09/24/2024
My dad passed away on this day in 2018, but we lost him many years before that to dementia.
In 2016 I wrote about realizing that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him laugh. He had a rosy-cheeked, wheezy, ornery, and contagious laugh.
If he was laughing, it was probably at something wildly inappropriate. Even if you found what he was laughing at to be abhorrent, you were probably gonna laugh too…no matter how hard you tried not to.
Like his D.A.M.M. shirt: Drinkers Against Mad Mothers 🤦♀️
Losing someone a little bit at a time is so weird and disorienting.
What I currently miss most about my dad is that feeling of being unconditionally on his radar. Since his passing, I’ve sort of become allergic to being half-in on relationships. I want to be all in, or all out.
I realized at some point in early adulthood, for a lot of reasons, that this feeling of being half in with someone was what I thought was normal in healthy relationships.
“He’s my brother, but he has a different mom,” “He’s my dad, but he lives out of state,” “She’s my mom, but she’s not sane,” somehow created a relational template inside of me that I then inserted, “She’s my FRIEND, but also my enemy…and I have to work REALLY hard for her approval,” and “he’s my boyfriend, but I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but when I confront him about ghosting me, he’ll gaslight me and I’ll believe him and we’ll stay together,” into.
Relationships were exhausting…
until I realized that being good at relationships also meant being discerning…and not tolerating an atrocious amount of crap. Good relationships feel good MOST of the time, not half the time. Good relationships have a foundation of honesty, repair, and respect…not obligation, submission, and silence. And some relationships are worth the work, and some are not.
Thank g I had already started working on this in therapy before meeting my husband. That feeling of being all in with him is something that’ll bring tears to my eyes immediately.
So, today, on the anniversary of his passing, I hope you create the TIME to have close friends and family on your radar, and I hope you know you DESERVE whole and happy relationships.
