I suppose I never looked at my elders as people. Or maybe I should say that I never realized that my parents were people too, which is interesting, and obvious, but at the same time,I look at my parents, good or bad, faults and flaws, and I never realized that they have feelings too.
They had worries and insecurities. The ame as I have defects of character or challenges and emotional difficulties—parents were not always parents, and like me, or like anyone else, parents lived and breathed before they were called Mom or Dad.
I think this is a rare thing to see.
Obvious and true.
But rare nonetheless.
I suppose this makes life easier for me, to realize that at best, people can only be human.
The same as it is true that as people, we hurt, we make mistakes, we do or say unfair things, and in the spirit of truth, just like anyone else in this world, everyone has their own agenda and their own inventory, their own emotional data, their own reason to sin, and their own inaccuracies and biases.
It is strange for me to compare anyone, like my Old Man to me as I am now. Or better, it is wild for me to realize the way he was at my age.
It is strange to think that if all goes well, and if fate and destiny allows me to, I will be 62 in ten years.
My Old Man died at 62 . . .
I never realized or thought that he had a background or that he had his own emotional mapping. He was my Father. He was my Dad.
I called him Pop.
He was and will forever be The Old Man, my first hero, and the first person I ever wanted to please or have pleased with me. He is equally someone who I have resentments with and challenges when it comes to my younger life and the memories of my school years.
It has taken me decades of healthy growth to be able to say this and not believe I am being disrespectful to my Old Man’s name or memory.
I never thought that my Father was afraid or intimidated or that he had intellectual insecurities or that he had his own challenges with social, financial, and educational snobbery.
I never considered that he had his own problems or that the reason why he talked or acted the way he did was because he had experiences that hurt him. Like anyone else, my Father had a past that stained his truths and crushed his feelings or broke his heart.
I say this intellectually. However, and emotionally, excuses cannot make up for things we do or say; however, I will say that excuses can bring about an intellectual understanding that perhaps can help us see things from a different side or another perspective.
Maybe this is what it means to grow up.
I never thought that I pleased my Father. I never thought that he was proud of me, nor did I believe that I was someone to be proud of.
He never saw who I grew into. The Old Man never saw what I’ve accomplished.
No, his last meal with me was in November of 1989.
This was a special Thanksgiving meal on a farm where people like me went to clean up, and get off the streets. More to the point, I was living in a long-term drug treatment facility.
Other kids my age were in big colleges. I was in treatment.
Other kids from my town were making a good name for themselves.
I was trying to beat jail time.
However, as sad as this was for me; I looked the best that my Father had seen for a long time. My skin was not green anymore. I put on some weight. I was able to speak more coherently, and my eyes were not half-shut or as vacant as they were with the opiate gods.
I remember standing on the patio outside of the farmhouse.
This was where I lived.
I remember the two of us were looking out at the view, which was pretty, like a view from the palm of a big mountain, looking outward at the rest of the treelined mountains in Upstate, New York. All of the trees were glazed with white from a earlier snowfall.
The sky was a light gray, but not lugubrious or sad, by any means. The view was not only picturesque, but perfect.
I never knew that this would be the last time I stood next to my Old Man.
I never stood next to him again after this.
I do go back to the idea that there are goodbyes and then there are the last goodbyes, which means there are times when we say goodbye to someone for the last time, and we never even knew it. At least, not until after the news struck or until life took a turn and new life came in the shape of something unfortunate.
I have always been this person.
Me.
I have faults and flaws and traumas and a past, each with their own history and each with their own DNA.
I have faults as a man. I have faults as a Father and as a lover, and as husband and friend.
Like anyone else, I have emotional mapping, thinking errors, and cognitive distortions that do nothing else but distract me from my best potential.
Do you know what this makes me?
Human.
This makes me human.
Not everything was “ME!”
Not everything was my fault or mine to own.
But I am here to clean up my side of the street.
I am human.
Know what?
My teachers were human. So was my junior high school guidance counselor who told me, I could probably dig ditches, pump gas, or drive a truck for a living.
In fact, I saw an old teacher of mine, on a whim, actually. This was unexpected, yet I remembered every put down and every insult.
I remember something I wrote, which my old teacher threw in the trash and told me “This isn’t even written in English!”
I asked him how he was doing.
Then I told him how I was doing and responded before he could say anything back, by telling him, “And this is still you, huh? You’re still here, I guess.”
Then I told him, “No, but you look good. No, really. You look great,” and then somehow, I was avenged or exonerated, but in all fairness, this showed me that I had resentments and insecurities and that I am human and faulted and flawed.
I used to want revenge but the best revenge is to realize that I don’t need revenge at all.
I’m just a man.
So was my old teacher, but this isn’t about him—no, he is just another person in the world whom I needed to tell that he was wrong about me.
But why?
My Old Man was wrong about me to, but if I am being honest,
no one else in the world was more wrong about me than me . . .
I am sure—in fact, I am positive, and I couldn’t be more positive that there are people in this world who would love to tell me a thing or two about something I had done, or how I did or said something unfair or mean to them.
Well, yes.
I have done this.
I admit my faults. I agree and I admit to the inaccurate maps in my head which have led me astray. I admit to my fear and to how my fears have both shaped and misshaped my life.
I admit to my shortcomings, and I admit to the wrongs and sins that I have committed.
I have done things that paint a picture of me which I am not proud of.
I have lied. I have been manipulative. I have adjusted myself to find a way of emotional protection. In the end, this makes me one thing above all others.
I am human.
It is helpful to me that I realize this.
It is also helpful to realize that everyone in my life is human as well. And should I think about the pain or heartbreak, or if I think about the people who have betrayed me or their flaws, I realize that people are people. It does hurt to realize that heroes are only human or that someone you loved is not out of this world and only human at best.
How they are is because of them. How I am is because of me.
I have to understand this.
Sometimes, you wake up to a new existence and find out (often too late) that not everyone is how they seem.
I used to hold resentments for old bosses, old friends, or ex-friends, teachers, people in my family, and the list can go on.
I saw the son of an old boss yesterday.
He had the same unhappy, miserable look on his face which his father used to wear all day at work.
I didn’t have the need to say anything this time.
I realized he is just another person on this big conveyor belt, which I always call Project Earth.
Oh, and hey, Pop.
I think I get it now.
I understand in more ways than either of us considered.
Life ain’t easy.
Neither are people. Neither were you
and neither am I.
Looks like all I can do is try to improve
from here . . .
The Written Addiction 