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Friday Five, apParently
Aug. 19th, 2005 01:15 pmWow, a nice meaty ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
altfriday5:
["Parents" in my case refers to my dad, my only living bio-parent for most of my life and the only living parental figure I will honor with the term.]
1. How often do you speak to your parent(s)? Why or why not?
My dad emails every few weeks, and every couple of months I call him and we chat for a while. A fairly good way of describing our relationship is that we're good friends who like to keep in touch--except that unlike with my other friends who are at a distance, I actually manage to maintain the correspondence. The fact that he usually initiates the emails helps, as does the fact that he's one of my main sources of advice (though not quite as much lately. Actually, I've noticed that these days I seem to be trying not to rely on him so much, I suspect because I fear losing him and so am trying to prepare myself for it by acting as if I've already lost him. This worries me, as I don't think it's healthy and it's certainly unkind to myself to preemptively deprive myself of his presence in my life.) Another thing that helps is knowing that I could spend a year on the moon or something and then call him again without him guilt-tripping me about how long it had been, and without the lapse in time having made things awkward between us. There are very few people of whom I can say that.
2. How often do you visit to your parent(s)? Why or why not?
Thanks to my dad's long-ago remarriage and the repercussions of same, I haven't been able to visit in almost four years, which is also how long it's been since he's had a chance to make the drive up here. I fucking miss him. Phone and email just ain't the same.
3. What's the most valuable thing you learned from your parents?
Hard to say, as I think I'm still learning it. Probably the most useful thing he's given me so far is the knowledge that everyone goes through most of the things I'm going through and I'm not a fuckup no matter how often I think I am. I've not had many other people in my life who were in a position to apprise me of that sort of thing, but also, when someone that much older than me who knows me that well tells me these things, I really believe them.
4. What's the most harmful thing you learned from your parents?
How to sacrifice your and your child's emotional welfare to a psychotic abuser? As if I needed the lesson. Honestly, I've never in my life been able to conceive of doing that myself, and it baffles me that anyone so intelligent could.
5. If you could change one thing about your relationship with your parents, what would it be? Why?
I'd want him to fucking ditch the bitch and move a few hundred miles closer. Hell, just one out of two would be a vast improvement.
altfriday5:["Parents" in my case refers to my dad, my only living bio-parent for most of my life and the only living parental figure I will honor with the term.]
1. How often do you speak to your parent(s)? Why or why not?
My dad emails every few weeks, and every couple of months I call him and we chat for a while. A fairly good way of describing our relationship is that we're good friends who like to keep in touch--except that unlike with my other friends who are at a distance, I actually manage to maintain the correspondence. The fact that he usually initiates the emails helps, as does the fact that he's one of my main sources of advice (though not quite as much lately. Actually, I've noticed that these days I seem to be trying not to rely on him so much, I suspect because I fear losing him and so am trying to prepare myself for it by acting as if I've already lost him. This worries me, as I don't think it's healthy and it's certainly unkind to myself to preemptively deprive myself of his presence in my life.) Another thing that helps is knowing that I could spend a year on the moon or something and then call him again without him guilt-tripping me about how long it had been, and without the lapse in time having made things awkward between us. There are very few people of whom I can say that.
2. How often do you visit to your parent(s)? Why or why not?
Thanks to my dad's long-ago remarriage and the repercussions of same, I haven't been able to visit in almost four years, which is also how long it's been since he's had a chance to make the drive up here. I fucking miss him. Phone and email just ain't the same.
3. What's the most valuable thing you learned from your parents?
Hard to say, as I think I'm still learning it. Probably the most useful thing he's given me so far is the knowledge that everyone goes through most of the things I'm going through and I'm not a fuckup no matter how often I think I am. I've not had many other people in my life who were in a position to apprise me of that sort of thing, but also, when someone that much older than me who knows me that well tells me these things, I really believe them.
4. What's the most harmful thing you learned from your parents?
How to sacrifice your and your child's emotional welfare to a psychotic abuser? As if I needed the lesson. Honestly, I've never in my life been able to conceive of doing that myself, and it baffles me that anyone so intelligent could.
5. If you could change one thing about your relationship with your parents, what would it be? Why?
I'd want him to fucking ditch the bitch and move a few hundred miles closer. Hell, just one out of two would be a vast improvement.
