(no subject)
I remember it clear as day. It was Christmas time, and I was seventeen. I wanted to buy gifts for some family members, but I had no cash. Reluctantly, I asked my father for money. It wasn't what he said then that really struck me; it was the standard parental answer I had grown to expect. It was how he said it.
He said, "Doesn't this make you feel like you should have a job?" Then he was silent.
In itself, this wasn't unusual. But inside of him, I could see his disappointment. His hatred of me. Not specifically of me, but of what I had become. Lazy. Irresponsible Perfectly willing to let my life slip away from me. Sure, he didn't hate me. He hated me no more than I hated him. But I felt the pain I was causing him, the pain he felt for every hour I had wasted in front of a television or on a computer or sitting inside on a beautiful day. The pain he felt every time I chose to do nothing with myself.
Keep in mind, none of this was ever spoken. Only because I know my father so well was I even able to detect that there was anything different. Maybe it was the way he looked at me. His eyes pleading with me instead of scolding me. Maybe it was the way I could hear it in his voice, the exact moment when he stopped trying. But either way, right before my eyes, I saw my father turn from the authoritarian disciplinarian I knew into another pathetic, hopeless parent.
It's not exactly easy to watch your parents give up on you. To feel that isolation, that rejection. To know that the people who care the most no longer have faith in you. I knew I hadn't lost my father. But I had lost a piece of him, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never get it back, not back the way it was.
Perhaps it had to happen this way. Perhaps this is the way it had to be, the way for kids to detach themselves from their childhoods and fall into adulthood. And in a way it was beautiful. I realized that in that moment, that in that split-second, I was watching an event that could easily divide my life as the point where I stopped being a child and entered adulthood.
He said, "Doesn't this make you feel like you should have a job?" Then he was silent.
In itself, this wasn't unusual. But inside of him, I could see his disappointment. His hatred of me. Not specifically of me, but of what I had become. Lazy. Irresponsible Perfectly willing to let my life slip away from me. Sure, he didn't hate me. He hated me no more than I hated him. But I felt the pain I was causing him, the pain he felt for every hour I had wasted in front of a television or on a computer or sitting inside on a beautiful day. The pain he felt every time I chose to do nothing with myself.
Keep in mind, none of this was ever spoken. Only because I know my father so well was I even able to detect that there was anything different. Maybe it was the way he looked at me. His eyes pleading with me instead of scolding me. Maybe it was the way I could hear it in his voice, the exact moment when he stopped trying. But either way, right before my eyes, I saw my father turn from the authoritarian disciplinarian I knew into another pathetic, hopeless parent.
It's not exactly easy to watch your parents give up on you. To feel that isolation, that rejection. To know that the people who care the most no longer have faith in you. I knew I hadn't lost my father. But I had lost a piece of him, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never get it back, not back the way it was.
Perhaps it had to happen this way. Perhaps this is the way it had to be, the way for kids to detach themselves from their childhoods and fall into adulthood. And in a way it was beautiful. I realized that in that moment, that in that split-second, I was watching an event that could easily divide my life as the point where I stopped being a child and entered adulthood.