The Sixtieth Year - Day 189 - Fools

He has no clue

He has no idea what he lost.

Just like my ex can’t fathom what he actually lost - the life he lost - the opportunity I could have opened for him.

My ex could not imagine the life that could have been in store for him, had he been brave.

He wanted to be brave so bad, he could almost taste it. But he could not do it. He could not gather the momentum.

Similarly, the freeloader can’t fathom what he could have had, because he’s holding on so tightly to his idea of what he thinks he wants.

It’s the only thing he knows.

He wants so badly to have someone take care of him, so he can play - all day every day - just like the ex wanted to.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

You don’t know what you could have instead.

You don’t know what it actually takes.

If you grew up in an abusive household, you may have a sense of something different going on in another family. But you can’t know what you’re actually missing, because you’re missing it.

Other people can make you feel worse, but nobody else can make you feel better about yourself.

You don’t know what it feels like not to be in your own shoes.

I have a vague idea of what it must feel like to be happily married. I saw my parents be happily married. I know it’s possible for some people. I suspect that it could be possible for me. But I don’t actually know what that is truly like. Watching my daughter and her husband have a healthy disagreement made me realize that I have no idea how to make a marriage with a normal partner work long term. Their little fight scared me. It didn’t scare them. It was a perfectly normal marital disagreement. Many years ago I reacted similarly to a friend’s angry outburst. He’s now been happily married to a wonderful woman for 22 years. Sometimes I wonder, if that could have been me.

It was not. My life was a different one.

While I was not happy about the my daughter’s partner in my house, I was willing to work with him. I was looking at him as someone who - in the best of all worlds - may just need some guidance. It was absolutely possible that he was autistic and that he simply needed to learn.

I had not signed up to raise another child.

I was not in favor of this person as my daughter’s partner, because I saw that caring for the partner was adding stress on my daughter - stress she didn’t need.

But if that partner was my daughter’s choice, I was going to help them be better community. I opened my house to them and initially just watched them work it out. I didn’t impose my ways on them. I wanted to see where they needed help first.

They’ve lived here for almost a year now and I can see what they can and can not do - what parts of “playing house” they have worked out as a couple and where they’re lacking.

We talked about teaching him how to cook some things, help them figure out scheduling, cleaning chores. I was willing to play house with them. I was willing to show him community. I was not planning on raising another child, but I was investing in the partner for the sake of my child.

That willingness left yesterday and it will not come back.

The called me a “vile bitch” to my face and I am done with them.

It’s not my loss. It’s his - and he may not even notice what he lost.

It’s good.

Words like ‘vile bitch’ don’t just jump into your head out of the void. They have to be in your head to make it into your mouth and out - multiple times.

My daughter heard it, too.

Let me assure you that any person, who calls any other person a name is willing to call you that same name in anger, too. It’s just a matter of time. The old adage is true: What someone says to you/about you tells you more about them than it tells you about you. If you ever see someone lash out in anger against another person, rest assured that they are capable of lashing out in that way against you.

This is what is in this person’s head. The insult didn’t land, it just showed me the gaping hole of disdain that this person feels for me.

The mask lifted for just a fraction of a second, and I saw the true face of this character.

I don’t need to see it again.

My daughter knows this in her heart. She does not want to know it, but she knows it.

She knows that name-calling reflects on the caller, not the respondent.

I need to make sure that I don’t push my daughter away. The partner will try to create a wedge. It’s the only way he can win this game now.

It’s about to get very interesting around here.

Because that wedge may feel familiar to my daughter. Her father tried to drive that wedge. He failed.

I have been the same person for a long time. Even when I am at my very worst, I don’t cross a threshold into mean and hurtful.

I simply don’t have the vocabulary for it.

I am secure in my being. The people around me, the ones who matter, know who I am.

This nobody does not worry me.

I may lose my daughter to him, though.