I often feel too apprehensive with my writing. I’m so scared of not producing perfect output that I just sit there and write nothing, failing to realise that writing nothing leaves you with well… nothing. Writing down rough ideas at least gives one a base to work with.
There’s so many topics in my head that feel like they’re stuck there squeezing on the inside of my skull because they’re too dense for me to ever feel like I can capture them properly on paper and I really don’t talk about a lot of things with people anymore.
As much as I’ve always believed in honesty (and still do) I find I keep more of the important stuff to myself these days. I don’t really feel comfortable being vulnerable in front of many people anymore. My ideas and even a lot of my surface level frustrations, I throw out all the time but my emotional responses? Well I keep those to myself. I could write a thesis based on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, so I’ll leave that point for another day.
Today, I’m thinking about my father a lot. I find that as I get older it’s something that has started to bother me a lot more. I guess the reality of the fact that my father will probably die before we have any kind of proper adult relationship starts to become more and more realistic as I’ve gotten older. When I was 15 or 16, I was never really thinking about the longterm, it always seemed like things like this could be left to the idea of ‘tomorrow’. I think I believed that in the future life would just sort itself out.
(Sometimes to my detriment) I’ve fought hard for a lot of things in my life, but in this situation, sadly I feel like a defeatist. I seem content to just be sitting here writing about something like this instead of actually doing anything about it. I think it stems from the fact that it feels too late. This life has gone on so long that the only father I know anymore is a failure and I think that even the most powerful epiphany in the world couldn’t save him from the hole he’s dug himself into or give us the time to ever develop anything real.
Sadly, I think a lot of people don’t understand my relationship with my father and how it’s affected so much of my life. I’m not saying that as some kind of dig to anybody, it’s just sad that I’ve spent most of my life taking it all on alone. From my mid teenage years till now and on into perpetuity, I’ve been propelled/will continue to be propelled through the world based on the need to, in as many ways as possible, not be my father.
The part of this that most people are familiar with is why I don’t drink. It’s hard to justify even having one drink when you think of the life you maybe would’ve had if it didn’t exist. The only father I can remember from the last at least 5 years of my life is an alcoholic, before that I don’t think I would’ve been aware enough to notice.
I think everything else it has caused in my development isn’t really as obvious.
I feel like a lot of pressure rides on my shoulders. I’ve always seen my father as a man with great potential that never got there. I think he’s more intelligent than I am. I’m mainly theoretical, whereas his practical knowledge surpasses anything I think I will ever be able to obtain in my life. It’s criminal that he never had any further education than his trade certificate and a large part of the reason I have always tried to push myself academically is because I hope that I will reach the height of my potential that he never did.
I can remember my mum telling me that dad always made excuses, ‘oh I only drink because I’m doing night shift’ and I’ve heard him with my own ears always having someone else to blame for everything that has gone wrong in his life. Anything to avoid having to look inside and maybe realise that anything has fallen apart based on him.
Because of that, I’ve spent a whole life finding the things I have done wrong and blaming myself first whenever anything falls apart, all in the hope that I never end up like that. Sometimes when I mull over everything I realise that things aren’t my fault but I don’t want to ever blame someone else for something that fell apart because of me.
In some ways my life feels like one big journey to become the best father I can be. I don’t drink so I can never become an alcoholic. I study engineering so I can (hopefully) have enough money to allow me to not have to worry about money when I’m raising children. I have spent my whole life (and probably will continue to spend the rest of my life) trying to be humble and understand sustainable ways to interact with people in the hope that it means I have a healthy home life for myself, my future wife and my future children.
I don’t think many people understand how serious all of this stuff feels in my head.
I know this is a bit personal for a public blog but I just wanted to clear my head. I’ve been meaning to cover it in more depth (and may in the future) but I think half the reason I write in the first place is the hope that through words I can somehow calm some of the storm in my head (cliché I know) that threatens to devour me some days, so if that is the manifesto, I guess this fits in well with that.
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