Father-Daughter

A few weeks ago, I was looking through Pintrest.com ,which is nothing new there.  I've become addicted to the site.  I came across this DIY (do-it-yourself) project for a flower scarf.  I clicked the picture and it scent me to a blog, http://watchmedaddy.blogspot.com/.

I read through the directions and decided that I could probably manage to do this scarf and decided to repin.  After I repinned the project I started looking through the blog.  I came across an introduction that explained why the blog was called Watch me Daddy.  Apparently, my fellow blogger lost her father in April and this is her way of continuing to talk to him and show him what she's doing in her life.  She has special blog entries called, "Lunch with Dad."  I read two of them and it got me to thinking about my own relationship with my father.

Watch me Daddy isn't the first blog of this type that I've read.  I've noticed that many of the bloggers have fond memories of their fathers, lunches they had, activities they did together and shared conversations.  They always miss those activities and wish they had a few more moments to cherish.  When I compare their memories to my memories I can't help but wonder if there was something really wrong with my father-daughter relationship.


The Jewelry Shop


These bloggers all seem to have a deeper connection with their father than I ever had with mine.  I never had long lunches where we had deep conversations about life, love, politics, or books.  The only activity we ever engaged in was watching television and most of those memories are from when I was a child.  We were never like that Norman Rockwell painting The Jewelry Shop.  When I remember our relationship during my teenage years into my early twenties I always cringe.  We had a very bad relationship.  We screamed accusations and insults trying to win a victorless fight.  And are verbal blows were known to hit below the belt on many occasions.

It wasn't until transferred out to a university six hours away that our relationship got better.  Distance and time helped us to see each others' perspective a lot more clearly.  He was trying to protect me and I was trying to spread my wings and fly.  When I came home, after my first semester, for a visit I decided to make peace with him.  We were in his truck out on some errand when I told him that I understood why he had tried to be so strict and argumentative with me about so many things.  And I apologized for the things I'd said and done to hurt him.  He said he was sorry too.  We never talked about it after that and even though our post-war relationship was never the same, we were in a better place.  

So, when I think about our long relationship I always wonder why ours was so bad compared to other peoples.  Why didn't we have lunch, take walks, talk?  And why didn't it occur to me to start such things? Did I think we had more time to ease into that part of our relationship?  Or maybe it just wasn't us.  When I imagine having lunch with my father sharing my thoughts and feelings about love and life, I can't help but roll my eyes.  We may have liked Norman Rockwell's paintings and even wished we were more like the father-daughter subjects, but the truth is we just weren't painted that way.

Life Update

I decided to need to post something since I haven't posted anything in like, what? a month, maybe more? 

Something about me, I have OCD.  I'm not As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson or Monk, Tony Shalhoub but I do have OCD and when changes to my routine or unexpected stress comes along I have a really hard time adapting and moving forward.

The first of January I fell into financial trouble and then my mother had a heart attack.  Combine these things with me already dealing with the, "What are you going to do now?"  and doubting my ability to actually write sent me into a mental and emotional overload.  All I wanted to do was hide under the bed.    

The reason I mention the OCD is because for "normal" people when a series of bad things happens to them, they become sad, stress, cry and eat their weight in ice cream before they put on their big girl/boy panties/briefs and grab life by the balls.  For me, an OCD person, I become depressed, lethargic and I don't eat.  I blame and berate myself for not having foresight.  I tell myself that I'm stupid and deserve the bad "karma" I'm getting.  I take aim at my body, calling myself ugly and fat, sure that this is why everything is going wrong.  I basically obsessive compulsively over my faults, true or false. 

I have other ticks, nonstop counting in my head, drawing the same patterns over and over, organizing and reorganizing items and a whole myriad of things that I can usually control and even keep from doing when I'm having a "normal" day/week/month/etc.

But when I have a series of downs --as I have had-- everything goes to shit. Because along with the ticks and the personal self-esteem bashing comes the anxiety.  I get anxious, that I'm not going to finish counting before someone stops me and I'm upset when I'm interrupted.  I worry that I'll never come out of the black hole I know I'm in.  I can feel my skin crawling, there's a squealing in my ears and tears are ready to pour out of my eyes at the slightest provocation and I can't breath. 

I just want to sleep to avoid everything, the problems, the berating, the anxiety.  Because in sleep there's peace and I don't have to deal with trying to be a "normal" person. 

However, the past few weeks things have slowly turned around. 

The weekend of the 11, I presented at a conference and got a lot of positive feedback.  Last week, I got news that the financial stuff while not completely fixed it is better than it was.  Today I got news that I'm being put in a pool for a possible online teaching position and I've started getting emails about possible job opportunities in my field.   

I'm still broke as hell.  I don't have a job in my field and I haven't written anything expect this blog but I've stopped torturing myself, stopped counting and I can breath again.   

Lines from my Birthday **Warning lots of bad language***

So, the past month has been pretty shitastic which made me really not want to celebrate my birthday.  However, my friends had other ideas.  Friday night we went out to dinner and then to one of our local watering holes.  I had a great time and I'm glad they convinced me to forget my problems for a few hours.   

Our drink names:

The Ditchy
Secret Assassin
Lights Out
Guilty Pleasure
Oops!

Random joke:  La-a, the - is a dash, it's pronounced Ladaysha

The porn we tried to write:

Character Names
Portia Drainditch
Sir Cumalot
Lucious Bitch
Mss Lickalot
Titty Licious & Sugar Tits

The Story
Once upon a time Sir Cumalot was riding Miss Lickalot in the land of Flash.  (I forgot to keep writing for several minutes)  That was some good dick.  Some good dick.  Throws D's on it.

Random comment:  69 is always the question and the answer!