It is a hard to realization that the people who created you, cannot give you what you need in your hardest hours. It becomes a bile of resentment, built up from years of not getting enough as a child and a cycle of hyper independence as an adult. But you know what is actually pretty easy? Meeting your parents where they are at, and radically accepting them for who they are. Once you stop blaming them for fucking you up, which that’s not to say they didn’t, but once you accept that you are fucked up and you are the only one responsible for fixing yourself, it becomes so much easier to heal the wounds they created.
Spend time with your parents. Unless they are so toxically abusive of course. I advocate for anyone to have low to no contact with the ones who harmed you the most. But it’s become palatable later in life for me to forgive the emotional neglect, as I see them as children who suffered the same at the treatment of their own parents. I can see them as children who bore responsibilities no child should have to shoulder. I ask them about their stories and relationships. I don’t excuse the behaviors of continued neglect and emotional blow outs, but it is an easier pill to swallow when you realize that is all they know and maybe as they soften in the years they can heal too. Or not. But accepting them for who they are and where they are at feels so much better than being angry and sad about it all the time.
So I went to visit my parents in their retirement RV/Trailer park in Mission Texas and had a hell of a time. Those folks are retired, but they keep busy. Line dancing, pickle ball, “horse races”, poker, pool, water volley ball, concerts, reading clubs, volunteer clubs, etc…there are many things to do every day and watching my dad become a social guy in his later years is a treat. He’s on the board of the RV park, and did karaoke with me. I sang Strokin’ by Clarence Carter alone as a dare and that somehow gained me the respect from these folks I didn’t want or need, but I won’t live it down. I witnessed the whiteness that exists in their community, and hoped that in close years there is more diversity in these homes and in social circles even among my own communities. There were cliques and drama, but mostly mild in nature. Funny to think even in our 50’s-80’s people can utilize their boredom and insecurity’s to make everything about themselves. Ego is a funny thing.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have parents who payed for my ticket to visit them, and that they wanted to spend time with me. And I feel the same for the community I exist in at home. What a beautiful thing to be alive, what a beautiful thing to suffer, what a beautiful thing to love.
