This article seemed to signal the perfect time to revisit my daddy issues. (I think I learned to post links in the text. This is revelutionary for me. And yes, I know 3rd graders take this kind of shit for granted.)
When I saw it and read it through, my first instinct was to send it to my father and see what he had to say about it. This would break a five or six (?) month silence on my part--the last contact being a letter I sent to him explaining how his that because of the way he handled the start of his new life with his girlfriend, and the way he talked down to me and allowed her to be out and out insulting, that I didn't feel comfortable inviting him to my wedding. I told him that it wasn't written in stone and that the ball was in his court, but I was tired and not all that hopeful. If he wanted to really work for a change in our relationship, things could change.
I didn't mean to use my wedding as an incentive for him. Or bribe. And I tried to word it carefully so he would understand that I was just trying to protect myself from a situation that was growing more and more tense and angry (or maybe it was just me growing more tense and angry) as I thought about having him possibly come to my wedding. Girlfriend in tow. Being tense and angry with him during the whole thing was not how I wanted to spend my wedding day. So, I let him know.
His response was a nice little e-card congratulating Dinah and I on our marriage, but saying nothing about the more negative, and important, revelations that came along with the announcement. Though, I'm not sure the e-card would've given him enough room to really deal with things. But, then again, maybe that was the point. Who knows with this guy anymore?
But what's really important is that this instinct to keep taking jabs at him is probably my sly way of telling myself that I want him to be at my wedding. Or, rather, that I want him to want to be at my wedding. And I want him to act like an adult while he's there. If I were drawing up my perfect wedding, he'd be there. (If I were drawing, he'd be a stick figure, but that's beside the point.)
But.
As I'm figuring out, even at events that are almost completely about you and the celebration of the direction your life is taking, things are rarely perfect. And really, they aren't as much about me as I like to think.
I mean, I know I can be incredibly narcisitic (isn't that why I started a blog about me?). But, (and there has to be a "but", because I now fear turning into my father so so much) I realize now that besides the response that sending him the article would get from him (beg from him really), I just need to not bully him in this way. I'm not gonna get my way. This is a loss. It's a loss and it's over. It's time I accepted it and stopped expecting him to come around.
My father won't be at my wedding. And I'm the one who has to explain why to the rest of his family that I am inviting. But that's a whole different can of shit.
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