This story is about a father who sort of lost his only daughter to the world early in her life, and then had trouble dealing with her when she drifted back into his life as she grew older.
The story will be rewritten in time to clean it up such as the flow and any grammatical problems.
Preface
I have known a few men who have had rocky (difficult) relationships with their children. Often, these relationships can be attributed to bad relationships between their parents. After observing a few of these relationships throughout my life, I was inspired to write a story about a father who sort of lost his daughter to the world early in her life, and then had trouble dealing with her when she became more involved in his life as she grew older. This is a fictional story that I may rewrite in the form of scripts for a play or a book. At this time, I have written a monologue by the father after he and his daughter had a heated argument, It's about his note to her trying to explain his understanding of their rocky relationship.
Their relationship is much different than those with others in their lives.
Try to understand that I don't hate you as you may sometimes think. I admit that I don't like a lot of the things you say and do, but I don't hate you. I love you and always will. If I didn't care for you, I wouldn't care about what you say or do. You tell me that I am the only person with whom you have a problem. That may be so, but that doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with me. Try putting things in perspective. As your father, I naturally think of you, and treat you differently than anyone else in my life; you also deal with me differently than anyone else in your life. It stands to reason that our relationship would be different and complicated at times. Our expectations of each other are much different and greater than those with others. Problems occur when this is not understood.
The negative influence that she received from the women in her life about her father hurt her relationship with him…and she made poor choices in friends.
When you find it difficult to deal with me, consider some facts and events that have crippled our relationship over the years. I didn't have a fair opportunity to help raise you, teach you, or influence you in ways that I believe could have helped you live your life. You were, for the most part, raised by angry women, who had failed in their relationships with men. Their influence shaped much of how you think about me, men, and people in general. These women should have known better. They wrongfully taught you, verbally, and by actions, that I was a mean person. I believe this can be attributed to their own feelings of inadequacies, hurt, and disappointments in their failed marriages and relationships with men. What they taught you about me, whether it was intended or not, has been ingrained in your mind. In other words, you have been brainwashed! If you do not realize this, you will always see me the way they taught you. No matter what I say or do, if it doesn't suit you, you will be convinced that I am mean. When we have disagreements, or I try to make a point about something that you disagree with, you will be certain that I am "putting you down."
During those tender, vulnerable and influential teenage years, when you decided to run around without any guidance, you were influenced by an adult female friend of questionable character who took control of your mind. Her influence on you was not healthy, so I tried to intervene but failed. You also mixed and interacted with many people who were not going anywhere in life and you learned a lot of negative or useless things from them.
Her father felt cheated because people, who he did not approve of, taught her things that he thought was his role, and her alienation of him for years caused him deep hurt.
It may help if you would try to understand why I react to you sometimes in ways you don't like. Maybe you should try seeing me as a real human being with feelings. I don't think you realize how much mental and emotional damage you caused when you ran away in your mid-teens to be with someone who would use you. I worried about you day and night...for YEARS! You have no idea of the deep hurt that I experienced, the agony I endured, the tears I shed and the failure that I felt as a parent. Since you are not a parent, you will not understand this. Unfortunately, the damage has cut me so deeply, that even now, no matter how much I try, it is hard for me to completely forgive you. As you were growing up, I never imagined anything or anyone coming in between us. You were the purpose and joy of my life.
You don't realize how it troubles me when you speak of things that you learned from, or experienced with people, who I didn't approve of. Driving semi-trucks for a living may be honorable work for some people, but not for a young girl who could have done much better. You picked this up from people who were going no where in life, and you did it because it was fun and easy, not because of any calculated planning for a career. Do you really think I want to hear about the things that you experienced or seen around the country as a result of driving them? You talk a lot about camping at a certain Island. I know who influenced you in this and I really don't want to hear about any of it. I would hope this explanation would help you understand the reasons that I will not engage in any conversations or listen to you about any of these things.
Without any parental guidance or supervision, she lived her teenage years without any bounderies or limitations, gaining only momentary thrills and pleasure.
