My homework from my therapist this week is to "journal" about my relationship with my parents growing up.
A timely homework assignment since they have been visiting for the last two weeks.
They don't stay with me when they come, they always opt to stay with my brother. Ostensibly it is because I live in a tiny studio apartment, but it sometimes seems that they just don't want to spend all that much time with me without someone to act like a buffer between us.
My relationship with my parents is a little awkward and strained. I have trouble looking my dad in the eye and our hugs are always non-comittal.
What seems to be the biggest source of tension is faith.
Specifically, my lack of it.
As the faithful reader will know, I used to be a full-time minister.
But over a period of about five years of struggling--both emotionally and intellectually--with questions and experiences that challenged my beliefs, I walked away. I became...well, sometimes I'm Atheist. Sometimes I am Agnostic. Whatever I am, I am no longer a believer.
The faithful reader might also know that my dad is a fundamentalist pentecostal pastor. My mom works full-time at the church along side him.
I am going to go into fuller detail over the next few days, but I will say now that I never had anything in common with my dad; except for the church.
It was literally the only thing we could talk about.
When I lost my faith ten years ago, I more or less lost my relationship with my parents as well.
They are doing their best to reconcile with me and my brother right now, but it's hard. It's hard when they disapprove of you for just being you.
It's hard when your parents believe you are going to Hell.
I know they are disappointed. They have told me they are. My mom said that my not believing in God was a personal offense to them and like a "slap in the face" to my father and his ministry.
I know that all of their friends (also pastors and missionaries) have children who all "just love the lord with all their hearts." These kids are all in ministry, or at the very least are married with children of their own.
I know that when my parents hear these stories from their friends, they become embarrassed. If only they had raised my brother and I better we wouldn't be such horrible sinners.
It's hard living with that kind of guilt.
I've assured them that I've tried to believe, but faith just doesn't work like that.
I can't even offer them an explanation for why I've never had a relationship last for longer than a year.
"I'm just fucked up, mom." That's what I would tell her if I was allowed to cuss in her presence.
The big thing I am learning though, the mantra that I have repeated throughout this last week is this:
My parents are disappointed.
But I am not a disappointment.
I cannot control what my parents say, do, or feel. They have chosen to be disappointed.
But that doesn't reflect on me.
Their choice to be disappointed does not make me a disappointment.
I am a good man. Strong, kind, thoughtful, intelligent, creative. I am a decent writer, a wonderful student, and an activist for social change.
My parents may not see all of that, but it doesn't mean that I have to be blind to it as well.
Tonight I will really begin to love myself.
Up next: all about my mother.
10:25 p.m. - 2014-07-14
Recent entries:
Awake in My Tiny Cage - 2014-11-03
God. - 2014-10-27
I remember me. - 2014-10-17
The Paper - 2014-10-13
A Post About Not Doing Anything - 2014-10-12
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