Random Musings, Part I

It’s funny, the memories from our past that are seared into our brains, crystal clear… I remember it was the spring of my senior year of college. I was sitting with my dad in his truck outside of my house. It had been an incredibly tough year for me emotionally, and I wasn’t sure if I was more ready for it to come to an end or dreading what the future might entail. I had been working with a counselor on campus to deal with some of my struggles, and she was encouraging me to talk with my parents about some of my feelings. I finally worked up some courage, and decided to talk to my dad about some things that had hurt my feelings recently. He was the “safer” parent for me. I felt like I could tell him things and not be criticized, like with my mom. After sharing my feelings about some recent interactions and conversations, specifically about feeling unimportant to him and demeaned by my step-mother, I sat and waited for his response. In my naïve, fantasy-filled mind, I was expecting a warm fatherly response a la Mike Sever from Growing Pains  or Danny Tanner from Full House….I would have even been ok with the less deep, yet always humorous, Cliff Huxtable. (I was like the female version of the television crazed boy from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.) I wanted to share my feelings and have everything resolved in 30 minutes. Instead, my dad launched into a speech on how wrong and inaccurate I was. The last thing I remember him saying was, “Your step-mother is right, you are angry and bitter just like your mom!” He may have said more after that, but all I heard as my eyes filled with tears was “Angry…Bitter….Like your mother.” Those words cut through me and lodged deep in my shame filled heart...