Yes, I am bitter. All those years when I was silently and endlessly suffering over you because I didn't know where you were, what you where doing and if you were even safe, you were being taught and experiencing many things that I did not approve of. Things that may never help you accomplish much in this life. You have wasted half your life doing things, from which you only gained momentary thrills and pleasure. I could have taught you how to stand on your feet (not just survive) and accomplish good, useful and necessary things to live by. I tried to give you a legitimate college education but you just threw it away. You gave it all up to just run around aimlessly, having your own way without any boundaries or limits. What have you really accomplished that will help you live a successful, independent and satisfactory life? You refused to be around me during your influential years, and I am hurt that you shut me out as your father. I suggest that you try to understand how I feel about all of this and not discuss these things with me
.
We cannot be hurt unless we choose to be hurt.
You don't seem to understand that a lot of the pain you feel sometimes when we get together is self-inflicted. God gave us freedom of choice, and that means we can choose how we think about anything. I have tried to get you to understand that no one can hurt us if we CHOOSE not to be hurt. When we hurt about something that someone said, or we think they said, it's because we choose to be hurt. The exception to this rule may be when someone who you love and believe should be sharing their life with you, treats you so wrongfully for so long that the hurt becomes impossible to avoid.
Adults do not normally act like out-of-control children in public places.
An adult at your age does not normally act like an out-of-control child, yelling and crying as you did in the restaurant the other day. I know you were hurt and it bothered me to see you that way, but you didn't even care to listen to anything I had to say. You showed complete lack of control of your emotions. That is really inexcusable for an adult. It's as if you didn't even think about what you were saying or doing.
Earlier that morning, as we sat in my living room, you told me that my furnace was bothering your nose, when I took exception with that (because I have known you to have sinus problems no matter where you are), you lost control and became angry. When you told me that the headache I had been experiencing for months was caused by the furnace, and I disagreed, you started yelling that you didn't want to argue…but you were the only one who was arguing…I never raised my voice. It's as if it doesn't matter what I say…I am just arguing with you. You tried drowning me out raising your voice and defending yourself so much that I could not get a word in.
Later that morning, I grumbled about how unfair the restaurant's pricing was, and you somehow misconstrued that as blaming you for something. No matter how calm I remained and how hard I tried to understand and tolerate your behavior, you wouldn't let me explain anything. You seem to see nothing in me except meanness. That is a real shame.
Controlling your thinking and emotions is an adult responsibility.
However, I understand where it all came from. Look, no matter what you think of me, you are an adult, and you should not display yourself in such a childish manner in public. Don't tell me it's my fault. I don't have your brain and I am not in your body. No matter how you think and feel about something or someone, you are responsible for acting as a sane and logical adult. It takes controlling your thinking and emotions. I or no one else can hurt you, if you do not allow it. You have a choice to deal with just about anything in your life, either appropriately or inappropriately. Anyone with common sense knows that we gain more happiness and peace if we stay under control, and choose not to go nuts over things that we may be wrong about anyway. If you want a meaningful relationship with me while we are both still on this earth, and you want real peace with others, you should do a lot of soul searching and take control of your thinking.
How you think about yourself will cause you to be that way. You are what you think you are.
I have tried to help you understand things about me and our interactions - as I see them. I have opened up more than I usually would, but if you are so brainwashed about me, nothing will help, and in that case, I really do feel sorry for you because we will never have a full, meaningful relationship. Blaming me for everything that goes wrong when we are together will not help you in the long run.
What I have said here is not meant for you to pick apart and argue with me about. I suggest that while there still is time in this short life on earth, you work at achieving peace and happiness in your life. Here is some advice: Don't think you are miserable because you will be miserable. Don't think you are unloved because that's what you may feel...you are loved. Don't think negative because it's a waste of energy and you will be negative. Remember, we are what we think we are all day long. You can constantly think well about yourself and you will feel good...because you will believe it.
No comments:
Post a Comment