Current status
After thawing out from the numb shock, and trying to get the temper under control, I've decided what to do about the parental imposter, hereafter known as p.i. (Side note: No, 'Dad' or 'my father' is not an appropriate term for him. He wanted children, not sons and daughters. Once we grew up, he didn't want us. Until now, apparently.) I'm following the famous plan espoused by Methos: Do nothing.
I've been fatherless for twelve years now by one reckoning, eighteen by another. Another two or three years really won't make a difference to that, and I want to see how he behaves with my older brother and younger sister, both of whom have been trying to keep up some relationship with him. If he treats them decently, and their children, we'll see. If he really *does* want to reconcile, he'll let me take this at my own pace. Judging both from past history and the way he and his wife worded things this weekend when they talked to me and my husband, what seems more likely is that he just wants to pretend nothing ever happened and go back to the way things were when I was, oh, fourteen or so. I don't think they actually want to reconcile. If they did... they'd have *asked* me if I'd consider it. Not told me that 'we need to' and assumed that 'we' included me.
I keep typing things and deleting them as being too bitchy or too whiny or just too much information. Weird. It's my journal, but in some ways, this feels more like a progress report to tell my friends that yes, I'm okay, and, well, I hate whining. It doesn't accomplish anything. So I suppose I'll actually do a full journal entry on this sometime soon, which will be clearly marked as backstory and venting for those who don't want TMI or are working through their own issues and might be hurt by adding my problems to their load, but that's going to be for me. Anyone reading this can skip it. Please. Feel free.
What this mess comes down to, at base, is that I never wanted to end up with only one parent. It wasn't a decision I made lightly, or quickly -- and it's not one I want to overturn quickly or lightly, either. Accepting that a man who was supposed to be my father was hurting me, deliberately, was not a pleasant process. Accepting that I couldn't trust him *not* to hurt me was no easier. Both statements were accurate; I think they probably still are. However, either I accepted those facts and found a way to go on with my life somewhere away from him, at least emotionally, or I accepted his behavior and ended up in a relationship where I wasn't allowed to be anything but a subserviant adjunct to someone else's personality... and, judging by the last several years of that, I wasn't going to be able to please him anyway.
So I closed myself off to him, and accepted that other people had fathers but I didn't, and I went on. And now he wants that armor open again and all I can think is, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Or maybe it's more like, 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.' He's proven himself my enemy. I don't think I trust him any more than before just because he's sober now. So... I think I'll wait to see if I get a flag of truce and invitation to parley. But I'm not going to be taken in by public shows and pronouncements. Better to wait and see what the deeds look like.
As to the rest of that weekend, well. The move was completely exhausting, and bruising, and terrifying in parts. We thought Dragon's dojomates were going to help load the moving van. They never showed. So, two of us, plus one 53 year old librarian (female, and shorter than me, but much more stubborn and more reasonable than me) loaded a 20' moving van with 7' couch, and overstuffed love seat, and recliner, and futon, and bookshelves, and more bookshelves, and a glass-top table, and boxes and boxes and boxes of books, and an entertainment center, and... well. You get the idea. We thought at first it was too large; we ended up mostly filling it. Then we went to my mother-in-law's house the next morning and finished filling it. She had offered to pay part of the rental fee if we took a bedroom suite to Charlotte for my niece/her granddaughter. ::shrug:: It was an hour and a half out of our way, all told, so we said sure.
In the process of loading the van, and unloading it later, I tried to break one finger (twice, actually -- same finger, same furniture, same problem, both loading *and* moving the entertainment center into new/correct place...), one arm (that was the futon), one toe (a bookshelf), and one ankle (another bookshelf). I also slammed one knee and the other thigh against sharp objects, the knee while moving, the leg while trying to get out of the christening party in time to meet my mother-in-law for dinner. (Why were we meeting her for dinner in the middle of this insanity? Because she'd offered to have dinner with us and was giving us a place to sleep that night. Besides. She's really good company.)
