Wednesday, November 3, 2010

truth: trepidation

Today I am tired.

I was up very late last night reading about Christians in Africa, and getting more and more disgusted with the human race and western missionaries in particular. Good grief.

Learned a lot, wrote a little, and then learned some more in class tonight with a really cool guy who just happens to be a Christian from Africa. Only he's a native African. Waaaaaaayyyyyy different perspective. Very, very cool session.

I won't go into the political situation out country and my state is in after yesterday's elections. I have bigger fish to fry.

You all know my story of infant abandonment, I have probably outlined some of the bullying and abuse that my father visited upon me as a child and the manipulation and passive-aggressive behavior instilled by everyone else.

And you may remember that my father has been diagnosed in the past year or two with Alzheimer's.

My sister told me yesterday that he has asked that I be invited to celebrate his birthday this year in early December.

I am unsure what to do, beyond checking with my therapist and thinking hard about such a decision. It could be an opportunity for closure. It could be an opportunity for healing and forgiveness. It could be an ambush.

I am concerned, and with reason. I am learning now in therapy just what lessons about safety, security and love I learned from this guy. I am sure he did not intend to screw me up forever, but he could not give what he did not have, and I came from a rough place to start. Whatever the case, I learned some pretty screwed up things at the time in my life when I should have been learning security and love. I'll write more about them tomorrow. Tonight I am just trying to get enough written to post before midnight and not feel embarrassed about a pathetic effort.

And I think this just barely makes it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It could be an opportunity for closure. It could be an opportunity for healing and forgiveness. It could be an ambush. M'dear, sweet woman..I had an asshole for a father that I forgave and when he went into alcohol-induced dementia, I gave it the ole college try again and stayed with him for three weeks to see if he actually could take care of himself any longer. He couldn't.

All he did was verbally abuse me and bitch to others about what a horrible person I was. Some believed his lies, most didn't.

So when my sister and I tried to have an 'intervention' with him about his drinking, lying and all the rest of his fuckery...his response was to scream for me to shut the fuck up.

I promptly stood up, told him to stand up so I could knock his 80 year old ass into next week for all the beatings he gave me, my brother and my mother eons ago when I was a child and had to tolerate his ass.

Do what you feel is right...but do NOT feel guilty if you decide to blow off his party. Some people just aren't worth the effort.

unmitigated me said...

I would be trepidatious about a party. Meeting one-on-one is one thing, but which of you is likely to act the grown-up in front of a crowd? It seems like an opportunity to attack.

Do you know how delighted I was to see you participating in NaBloMeMo? I am interested to hear how school is going...and life, too, since you found a benefactor to make it easier!