Changes; Futures

I just finished listening to a great episode of This American Life ("How to Talk to Kids"). I was sitting, listening. The segment with the mother talking about her teenage daughter was very familiar to me. Most of it was, really. I remember being a kid and hating how adults always talked down to me. But I don't know how to talk to kids now. It's strange. And I'm in this place now where I feel like I'm supposed to be a grown-up, but I'm such a kid. And neither of my parents seem to understand that. Maybe my mom does.

As I was listening to that episode, I started to feel like I could understand my mom much better, and I could see how I'd discounted a lot of her experience as a parent-- as a mom to me, her fairly "rebellious" "troubled teen". But I don't feel that way about my dad. In fact, it seems so much clearer to me now that he's kind of crazy. I mean... he's a parent. He works non-stop-- in great part, to support us (or so he says). But I really don't think I know a more self-involved person. It's funny. I could relate to him so much more when I was getting high everyday. I felt like I got where he was coming from. I felt closer to him than ever in a lot of ways. But now that I've been sober on a regular basis for a month or so now, I see how utterly self-righteous & self-piteous he is. It's even harder for me to want to help him change or advance. His alcoholism has progressed in such a way that he's just not the person that he used to be. At the same time, he's exactly the type of person that I've always known him to be-- misunderstanding, suspicious, downright paranoid, unfair, assuming, rude-- to the point of unintended cruelty (although sometimes it is intended). He doesn't understand the weight of his words. He's in a place where he can see that he is wrong, but what he chooses to focus on utmost are the ways that he feels he is being mistreated or wronged in. He never aims to truly understand why those things occur.
The phrase that keeps cycling through my head every day or so is that "he has no reverence for me as a person".

Anyway, I'm rambling now. It was a little shocking at first to realize that I felt so much closer to my mother & further away from my father. My mom really wants to understand. I know this much. And I do, too. And we've made some progress in the past few days. I feel like I'm working on it, and even if she doesn't happen to feel the same way I feel like I'm working in such a way that she will be welcomed with open arms when she realizes that I really am ready, willing, & wanting to talk. My dad is just so unhappy. He needs help. But I don't think I'm going to help him. The sacrifices involved in that process are sacrifices that I'm not interested in. One of the things that he's going to have to realize is that I'm not making one damn sacrifice if doing so is only going to start this typical process of him seeming to ask 'how far is he willing to go?'. That may not be what he's thinking. I wouldn't be surprised if it's nowhere near it. But the fact is that he needs me to sacrifice-- I need to if things are going to work and so does he. What happens is that I sacrifice & he never follows up. He takes advantage of me. And then I trust him that much less. It's really disappointing to get to a place with him where I'm willing to sacrifice and he is flippant with my will. It's really unfair. But he basically keeps asking me to give him another chance. My friends say I should talk about things with him. And I know they don't understand the situation entirely. My sisters are on the same page with me. How do you talk to someone who does almost everything in their power not to listen without even realizing it and who then gets angry and self-righteous and who has set very memorable precedents of verbal abuse? Like when my oldest sister first tried to approach him about his drinking. It started (and ended) like this:

Summer: I know you're drinking again.
Dad: What? How do you know that?
Summer: I can just tell. You act different. Plus I smelled your drink when you went upstairs.
Dad: You did what?!
S: I smelled your drink.
D: Y'know, what? I don't think this is my problem. This is your problem.

This was the point that she figured she should've kept her mouth shut. He snarled & yelled at her for an hour and a half after that. This is not unusual of his tantrums. He's lasted 6 hours before.

Anyway. Mom, right? Keep your eyes on the prize, or something... I don't like how I sound in these blogs. It doesn't really do justice to how I feel.