown to lack any and all respect for him as a human being. I think his intelligence is dubitable and his morals/ethic is nonexistent. I think he is especially weak and the only feeling I can generate for the man is pity, with a little bit of lingering contempt which I work very hard at releasing, like residual pressure. In my mind I am objective and cruel in my deliberations, but when he standing in front of me, appearing broken down and completely defeated and growing too old for these shenanigans and completely without any idea of how to keep his sinking ship afloat as he coasts into retirement age with no occupation. Right then is when the pity hits me so hard I could throw up. I see that he is a drowning man clinging to the only thing he is aware of that might save him. I cannot claim to know how his thought processes work, but I have a feeling that he has decided the primary objective in life is to have the appearance of having more and better than you actually do. It's a measure of success that is unsustainable in the long run and can only end in ruin. He struggles more than any man I know, but I am afraid all his struggling is in vain. At which point I consider that I too feel as if all my struggles have been in vain, and how does that leave me in a position to say good or bad about him? So, in the end, I do not know. As I said, unlike me, you are still trying to meld your two streams together. That might be the only way, but remember in ghost-busters they had to meld particle streams in order to defeat Zuel at the end; and it might be worth it, but you just might get your face burned off. I love you and all those wonderful kids and I stand in awe at your ability to have come this far through so much and have done it with such poise and grace. Seriously, you are a powerful human being and you are destined to be an ancestor, which is no small feat. Merry x-mas.