I Don't Walk On Water...

Hmmmm....

I'm a little disturbed right now. I woke up this morning from what wasn't necessarily a bad dream. It wasn't a good one either, though. It was about my childhood. Again.

You see, sometimes I get these dreams about my childhood. One particularly annoying aspect of it was the violence that took place between my parents at the hands of my father. Well, last year my father had a brain aneurysm and I almost lost him. Now, he's "better", in everyone else's eyes but mine. And on top of that, we argued a couple months ago about the direction of my life (mainly over my pacing of my education). I will be graduating from college in '09 when I should have been done in '06 or '07. I haven't spoken to him since. At this point, myself and my two brothers are for the most part estranged from my father. He lives in Las Vegas and has for many years. I, of course, am in Florida. I think it is my mother who only communicates with him now, though they've been divorced for many years.

Well, I remembered when I was in Vegas alone while my father was in the hospital, I learned through my uncle that my father was an avid drug user, with his drug of choice being cocaine. For some reason, I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning with that on my mind. I started wondering if my father's drug use had been a factor in his aneurysm. I'm sure it was. I wish I had known that at the time; I could have been more helpful to the doctors. I also started wondering if my father was using drugs when he and my mother would go at it when I was a kid. So, I asked my Mom this morning. Her answer was easy and without hesitation: "Yes. And it was cocaine that he was using."

Hmmmm...

This bothers me. Not necessarily that my father is basically a drug abuser. But, that I wasn't told when I became old enough to understand. Being such an introspective person, I am always looking for explanations for things that happen in my life and what were the contributing factors. I, like many people, am on a journey to discover why I am the way I am and my upbringing is a large part of that. But, my parents kept a great deal from us as adults and that makes me angry. Like my mother, for example. She doesn't seem to understand that what we as kids, experienced as children still affects at least me, to this day. I want explanations. I deserve them. I probably wasn't ready for them as a kid, but as a 25 year old man, I need to know now.

I remember being in third grade and my Dad telling me and my brothers not to go to school and talk about what was going on in my household. I remember one incident when my parents left for work one morning (both of my parents were in the Air Force at the time), only for my mother to return back to the house as I was leaving for the bus stop. She was crying. And bleeding. My father had punched her in the nose in the car while driving to the base together. I remember walking to the bus stop and standing amongst the other children boiling on the inside but with no outlet whatsoever. And had to go the whole day like that. Never uttering a word to anyone.

Sometimes I hate my parents and their methods. Though I have a great relationship with my mother today, I hate how irresponsible they were when it came to our mental and emotional health and development. They worried only about fixing themselves (in my mother's case cause I'm sure my father is still secretly abusing drugs) and never seemed to worry if us, the children were REALLY well adjusted.

I wanna know more. I'm going to continue this conversation with my mother tonight. Stay tuned...