A Belated Father's Day Post

Plus some hiking pics, a comment on my air conditioning, and some updates.

There are lots of things I could write about today, but I’m not in the mood.

I could write about how some friends and I went on a belated Summer Solstice Sunrise hike on Sunday. It didn’t go how I wanted it to. I was tired before we even started. We joked that I’m like the Benjamin Button of exercise: the more I work out, the worse I seem to get at it. Sigh. It was beautiful, there were many lizards and bunnies, and I love my friends, so it was worth it even if I not-so-secretly hoped the earth would swallow me whole so I didn’t have to keep going up the mountain.

I could write about how it’s like 4,000 degrees in SoCal after an unusually chilly spring. While I’m thrilled to bits that it’s finally warm, it’s super annoying that our air conditioner isn’t working properly. So now I have to have some guy come here to look at it. I’m super grateful that we rent and this is not my problem financially, but still. It’s mildly annoying. And it’s hot in here.

I could write that my mental health isn’t exactly healthy lately. In the last week or so, my depression and anxiety have collided in a monumental way that leaves me spending lots of time watching TV and playing games on my phone. We should talk about this because I firmly believe in normalizing discussions of struggling, but I don’t have the constructive thoughts to make it worth reading. Right now it would just be whiny, and no one needs that. Let’s tackle that on another day, okay?

Instead, you get something old.

I wrote this on June 10, 2014, right around Father’s Day that year.

If I had to guess, I'd say my father was probably fishing on Sunday. He once told me that was what he liked to do with his time. He also used to do projects around the house, like that year he spent digging out a basement underneath the cabin he lived in, but I'm not sure he's in any shape to do that sort of thing anymore. He turned 65 last month. At that age, I guess anything is possible though. I really wouldn't know.

While I did my best to keep the focus of Father's Day on my husband, thoughts of my own father kept creeping into my mind. I pictured him sitting in his rowboat, that one he had shown me all those years ago when we went for a walk along the lake he lived on. I could see him sitting there, the oars perched off the sides in a way that I honestly don't know is even possible, as I know nothing about rowboats. Maybe it wasn't a rowboat. I'm not sure now. But it was blue. Or white. I actually can't remember too much about it.

In my mind, he was smoking. I wondered if he would pitch the finished butts out into the lake and risk hurting the fish or if he'd stamp them out in an ashtray he'd brought along with him. I pictured the old lunch cooler he used to bring to work, the red one with the flip-down white lid. I'll bet this one didn't have beer in it though. He's been sober for over twenty years. Well, last time I talked to him he had been sober. He probably doesn't have that cooler anymore, anyway.

I wondered if he would head home at a certain time to sit down to a meal with his second wife, the woman he married sometime in the last 15 years or so. I'm not sure when that happened. They weren't married when I met her and then the next time I talked to my father, they were. My father's remarriage was one of those big things that remains a mystery to me, mostly because I wasn't included in it.

I wondered what he'd think about, sitting there in the boat. What would he talk about later with his wife? Surely he knew it was Father's Day. Did he wonder where his children were and what they were doing?

And then I wondered what kind of father abandons his children, gives up without a fight, just walks away. Not just once either, but multiple times, over and over. I want to think he had a good reason, but in all this time he's never once shared that with me. I want to think that if I were in his position, if I had been given the second and third and fourth chances, I wouldn't squander them.

But maybe I would. Maybe I couldn't turn it around either.

Maybe some people aren't worth fighting for.

Maybe he feels the same way about me.

Ten years later, I feel differently.

This year, I didn’t think about my father at all on Father’s Day. Not because he’s not worth fighting for, but because I already fought. There was a time I might have said it must not have been hard enough because he’s not in my life. Maybe that’s true and maybe it’s not. We’ll never know.

What I realize is that I had to fight for myself and my own peace more than I needed to fight for him. His inability to be a presence in my life has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. I don’t need his validation or for him to fight for me to know my worth. Learning that was one thing, but truly embracing it has been another entirely.

I hope he’s well. That’s it.

I’m mildly curious if he thought about his kids on Father’s Day. If he did, I hope it was to wish us well. I hope he’s not mired in other thoughts that aren’t solved through rumination alone. There’s no point in that for either of us.

Other Updates

I’m working on bringing more synergy to my social platforms, so if you’re not already doing so, I’d love it if you’d follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve been creating video content, and I have a new video going out on Friday, so follow before then if you want to catch it.

I’m counting on the Independence Day holiday to help me catch up on some stuff and launch other stuff, so send all the good vibes that I have some productive days off my day job. And more updates for you soon.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who subscribes and follows.

And in case you don’t: