Right before I left for Italy, I spent a few hours with someone who happens to be a male. As a way to slowly introduce my ridiculous life to this man, I told him the story about my sister. What I did not consider before revealing this information was this person is a trained questioner. If I wanted to keep anything a secret, it was best to withhold information.
“Wow,” he said. “So what about your dad? Do you talk to him?”
“Um no,” I told him as I twirled my wine glass and observed the people making out behind him. “I haven’t spoken to him in over 20 years…”
I hesitated. The truth about my father is that nothing about him is nice. Well, two things: he was smart and charismatic. Nothing else about his life or my relationship with him is something you want to tell someone you don’t know very well. The past year has taught me some very ugly truths about my father’s existance (if he is still alive). The information I learned is something my closest friends have yet to hear about.
No one in my immediate circle of friends has a situation like mine. For that matter, I don’t think any acquaintances do either. I don’t think anyone who can really grasp what it is like to hear stories about a deeply disturbed man who is fifty percent responsible for their being on this earth.
“So he abandoned you,” he said.
“Ummm,” I didn’t know what to say. I was not ready for this insight. “Yeah, I know. However, I am okay.”
The thing is I don’t really know if I am okay. Am I a mostly functioning adult who pays her bills on time? Yes. Do I handle graduate school? Yes. Do I have a list of friends whom go back to 7th grade? Yes. Have I had boyfriends? Yes. What does abandonment do to someone? I do not really know.
I wasn’t ready to go to that place that night. I’m still not. At least not with someone who I want to impress and not come off as a wounded victim.
My assumption is that we all have ugly truths. Some are uglier than others. I want to know how people discuss them with new friends and/or love interests.
As a good travel buddy told me, “Sometimes talking about it releases the poison.”
How do you handle your ugly truths?
This was a beautiful post. Although I don’t know how a truth like this feels, I’m sorry for how it has affected you.
When talking about my parents divorce and the mistakes they made I think it’s easier to seperate it in my mind that they are their own people with their own mistakes, even if it affected me in the process. Also I think talking about things like that help people feel that they can relate in some way or open up to you as well to tell their truths (if they’re someone that you can trust).
It sounds like it’s probably for the best that he’s not in your life and it’ll most likely still take time but hopefully you’ll be able to get to a place of peace about it one day. Best of luck!
Posted by Country Girl
Link | August 16th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Anyone with any intelligence will understand that while this is a significant piece of your history that has affected you and who you are and how you react to certain people and situations, it was undeniably something done to you, not by you. Let people in on your own timeline, but understand that nothing you say about your father or what he has done will change my impression of you as a strong, confident woman and wonderfully loyal friend. Pretty sure others feel the same.
As for letting new friends/love interests in on ugly truths you said it yourself: we all have them. You’re not obligated to offer info, but sometimes the best way to reveal something hard is to simply answer questions honestly.
Posted by Busty Satan
Link | August 18th, 2011 at 10:57 pm