25-Feb-2008

My father has the emotional maturity of a 5 year old… and I choose the age of 5 because he acts just as persecuted as my 5 year old nephew. Somehow, every little thing that doesn’t go my father’s way is some scheme to hurt and insult him. Should he ever read this, I have to give you a bit of leeway right now given the past few weeks, but everyone isn’t out to hurt you and its pretty damn hard to keep you happy when the target keeps moving…

To explain the above… My mom and dad were married for 22 years. During that time they developed a lot of friendships and after their divorce those friends saw no reason that they couldn’t remain friends with both of them. This was largely due to the fact that none of them saw any fault in either of my parents in the divorce. Last weekend, my mother asked me to go and visit one of these friends with her… not a big deal to me, in fact, much of what is to follow only crossed my mind hours later… after being told some things. Well, I told my dad I would stop at his house to say “hi” before Theresa and I left for Columbus so we went over to see him (and try to cheer him up since he’s been a bit unhappy lately). Well, my dad being the man he is, kept asking questions about my afternoon to the point where I was left with the choice of lying or telling him what was going on… At the time, I figured he would only be mildly upset that I was spending the afternoon with my mom instead of him, but my internal argument was that I get to see him almost every week so he can suck it up… so I told him the truth (as I avoid lying whenever possible)… why ‘o why don’t people tell me things?! It never occurred to me that my dad literally has the kindergarten school kid mentality of “it is me or them”. It also never occurred to me that my father didn’t talk to these friends for a year and a half because they invited my mom (and her “something”) to their son’s high school graduation party. Well… the moment the name of these friends left my lips my father recoiled into a world of persecution and hurt… and will now probably not talk to these friends again for another year and a half.