Bitching with Dusio: Sins of the son

Bitching with Dusio

The rantings, ravings and musings of a now mid-forties american male. Sex, violence, rock-n-roll. Also, emotions and all that other mushy crap.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Sins of the son

The S.O. and I had a discussion today about my father. I don't talk about him much on here, if I ever have at all. I don't discuss him much outside of here, either.

Truth is, my relationship with my father is, well, strained. Strained is a good word for it. Because when he and I interact, it's a strain on both of us, I think. We don't see or talk to each other much, he lives in California. He hasn't lived in the same area as me for, I'm not sure, probably 14 years or so. I don't even know where to begin to start about our relationship. I guess childhood would be good. I mean, from what I remember, my early years with him were normal. Well, if him traveling at least two weeks a month is normal. He's one of those driven business types. He's very successful. He started as a clerk in a shoe store and ended up running the whole company. It provided us with a good life. We had everything we ever needed and pretty much everything we ever wanted. The problem with this was that, his being gone constantly left us pretty much with my mother all the time. And not that she wasn't a good mom, but she was an alcoholic. She has some serious issues. It wasn't always great for us. My sisters had the most difficulty with it. One of my older sisters really doesn't get along with my mom. I can't blame her for it, I guess. But I can't blame my mom, either. She had her issues and she tried to do right by us. My father on the other hand, I do blame. He ran away from it and called it working for a living. He knew what was going on and dealt with it by going somewhere else. To this day, he blames my mom for making his life a living hell. Really.
I have picture of me and my father when I was about 8 or so. It's in our basement of our house in Steubenville. He's holding me and we are dancing and he has this goofy look on his face and I'm smiling and laughing. I do remember good times. I remember he had a goofy sense of humor and would make me laugh. I look at that picture and wonder what the hell went wrong.
My parents divorced my senior year of high school. I either didn't care much or put it away in my head, because it didn't bother me much at the time. I remember telling a friend of mine at the time that they were divorcing and she was so sorry and felt so bad. I remember thinking, it's no big deal. But I think when he moved out, that was where our relationship started to fall apart. I had always thought that I could never do enough to please him. My grades would never be enough, I wasn't great at sports, etc. I think I just gave up trying. To this day I feel like I could never live up to his expectations. I'm always embarrassed by how my life has gone around him. Not that he ever supported me emotionally in anything. First, I dropped out of college. Then I ran off and got married. Then I had kids to young. I'm not saying I am perfect. I did some shitty stuff when I was young that no father would be pleased with. but, I don't know. I mean, I remember after one of my 'episodes' he and I got in a fight. He basically told me he didn't know why he had to even love me. I just remember saying to him that his precious bible told him so. He's a big catholic. Or was. I don't know where he is with it now. He almost became a priest before he met my mother. Maybe that's why he resents us all, we pulled him away from his life with god. Fuck if I know.
I know this is all rambling and doesn't make much sense. It's just, the S.O. thinks we should ask him for money, seeing as how that's the one thing he can give. But I couldn't ask him. I remember him helping me out once when I was around 21 and him exploding into this lecture about how he can't wait til he can stop paying for us. I think I needed like a hundred bucks or something. This was guy who spent a couple grand on handmade suits. Yet when we were kids, I couldn't get him to buy me a pair of Nikes because he thought they were too expensive. prick.
I do have a few issues, here you see. No, but I couldn't ask him now for anything. It would be me admitting failure again in his eyes and crawling to him to bail me out.
The last time I saw him was at my grandmother's 90th birthday. At the time, I was doing pretty well, I had a good job, was taking care of things, I felt good about myself. I still felt uncomfortable with him. I have no idea who he is. He lives in California with his girlfriend he's had for almost 20 years and her family. She moved out there to be with him. Then, in what I find a bit of irony, her daughter and her twin boys moved in with them because her husband left them. He seemed to have no issue with that. This was about 5 years ago. I remember talking to him and him telling me how he takes the boys to sports and shit like that. His new family. The year after my parents divorced, he started seeing this woman. That Christmas i found out he bought all her kids leather jackets for gifts. he gave me a card with fifty bucks in it. and it was some preachy ass religious card at that.

Besides the S.O. bringing him up, I watched Californication tonight. It was an episode about Hank's dad dying. They seemed to have a similarly strained relationship. Except, in the typical hollywood feel good manner, he reads a letter his dad left him before he died. It says how he's proud of him and all that shit. Ruined the whole show for me.
I won't find a letter, I can guarantee.

You want to know the worst thing about my father? He's turned into a prick Republican. He hates Hillary(I think he's afraid of strong women), he loves Bush and he thinks there should be no taxes to pay for social programs. Even though he has left his oldest daughter with schizophrenia to be taken care of by the government. Like all republicans, he's a hypocrite.

Labels: Californication, fatherhood, Fucked., republicans

posted by dusio @ 10/03/2007 09:34:00 PM

3 Comments:

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At 4:37 PM, Jhianna said…

I just watched that episode last night (I'm way behind on everything).

I'm generally a fan of the feel-good Hollywood stuff, but thinking back on it, you're right. It would have been a better story to have things stay unsettled. More real. I think every guy I know has at the very least, an unsettled relationship with his dad.

Aside from that, you're brave to put that out there. You might not think so, but I can't have those conversations about my parents. I've thought about it, but I always shy away from the subject.

And this is just in general, but *hugs* dude.
At 5:18 PM, dusio said…

I don't know about brave. I mean, I'm doing this on an anonymous blog out on the web.
I appreciate the hug. Especially from you! Hubba hubba.