Backing up to the van -- I'd been dubious about being able to drive a moving van anyway. Then I got a good look at a 20' moving van with a car tow behind it. (Not the one where your front wheels are up and the back down, but the kind where you drive the car completely onto it.) There was absolutely no way I could drive that thing through the Smokies without getting someone, probably several people, killed. Me, I thought saying so from the start was the mature, adult thing to do. Better I decide that there than be wrong at 70 mph on a highway, or 50 mph on a curving 5% grade in the mountains. The truck dealer was *not* happy about having to redo his paperwork, take a tow off, and charge us $200 less. I still think I was right. This did, however, leave my husband driving this van the entire 630 miles to Charlotte, and then 90 miles to Columbia, with me driving the car behind, also 720 miles, also without relief driver or navigator. Did I mention 'exhausting' in relationship to this? (Did you really think I just meant the carrying and packing?)
Anyway. We made it into Charlotte late at night after loading the last of the stuff in Memphis later in the morning than we'd have liked; the shortage of help really played hob with our timing, and the ground fog on the way *into* Memphis had run us late to begin with. Two hours of 10-30' visibility is not a good thing to drive in. We crashed, hard. My sister-in-law not only left us a carafe of coffee for when we woke, she'd left donuts, her husband's number to call for help unloading (he works five minutes from their house; she works 30), and money to cover a tank of gas for the truck, to compensate us for the side trip. Hell *yes*, I'm grateful; why do you ask?
We then made it into Columbia and unloaded the car, and sat still for an hour, then started unloading the truck. We moved all but the *really* heavy stuff; three of Dragon's coworkers came by after work and helped with that, and we bought them dinner in lieu of payment. So... all told, it was interesting. Well, I forgot to mention things like thinking we'd lost the money my mother-in-law gave us to help cover the truck, and the sign from God(s) about naming the new teddy bear I got right before we set out (early Imbolc/Valentine's Day present), and the books and cds we got with a gift certificate from Christmas that could *only* be spent in Memphis, but, that's the basics.
Still tired. Still unpacking. Haven't written my lyric wheel fic, and I think it's due Monday, Gods help me. The cats love having familiar furniture again. So do I. Dragon loves having his computer desk back (he'd been using the dining room table we'd rented). Oh, I could sleep for a week, though.
Next time? We're hiring movers. We're putting money aside for that now.
And if you've read this far? I hope your weekend was *much* more relaxing than mine.
I've been fatherless for twelve years now by one reckoning, eighteen by another. Another two or three years really won't make a difference to that, and I want to see how he behaves with my older brother and younger sister, both of whom have been trying to keep up some relationship with him. If he treats them decently, and their children, we'll see. If he really *does* want to reconcile, he'll let me take this at my own pace. Judging both from past history and the way he and his wife worded things this weekend when they talked to me and my husband, what seems more likely is that he just wants to pretend nothing ever happened and go back to the way things were when I was, oh, fourteen or so. I don't think they actually want to reconcile. If they did... they'd have *asked* me if I'd consider it. Not told me that 'we need to' and assumed that 'we' included me.
I keep typing things and deleting them as being too bitchy or too whiny or just too much information. Weird. It's my journal, but in some ways, this feels more like a progress report to tell my friends that yes, I'm okay, and, well, I hate whining. It doesn't accomplish anything. So I suppose I'll actually do a full journal entry on this sometime soon, which will be clearly marked as backstory and venting for those who don't want TMI or are working through their own issues and might be hurt by adding my problems to their load, but that's going to be for me. Anyone reading this can skip it. Please. Feel free.
What this mess comes down to, at base, is that I never wanted to end up with only one parent. It wasn't a decision I made lightly, or quickly -- and it's not one I want to overturn quickly or lightly, either. Accepting that a man who was supposed to be my father was hurting me, deliberately, was not a pleasant process. Accepting that I couldn't trust him *not* to hurt me was no easier. Both statements were accurate; I think they probably still are. However, either I accepted those facts and found a way to go on with my life somewhere away from him, at least emotionally, or I accepted his behavior and ended up in a relationship where I wasn't allowed to be anything but a subserviant adjunct to someone else's personality... and, judging by the last several years of that, I wasn't going to be able to please him anyway.
