A clarification of the previous post

[msagara]

Someone asked me a question in email about my previous post, and I realized that I had not perhaps been clear enough about how my father’s necessary absences affected me.

Comments

[chrysoula]

My mother was the one I adored; the one I believed I could never do without. I lost her when I was 22 or so. Now, a mother of two myself, I wonder if I've been stunted in some fashion because of that. It frightens and upsets me to realize I was ten when she was my age, with my baby and 4 year old. Because she is now perpetually older, wiser, idealized to me. I have some hints of her personhood, from re-examined memories and unreliable things my sister said about going through my mother's things after. She is Mother and I'm just Chrysoula and just because I have kids doesn't make me mother in my own head. It frightens me to realize I'm idealizing-in-memory somebody who I am also aware of must have been just a person because I know I wasn't anything magical and wonderful and patient when I was the age she was when I was 5. I think being able to peacefully reconcile the two-- the person and the parent-- into a single concept is a precious experience and one I worry about never achieving.

[salanth]

I think I will always be in pain. I've always been lonely.

I can be happy and grateful for life, but I think I'm basically a self-centred selfish being at the heart of it all. I combine this with feeling like a worthless waste of space. Huge ego + knowledge of uselessness = totally neurotic.

[susanerickson65]

There was an interesting slide show on MSN.com about well intentioned things parents say that have a lasting detrimental and even scarring effect. This seemed to tie in to your post, Michelle

[lyssabits]

It's so funny to read this because when I read the previous entry, it never occurred to me to relate it to my own experience, it was SO DIFFERENT to yours. My father was gone for lengthy work trips also. He works in the movie industry and when I was very young would often do nearly back-to-back 6-12 week movies that were shot on location. He did as many in town as possible, but he was gone at least a third of the year every year until I was 12 or so. It's haunted him, he still to this day worries that he abandoned me, that it damaged me or our relationship in some way. I honestly don't recall ever feeling any really negative emotion associated with his absences. Granted, I also don't recall my childhood very well, so if any traumas there echo into my adulthood I doubt I'd be able to figure out the instigating incident. But I'm fairly confident that my Dad's absences didn't bother me. I thought his job was cool, it was exciting for me when he went away, to think about what he was doing. And I was always confident that he loved me and

[metaphortunate]

Hello; just friended you for the parenting posts. Wow, you have given me a lot to think about.