And So It Goes

Continuing to read Clea Simon's "Fatherless Women" (I tend to read anywhere from 4 to 6 books at once, reading a few pages to chapters at a time.) She posits that women learn about their self-worth in relation to how their fathers view them. I'm not sold on this, but if it were true, what does this say about me?

I seem to be able to simultaneously believe I can do anything, and also completely convinced my attempts will only end up with minor modicums of success, if not utter despair. Maintaining the status quo seems preferable, if not inevitable.

I often choose a project, something exciting that I’m attracted to. I’ll begin to make plans, good, solid plans that could lead to a fruitful result. But unfailingly I get a feeling in the early planning stages. Almost like I’m being emotionally strangled. I can’t choose any other word that less dramatically describes it. I cease planning and action, not out of disinterest, but of utter fear that I will fail big, cripplingly big. Like if I fail at this I can’t just go back to my desk job, I'll just be destitute.

Is this a pattern many people play out? I imagine people have brief flirts with drastic changes, experience fear, make decisions to continue forward or stop, but I cannot imagine their emotions swing so wildly, or are so regularly patterned. Who knows?

I only have my experience and again, how did I get this way in relation to my father? I guess what I learned was less a direct edict from him, but was from observing his life and persona. He certainly never discouraged my dreams. But watching his life, I saw dreams, an empire really, crash. Boom, gone. Not once, but now, twice.

In his encouragement, he made me believe I was worth the moon and stars, in his reality, he sufferingly demonstrated it cannot be so. “Your dreams are worthwhile, but also mirages.” He would never say the last part, but it would end up happening, through faults of his own or from trusting others. Life is so fucked up sometimes. You can take a great man and bring him down if he is not a skeptic and total asshole. A great man, like a magestic sunflower, full of life, vibrance, vitality…can be so fragile, but never appear so until you see it being easily pecked away at. A strong stalk struck, severed at a moment’s notice, falling.

I have images of 9/11 in my mind as I type this. The image comes to mind as America, tall strong, proud, optimistic, we’re just doing our thing…and along come radical, evil, and just plain wrong people to ruin things. I cannot say what happened to my father had that magnitutde, and I’m not comparing. I’m just saying, this is an echoing pattern in life, something great falling. Fast and hard. Thank God it’s rare, but never the less unbelievable, life-changing, crushing.

I suppose this is why I formed my thoughts about myself and what I was capable of. Why I believe the promises of the stars one moment, only to dig a hole and hide for cover the next. Ingrained.

Life will be great, I’ll repeat my mantra. The act of living is tricky, but I can uncover, hopefully conquer. I don’t mind where I came from, I don’t mind my delusions, I can recognize them and shed them I suppose, if I find it useful. I guess protection mechanisms serve a purpose. That’s why they are called protection mechanisms. And if I’m feeling bold I can shed that armor, and move forward. I guess you have to have optimism and bravado to succeed, even if it means you have a chance of falling, you also had a chance at greatness. My father was truly great.