So I closed myself off to him, and accepted that other people had fathers but I didn't, and I went on. And now he wants that armor open again and all I can think is, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Or maybe it's more like, 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.' He's proven himself my enemy. I don't think I trust him any more than before just because he's sober now. So... I think I'll wait to see if I get a flag of truce and invitation to parley. But I'm not going to be taken in by public shows and pronouncements. Better to wait and see what the deeds look like.
As to the rest of that weekend, well. The move was completely exhausting, and bruising, and terrifying in parts. We thought Dragon's dojomates were going to help load the moving van. They never showed. So, two of us, plus one 53 year old librarian (female, and shorter than me, but much more stubborn and more reasonable than me) loaded a 20' moving van with 7' couch, and overstuffed love seat, and recliner, and futon, and bookshelves, and more bookshelves, and a glass-top table, and boxes and boxes and boxes of books, and an entertainment center, and... well. You get the idea. We thought at first it was too large; we ended up mostly filling it. Then we went to my mother-in-law's house the next morning and finished filling it. She had offered to pay part of the rental fee if we took a bedroom suite to Charlotte for my niece/her granddaughter. ::shrug:: It was an hour and a half out of our way, all told, so we said sure.
In the process of loading the van, and unloading it later, I tried to break one finger (twice, actually -- same finger, same furniture, same problem, both loading *and* moving the entertainment center into new/correct place...), one arm (that was the futon), one toe (a bookshelf), and one ankle (another bookshelf). I also slammed one knee and the other thigh against sharp objects, the knee while moving, the leg while trying to get out of the christening party in time to meet my mother-in-law for dinner. (Why were we meeting her for dinner in the middle of this insanity? Because she'd offered to have dinner with us and was giving us a place to sleep that night. Besides. She's really good company.)
Backing up to the van -- I'd been dubious about being able to drive a moving van anyway. Then I got a good look at a 20' moving van with a car tow behind it. (Not the one where your front wheels are up and the back down, but the kind where you drive the car completely onto it.) There was absolutely no way I could drive that thing through the Smokies without getting someone, probably several people, killed. Me, I thought saying so from the start was the mature, adult thing to do. Better I decide that there than be wrong at 70 mph on a highway, or 50 mph on a curving 5% grade in the mountains. The truck dealer was *not* happy about having to redo his paperwork, take a tow off, and charge us $200 less. I still think I was right. This did, however, leave my husband driving this van the entire 630 miles to Charlotte, and then 90 miles to Columbia, with me driving the car behind, also 720 miles, also without relief driver or navigator. Did I mention 'exhausting' in relationship to this? (Did you really think I just meant the carrying and packing?)
Anyway. We made it into Charlotte late at night after loading the last of the stuff in Memphis later in the morning than we'd have liked; the shortage of help really played hob with our timing, and the ground fog on the way *into* Memphis had run us late to begin with. Two hours of 10-30' visibility is not a good thing to drive in. We crashed, hard. My sister-in-law not only left us a carafe of coffee for when we woke, she'd left donuts, her husband's number to call for help unloading (he works five minutes from their house; she works 30), and money to cover a tank of gas for the truck, to compensate us for the side trip. Hell *yes*, I'm grateful; why do you ask?
We then made it into Columbia and unloaded the car, and sat still for an hour, then started unloading the truck. We moved all but the *really* heavy stuff; three of Dragon's coworkers came by after work and helped with that, and we bought them dinner in lieu of payment. So... all told, it was interesting. Well, I forgot to mention things like thinking we'd lost the money my mother-in-law gave us to help cover the truck, and the sign from God(s) about naming the new teddy bear I got right before we set out (early Imbolc/Valentine's Day present), and the books and cds we got with a gift certificate from Christmas that could *only* be spent in Memphis, but, that's the basics.
Still tired. Still unpacking. Haven't written my lyric wheel fic, and I think it's due Monday, Gods help me. The cats love having familiar furniture again. So do I. Dragon loves having his computer desk back (he'd been using the dining room table we'd rented). Oh, I could sleep for a week, though.
Next time? We're hiring movers. We're putting money aside for that now.
And if you've read this far? I hope your weekend was *much* more relaxing than mine.