Shame II
I once told my Father that the reason he never amounted to anything was that he constantly surrounded himself with people who were inferior, and that didn't help expand his perspective on life.
(My Father, with wee little me on his right and my brother, to his left, early 80s)
I regretted this. Not instantly. I've been regretting it for the 30 years since I said that, hurtfully. You see, I was a long-haired young man deep in the throes of a rebel adolescence, which still hadn't even seen me lose my first true love.
My Father was putting in his usual set of quips about the friends that surrounded me during my Summer holidays. It all seemed a bit out of concern, but a lot out of what I felt was disrespect: it was more in expression than in thought, I came to find. He knew I wasn't impressionable; if anything, I was doing the impression, even without trying much.
His remarks were about friends that I met, year after year, during our Summer holidays. In a way, we all grew together, and much of the year was always geared towards impressing the group when we got back together for those three to four weeks. That time, though, he was a bit more aggressive than usual: he probably caught me drinking a bit more than usual, and that worried him. His way of showing concern was never direct, so he did what he thought he had to do.
I first grew my hair out of wanting to impress a specific girl who mentioned she loved long hair the year before. The following year, after an excruciating year of hair growth during which I looked much like this, I showed up in Summer with somewhat unkempt locks of auburn hair. Akin to a darker-haired Robert Plant, with the skinny body to match and a singing voice emulating my Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana heroes.
I remember that year as being one my happiest ever, too. That's when I found that elusive first true love. A girl I first saw wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt and Doc Martens (that she wore even to the beach) which helped shape most of my early life and much of it way beyond. With whom I had an on and off long distance relationship, to start with, and that had a reignition into my college years. I met her when I was fourteen.
So, fourteen-year old me, long hair and cool friends who mostly shared my taste in music, had a ball that year. By then, I was drinking more than I should, because my head has never been an easy space to dwell in, and alcohol both numbed it and inspired me. We were mostly just having fun, but I always felt a lot of feelings. By then I didn't feel it was dangerous. My Father did, but never told me directly. Or explain why.
You see, his own Father had died when he was nine-years old. An alcoholic, who left three kids to fend for themselves, while helping an ailing mother, my beautiful grandmother Emília. The woodworking artist of a man that he was, António, died of cirrhosis, very much a young man, still. My father wasn't averse to drinking, himself. But he probably identified the start of something concerning then, because he always saw me as a sensitive soul who'd eventually look to alcohol as a way to erase himself -- much like my grandfather did.
His way of expressing that concern was to show that people around me weren't the best influences, so what better way to do it than belittling them in my eyes? I think that's what he meant, then.
When I was at the peak of my happiness, though? It felt like a direct attack on my scrutiny (or lack thereof). And I wouldn't have it any other way.
The way he'd made us suffer through encounters with people we felt were intelectually inferior to him throughout our childhood was just the weapon I needed to defend myself while ruthlessly attacking.
Little did I know that he'd made choices. He later -- much later -- told me about those choices. That he'd chosen family and stability over potentially life-changing career options, so he didn't uproot us and move us away. Something he'd never had -- stability -- as he'd had to fend for himself from very early on; he'd had to relinquish another potentially life-changing career option earlier in his life, to care for his ailing mother. He'd had to reset his life many times, and didn't want to make us go through it.
And there I was, saying he'd never amounted to anything. Throwing it in his face. Diminishing every effort and every regret he might have for having made choices most didn't even know of. That he suffered through, alone.
That's something I'm deeply ashamed of. Something he was ashamed of, too, particularly when I pointed it out to him that way. Something I never told him I was ashamed of, though. And that I wish I'd told him.
Somehow, I hope he just knew. I think he did, that I was really proud of him, never ashamed. I'm learning to not repeat some of his mistakes, but some of my own, as well. I'm learning not to suffer through things in life alone, sometimes.
Living in shame just isn't worth it. Suffering alone isn't worth it.