No, not forever

My version of the story is the one i am sticking with. i think my father is having a mid-life crisis. although he cannot see that. for him, mid-life crisis-ing is for weaker minded, less original people. No, he simply has come to the rational and not crisis-induced conclusion that he wants nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my mother and nothing to do with my sister. Should he have a major heart-attack and barely survive it, I am not to come to his side- I am not to even call. If my mother dies tomorrow, i am told, I will not be welcome at the funeral.

Oh, how the mighty fall.


I spent six hours on the phone with this bruised Ego, this disillusioned man-child. I was bewildered and perplexed by the time i got off- still in my pajamas. I was abused, and he abused my care for him, my concern for my own place in the family. He wanted to hurt me. He made me literally sick.

The next day i couldn't focus at work. I could not. I felt sick in my stomach, light-headed, fuzzy. i felt bruised up inside.

i felt out of control and i was... i was at the mercy of his tantrum.

my dad has earned his crisis: he has been the chief contributor to it. My dad deserves to rage: lots that is presently making him crazy is not entirely his fault.

But not a bit of it is mine either, so i am not paying the tab.

I am going on with my life, the only one i have. I will not invest in his breakdown, though i honestly hope he regains his footing.

Once my aged and wise therapist held my hand and told me that i could not be the stabilizing force in my family. He told me he understood why i had tried, that he believed me when i said that i played the part i did because i feared the chaos that would ensue if i did not.

He told me I had to let happen in them what would happen-

and now I am doing that. I let them destabilize in my absence because i cannot struggle with them forever.
my son is growing up too quickly for that.