recovery.

Any active reader will notice that I have deep parent wounds. Some are apparent and manageable like limiting the contact my mother has with me to letter writing and calling through other people. For my family, it is like being a live reality TV show that they could participate in but choose not to and let the hurt and damage crescendo until they have to step in. But looking at my deepest fear, I realized that my father issues are linked to it. So while I have touched on my father issues, let’s take a deeper review.

I stopped talking about my parents to people around me in my college career. I picked it back up when I was at my job and needed an excuse to leave. I stopped thinking about my parents as roles I wanted filled by anyone or as something I needed in my life. I admired people who had them but like wanting a romantic relationship, I opted not to want healthy parents for myself. At the time of these decisions, I was acceptant of the fact that I could not blame them for who I was as a person any more or rely on them in the offset so why bother. As far as I was concerned, their roles as active parents were over.

But now that we have this ongoing isolation and like any individual going through or recovering from an awakening, I have shadow work to do. And that means unearthing and determining my parents’ value. Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents from afar. I just prefer to keep them far away from me. But looking at my parents and my future status as a parent, I have been thinking if I want my children to think of my parenting the same way. I don’t want to have my children thinking about me as disposable as soon as college is over. But I also don’t want them to have me as their best friends. I want something in the middle. I think. It depends on the need of the kids.

What bothers me about my parents is the lack of happy stories or time I have spent in their company. There are not many times my parents and I spent together that were devoid of some kind of emotional ordeal. Looking at my deepest fear, I realized that it is based on the knowledge I have of my father and his personal history. I don’t have stories about my parents’ upbringing that makes me bring them up as a part of history makeup. Unless I was asked about my upbringing, I never have to recall them as individuals. I think that is part of it as well. Outside of being terrible parents, they have no personalities or friends that flesh them out as people. That kind of limitation makes talking about them harder than necessary. It also makes me not trust them with my personal life stories.

I think that is all I can give to this realization this evening. I know tsunami’s relationship with his parents is far more complicated since he still spends time with his family in a way that I hoped my best friend had. But it is worth the time and effort. At least that is what I am going to give my soulmate.