So that picture above is a picture of my lovely and amazing parents. Oh I freaking adore them. But this brings me to my next point; do you think it is possible to love someone but love a certain point of them more? That probably didn't make sense but let me explain. I love my dad but we don't exactly see eye to eye on all points and I feel like this wasn't always so. There was a time when we got along much better and his habits and passions were so much better; while I still love my father and always always will, I think I love that version of him, long forgotten, the most.
My father goes through really intense phases of obsessions. For example he got into scout patch collection a few years back and was insane about it. As in stay up late and search for patches on ebay kinda crazy; we now have 6 LARGE binders full of different scout badges. Literally thousands. Know what he does with them today? Nothing. They sit in a closet somewhere and gather dust. This is the nature of my father. Pick something new, obsess over it, move on and abandon it.
When we first moved into our new house he took a third car garage and turned it into an incredible woodworking shop. I am not joking when I say he had it decked out; every tool you could imagine, organized walls with ever tool hanging exactly where it goes, it really was quite an incredible sight. But there you have it. That was his obsession at the time, so as the process goes, it is now disgustingly abandoned and full of junk. My father made some of the most incredible things in that shop. Beautiful furniture, not just nice standard stuff you would find at Ikea, my father was obsessed so he learned the craft. It was such a good time not only for him but for the whole family. His beautiful creations made our home a beautiful place to live and continues to do so today. My mother loved the things he created as did all who came to the house and could see his beautiful handiwork.
That is the father that I feel I love the most and I miss that time. My father was a creator and got a sense of accomplishment out of his craft. Now he has just moved on to destroying things.
His latest obsession is guns and off-roading. While I don't mind either of this I have to say that I don't like the culture or people mostly associated, a.k.a. rednecks and white trash. Don't get me wrong i love to go out and shoot targets and watch them explode, I am not passing judgement just simply making a statement.
So now my father is turning into pretty much a redneck. He just talks car parts and keep buying guns. Why in our family of 4 do we need 7 guns? We don't. When he gets bored he will literally set up targets on the hill behind our back fence and shoot them from his bedroom window. We live in a suburban neighborhood as in our neighbors houses are less than 10 feet on either side of us and he is shooting gun our of our window. Super trashy says I. Then the other day a beautiful crow (my favorite bird and yes I realize they are a pest) lands on our back fence and my dad goes to shoot it. WHY!?!??!?!?! There is no point to shooting a crow ever unless you are in the birds and being attacked. I stopped him and he was so grouchy about it.
See what I mean, my father in turning into a white trash old man who shoots birds from our back windows. I am not white trash and will avoid it at all costs. My mother is a very fine woman who dresses flawlessly and has amazing tastes from music to food. Why can't my father go back to those days when he still was a classic example of a gentleman?
I still love my father and I can not express that enough but I miss the old him; I love an outdated version of my father, the classic model.
Have you ever felt this way before or am I being a monster?
I think it's fine to love a certain version of someone, to love certain memories. I have that same feeling with my mom a lot. But I also think it's important to allow people to change and grow. Just because we don't like what they're doing doesn't mean we can't still love them. Maybe this is just coming from the perspective of someone who wants to be loved for who I am as I change, because change is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteI've felt it too, Nathan. A lot of times. And the comforting thing is that people keep changing, so sometimes (not always, it's true) you get back to a version that you like just as much, or almost as much, or even more. But I totally understand missing the old version at times. I think that's probably what I'd use a time machine for on some days. They're always somebody we love though, and in some confusing sense they're always the same person. Even if things are different. Good luck!
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