Twas Brillig

Please welcome my fabulous bloggy pal Lilacspecs as today’s guest-blogger!

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First of all, please allow me to squeeee at the opportunity to guest post on such a wonderful blog and to thank Brillig for allowing me to camp out on her bloggy lawn today.
I know most of you have no clue who I am, so I guess I better fill you in. My name is Lilacspecs and my blog is called Lilac Colored Glasses. I’m an American expatriate living in Belgium with my Flemish boyfriend and I’m currently jobless while I learn Dutch and attempt to acculturate myself to living in Europe. As you might have guessed, that means I have a lot of time to blog.
I leaped at the chance to guest post because both my and my boyfriend’s family read my blog and I was pissed at a situation and wanted to vent on neutral ground. I wrote up a whole post about it and everything but then it was resolved and I was left with no valid complaint, so in lieu of that, here’s a little something I wrote that sort of fits with Father’s Day (it’s June 8th in Belgium).

My Father’s Daughter

I am the firstborn of two children.

I have my mother’s eyes, my maternal grandmother’s chunky knees and a random pair of jumbo ta-tas. But my personality is a cross between that of my father and his eldest sister Ronnie. What does that mean? Well, it means that part of me is wise, keenly aware of my personal surroundings, somewhat controlling and a bit short tempered while the other part of me is perpetually green and oblivious, though passionate and well-meaning.

In my youth I learned to love, respect and simultaneously fear my father. He is a loving, sensitive man whose life has always revolved around his family. He is an extremely intelligent person both academically and street wise, but he was never motivated to explore his full potential. My father also has a mean streak in him that he inherited from his father. He always told us that his father had a terrible temper and that he had promised himself that he wouldn’t be the same way, but often times he was. He is meticulous and always wanted our rooms and the house and the bathroom to be kept very clean. Punctuality was also very important to my father and there were countless times we’d be reprimanded for coming late to dinner or getting wrapped up in an after school activity and arriving late for a scheduled pickup in the parking lot.

Did my father get angry frequently? No. At least, not in an outburst sort of way. I think he was angry about a lot of our behavior but the rage was set to slow simmer and incident piled upon incident until, when his temper did boil over, it was truly scary to a child; especially a child that was as introverted and shy as yours truly. I also think that my father’s harsh criticisms and frustrations were aimed more towards me than towards my younger brother and I felt that when I was younger but I never knew why. All I know is that there were plenty of times that I just never felt that I could be what my father wanted me to be. And in retrospect I believe that my father saw so much of himself in me that he unconsciously took it upon himself to cull the attributes in me that he disliked in himself while encouraging all the behaviors that he found favorable.

My father and his eldest sister were very close as adults. I had heard that I reminded people of her but the comparison took over my life after she died of cancer when I was almost 14. Suddenly everything about me reminded my family of Ronnie: my hair, my build, my skin, my personality…everything. After awhile I began to rebel. I did everything I could to set myself apart from both my father and the ghost of my aunt. I was sloppy, disorganized and passive aggressive. The only things I held in common with my father was my love of Hydrox cookies, Pepsi and cigarettes. This went on for years until my father recognized some things that he needed to change in his own life (he acknowledged his OCD and anxiety) and started taking Paxil. The medication did wonders for him and allowed him the clarity to understand a lot about himself, his life and his family. I think he finally saw our relationship for what it was: a father who loved his daughter and sister so much that the emotions merged and became more than his daughter could take. It took me a while longer to get my act together, admit my own anxiety issues, and understand that no matter how much I may remind others of my father or my aunt, I am, above all things, myself.

Now, as an adult in my late 20s, I often find myself expecting people to do things my way. I arrive most places at least a half hour early if not more. I put my backpack together the same way every morning and I always keeps my house keys in the same pocket. I eat the same lunch almost every day and have severe difficulty when my daily routine is interrupted. “Going with the flow” is a challenge for me. Often when my boyfriend lacks the initiative to scoop the litter box or do a load of laundry, after I feel like I’ve been trying to keep the cats fed and the house straightened up all week, I find myself brooding for days until I finally explode. I have started recognizing the eerie familiarity of all of these things and it overwhelms me. So I call my father and talk to him and ask him to help me find ways to get over that part of me that demands control and order. And he talks to me and guesses everything that is going on inside my head and he makes me realize that these are all feelings that can be dealt with and overcome. He respects me for doing what he couldn’t do for such a long time; seeing the faults within myself rather than those around me. Sometimes it scares me when I behave like the younger version of my father, but then I remember that no matter how many similarities there are, good or bad, I am still me.

I am proud to be my father’s daughter.