Musings

i hate the holidays. i'm just going to put that out there right now. right in front. no skulking around the door of the bah-humbug closet.

i fucking, HATE, the holidays.

but i'll talk about that later.

today, i'm rolling some things around in my head. things dealing with my dad, and the issues our relationship encompasses. unless you're headless, you've figured out that there are several. but this one has reared up before, and its... an interesting one, to say the least.

i have an overdeveloped self-defense mechanism. its a close cousin to my control-freak compulsion. and its rooted in the soil of my low self-esteem and paranoia. and god knows, that soil is rich and fertile.

recently, my cylinders have been firing over this new job. granted, free-floating anxiety, excitement at finally being employed anywhere, all this other random situational stuff, is hitting me. i'm like a target practice dummy. but there's also The Issue; my way of instantaneously going to a five alarm "this is not a drill!" defensive posture when i perceive something as a threat to my right to freedom of expression, freedom of existence, freedom to i don't know, whatever, freedom in general. this happens every time i get a job. i try and boil it down to Me versus The Machine. i'm either an individual, or a machine. etc. blah blah blah, every dystopian fantasy ever created.

i'm trying really, REALLY hard not to fall prey to this. it's simply a trade-off. complying with the demands of the job opens doors to pay, benefits, and most importantly to my rabidly obsessive self, worlds and worlds of coffee knowledge. i don't need to press envelopes. i don't need to be passive aggressive (fun though it is...). i just need to show up, do a good job, and i get a number of valuable and even enjoyable things in return. its a job. its coffee. wheee!

however, where i am right now, is the fact that every time this happens with a job (which means every time i get a job...) my dad has to needle me, and joke around a little bit, and in general, say "they're necessary skills, you need to learn them, i just want the best for you, blah blah blah."

seems innocent enough. and i could just be displacing my anger with my situation onto dad. its easy enough to do, and its a good... no... well-trodden path for me. granted, a lot of the issues that i'm left dealing with are due in part to my dad, but at this point, i'm an adult, and its up to me to deal with them, or just let them deal with me for the rest of my life. and much as i don't especially like dealing with my issues, letting my seething emotions override my logic and focus is anathema to me. its a total lesser of two evils. i just don't want to be a rogue human meteor, crashing through life, bouncing into people, unaware of or unwilling to look at what's driving me to carom around.

knowing the issues are there, for me, means its my responsibility to work on them.

blah blah blah, i'm a thoughtful and considerate person...

bullshit. i hate the thought of not being in control of myself, all the damn time.

but back to the meat of this post: while i wonder if i'm just displacing, i also wonder if dad isn't doing the same. i've tried at various times to let him into my life, to open myself up to him. every time has resulted in him hurting me. a lot. to the point where i can still honestly say that No-one has hurt me as much as he has. so now, i keep him where i like him. i'm good at defining my relationships at this point, and i'm sure it irks him to know that he has a specially designated cubby in my brain and life. it might irk him even more if he understands that he was instrumental in making this setup my best option; that he could have had a larger and deeper role in my life except that he kept lacerating me after i'd let my guard down.

self-justification. blah blah blah.

so in one sense, maybe he likes seeing me come up against something as unyielding as i've been to him (in his mind). because i do get a sense that there is something about this recurring situation that he enjoys. he likes watching me struggle, maybe. or he is amused by the concentric circles of insanity i travel in my quest for the right course of action.

but my hunch, is that he identifies with the "law and order" aspect of my jobs. of the world, really. isn't that how archetypes work? nurturing earth mother, authoritarian sky father? and by identifying with those tried and true power structures, he gets to rein me in and exert control over me in a way he never has before. i mean, sure, he's frightened me into mute acceptance of whatever he wants time and time again. he's held power over me, and still does. but he's never managed to be the authoritarian father. perhaps he feels like he doesn't measure up to his father. (who by all accounts, was a son of a bitch. he broke his children. he shattered them. and i am honestly glad he died when i was less than two years old, and that i have no memory of him, and my siblings never even got the chance to meet him at all.) dad longs for that sort of control, even as he actually loathes to feel it on his skin himself, and actually exhibits the same issue as me, though in different forms, perhaps.

ohhh... stockholm. ladies and gentlemen, we have stockholm syndrome. this, is what having shrinks for parents does to you... sort of...

so i'm wondering, basically, if dad is identifying himself with the universal paternal figure here. he's certainly exhibiting his cruel streak (which i've also inherited) which is irritating enough. (both that he's exhibiting his, and i inherited it. but whatever.)

and on the other hand (we have other fingers...) he brings up a good point. i wouldn't be so desperate to protect myself and my identity if there wasn't some flaw or weakness to them that made them particularly vulnerable. at least, in my mind. and when he did bring that nugget up, it felt right. it hit me like a cold ice-pick digging into the base of my spine. it hurt like truth. so there's certainly something there. and perhaps all this theorizing is just an attempt to mount a counter offensive and take the all-seeing eye off me. because i don't want to see what's there.

but then again, there's no reason we can't both be right.

jumping yet again to my own defense, it's taken me a long time to develop into who i am. and its taken a lot of hard work. hard-won spoils, blah blah blah. fine, i'm clutching tight to my relatively new sense of self.

but at the same time, i do feel weak right now, in the sense that my definition of myself is undergoing a major overhaul. i dropped out of school. i'm aimless and purposeless. i had some fun with chemical dependency for a while (alcoholism runs in BOTH sides of my family, so wee-ha to that...) and am now having some "fun" with maintaining sobriety (a year and a half this past november 8). i moved to austin, only to move back home with my mother. i'm training to work at starbucks. and i own a cat, which has ended up being a very positive experience, actually.

but i'm not sure how far back i can accurately trace this shaky sense of self. maybe it does go back to childhood. i'm sure my current situation isn't helping. the end of college really pulled the rug out from under me too. its all such a hazy mess of memory and sulky hurt. the past so often refuses to be neatly categorized and filed away...

i don't know who i am. and yes, i'm angry at dad for being the messenger, but i'm trying really hard not to shoot him for his troubles. this time.

and learning these lessons is clearly important for me, otherwise they wouldn't be so hard to learn.

but i'm not sure i'm ready to believe my father only wants the best for me right now. i feel like he really does have a vested interest in my current problem. he enjoys it too much. and god forbid people were required to be nice all the time, but a little more tenderness on his part in regards to this might not be a bad thing.

i want him on my side. that's what i want. i want to hear him say "i'm sorry these things are so hard for you. they're important, but i wish it wasn't so difficult for you, because i don't like to see you struggle like this." sigh. i was going to say that we don't like to see the ones we love in pain, even if we think the end result of it all will be positive, but i'm not sure that's even the case. different issue. different post.

at any rate, thanksgiving tomorrow is shaping up to be an interesting affair, if i decide to whip this one out.

gotta love family fun time.