Anyways, back to where I was
originally going with this thinking. As
I stated before, while I was in college and the years that followed, people
always asked me what my parents were like and I had always replied that they
were just so different it was nothing short of a miracle that they had stayed
together. I even remember asking both of
them privately while a student in college how in the world they had made it
work in their marriage since they were so clearly different. Both of them replied in the same way, which I
should’ve expected even though I went to them individually because they always
made sure they had the same response for when my brother and I would try and
ask one or the other in hopes of getting the answer we were after. We both tried that approach less than a
handful of times in our entire childhoods I’m sure because we quickly realize
much to our chagrin that our parents actually communicated outside of our
awareness.
Over the past couple of years,
maybe since January of 2012 especially was when I started realizing it in
particular, I no longer see them as individuals. While I do tend to gravitate towards one or
the other in relation to certain aspects of my life be it retirement planning
or how to handle interpersonal relationships, simultaneously I’m just as likely
to go to one or the other on even those issues in addition to the vast majority
of issues that may arise in my life. You
see, over the past couple of years and probably over the last 31 years of at
least my life and a few years before that, they have become one.
As I said before, I used to be
amazed at how they had made it work in spite of being so different. I used to even lovingly joke once or twice
that they were the cause of my having bipolar disorder. When two people who are so opposite marry and
have babies, it’s only a matter of time before one of them turns out bipolar, right? Well, I laid off that joke fairly quickly due
to realizing they didn’t think it nearly as funny as I did, but I found it
quite hilarious at the time. However,
over the past couple of years I no longer see them as two opposite but equal
individuals in their marriage. They have
truly become one, as I’m sure they always have been, but it has just started to
be blatantly obvious in my life over the last year and a half.
My dad even concedes this on some
levels. My mom jokes about how much he
has calmed down since he was a younger man and I have to agree. He’s taken on more of her personality in
relation to just going with the flow, particularly when it comes to them going
on vacation. As kids, whenever we went
on vacation it seemed to be that dad had the whole vacation planned out almost
to the minute by minute playbook by the time we arrived to our various
destinations. If we got off that
schedule, rest assured he would be less than thrilled to say the least. After a few decades of trying to teach my dad
how to relax and actually enjoy his vacation and not see it as yet another
excuse to stress about time and meeting real or perceived deadlines, my mom has
finally succeeded in converting my dad to someone who can actually go somewhere
and not have it all planned out to the minute ahead of time. I realize you probably think I’m exaggerating
here and perhaps even my own dad would argue this, but I wouldn’t be surprised
if someone found a minute by minute schedule of a planned vacation were they to
look through our trash from my childhood for whatever reason.
Similarly, my dad has rubbed off
on my mom a fair amount. When I first
got a couple of roommates in my parents’ new investment property, I can
remember my mom being pretty visibly pissed off when she came down to visit
once and realized how much Rich had taken advantage of my kindness by taking
over well over his third of the house.
In addition to that, he had the nerve to smoke pot in their house, after
my dad had already confronted him to not do so anymore. Eventually even I had to step up to the plate
to finally kick his lazy but out in spite of my fairly strong aversion to
confrontation. In college I used to love
confrontation but lost that afterwards for some reason. After having to kick a stoner out of my house
though, I have come to the place where I rather enjoy it again. Not that I’m going to start seeking it out
like I used to, but I certainly no longer have a strong aversion to it.
With all this in mind, I can’t
ever remember my mom being quite visibly that angry at someone in my past. The reason I think this shows how my dad has
rubbed off on her isn’t because she was angry but rather that she allowed
herself to be angry at someone when they fully deserved it. My dad has never exactly struggled with
letting someone know if they pissed him off.
In fact, you have always been able to rest assured that if you upset my
dad you wouldn’t have to wait really long to find out.
The crazy thing is, he’s usually
right. There is usually a very good
reason you’ve upset him, people just aren’t used to hearing it come straight from
someone’s own mouth as opposed to just being gossiped about behind their backs
like most people are accustomed to.
Which would you prefer, honestly?
I’ve always been a big fan of being criticized to my face as opposed to
behind my back personally. Not everyone
shares this perspective of course, but I could make a fairly convincing
argument would I choose to do so here that confrontation is a lost art that we
have suffered greatly due to the replacement of confrontation with gossiping or
not saying anything at all and just letting that anger boil under our skin.
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