Dec 12, 2006 14:56
my first day home for winter break, my dad is having a meeting with a potential client in the dining room, and you have to understand that the way my apartment is, there are no walls or doors except for the bathrooms and bedrooms, so its all open and my fifteen year old fuckup brother is playing some stupid video game shirtless on the other side of the apartment and i just want to shake him and scream can't you just stop, just for a minute, can't you just try to help him, but it wouldn't be fair because i'd just mean it for myself. can't i just wake up earlier, help him clean the house, boost his confidence up for the meeting, look at his photos with him, talk to him about it, help him prepare, can't i just help him. but its so hard to know how to help your dad when you've been the kid for so long. how do you do that without emasculating him, without destroying his confidence, belittling him? how do you tell him you love him and you don't care if he is famous or if he is a photographer, you just want him to be happy and to do whatever makes him happy. how do you say all of that and keep yourself from saying the biggest one, "i just want you to be a grownup, i just want you to ake responsibility, to earn money, to support us, to be a dad in that way." he has been such a good dad in every other way, a perfect dad, and i hate our society for making him feel like that's not good enough, and i hate myself for buying into it and believing that's not good enough just because he's the dad, not the mom. i've never paid attention to gender problems and all of that, because i guess they're always portrayed as so one-sidedly female, and because my mom is so successful and accomplished i thought it was bullshit. but they don't just hurt women. they hurt dads and they hurt families.
i am sitting here tense in the next room straining to listen and being proud of him and wincing when he puts himself down and most of all my heart is aching because he doesn't sound happy, and he doesn't sound passionate and he really, really doesn't sound confident, and i just want him to feel important and worthwhile and meaningful but i don't know how to tell him that, and i don't know how to tell him that it doesn't matter that he's almost fifty, there's still time for fresh starts and he still deserves them.