I assumed my relationship with my dad needed fixing (which means my “Financial Realizations” section is completely changing directions)
I’ve been in another slump of not calling my dad to catch up and sort out his finances.
At first I thought it was because I wasn’t ready for it, like in the process I’d learn something from our past that would hurt too much, so I was avoiding it altogether. But I have to say I’ve already learned quite a bit that sucked to hear and it hasn’t killed me yet.
I’ve been mad at myself for not making any progress with fixing my relationship with my dad. But then I realized something very obvious that I’ve been overlooking this whole time: who said our relationship is broken in the first place? What abstract relationship standard have I been holding my dad and I to? Is it even actually a good standard?
We don’t have deep conversations, if I needed to borrow $500 or less he’d give it to me without a single question, we have some similar hobbies we can chat about, and we share DNA. I don’t want anything more or different, I just assumed I did because I kept telling myself that this wasn’t “enough”. But then every time he calls, or tells me a story about spending too much money on Amazon again, I silently get annoyed and start doomscrolling Reddit until we hang up. I don’t want anything more or different, and that’s not bad. It doesn’t mean I hate him, it doesn’t mean we’re not good enough as individuals or as father and daughter. We just are. And now that I’m not lying to myself about wanting things to be different, maybe I can actually start enjoying our superficial conversations. They’ve had their nuggets of wisdom, and they don’t have to be a thing I dread. One day I’ll miss being able to call him out of the blue. I don’t want to regret rolling my eyes and half-listening to him while he’s still here.