Rashomon
I spent a week with my dad when I was twelve. He drove down with his other son and another family in a Winnebago, and he picked me up on the way. We drove out to South Padre Island and fished for a week on the beach.
It was a week filled with so much anxiety and disappointment for me that I've thought about it many times over the years. How I perceive that week, though, has changed over the years, particularly after I started therapy. Each version of the story becomes different, even though the basic facts have never changed.
What strikes me most now is how naive I was, even though I was smart for my age. And I feel bad for my small self trying to fix what was unfixable and blaming myself when I failed.
I don't know why I wanted to see my dad. He never wrote, he didn't call. All he sent was a Christmas present each year. On the rare occasions I did see him, I made him deeply uncomfortable because I asked questions he couldn't answer.
In my mind, him coming down to take me fishing for a week was a watershed moment. He clearly wanted to make a new commitment to being a father. In that week, I would convince him of my absolute appeal, and somehow that would convert our relationship into something special.
In reality, Dad coming to see me wasn't some big sacrifice on his part. My house was less than five minutes off the road that would lead to the beach, and he loved to fish more than he loved any person. He always had. I was part of the trip because it was convenient, not essential.
I should have been tipped off that my perception of the week was wildly different from his when another family came with him. In all, it was six people, plus me. I realize now they were with him to act as a buffer from me.
I was vaguely aware as the week progressed that I was spending hardly any time with him. He was always with other people, and I strongly remember his progressive annoyance with me. Nothing I did was quite right.
He thought, quite strongly, that I was soft. To him, that was the worst quality a person could have, even in sixth grade. Dad served in Korea and came back profoundly disturbed, and he was like that for the rest of his life. It was always an irony of my childhood that I wanted someone to like me who was so unlikable himself.
I definitely was soft, by his standards. His standards were so toxic, though, that they damaged anyone who tried to live up to them. My stepbrother was one of the casualties.
As the week progressed, my anxiety steadily increased. Nothing seemed to be changing, and I didn't know how to change it. I clearly didn't fit in, because I wanted to talk about topics even the adults didn't know anything about. I felt so incredibly vulnerable, and there was no one to protect me.
By the fifth day, I had canker sores on my gums, and I'm sure it was because of sheer stress. And I was sunburned beyond belief (Mom was so angry when he dropped me off and she saw how burned I was).
I blamed myself after he left, though for what, I was never sure. For not being magical, I guess. That week made me retreat into myself in a way that made me even more introverted, and I didn't start to unravel that until I got into therapy over four decades later.
For a long time, even though my interpretation of the week changed, I never thought about forgiving myself. I didn't think I needed to. This last time, though, I realized it mattered.
So to me as a little dude, I know you were doing your best. I couldn't ask for anything more.
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