Don't It Always Seem To Go...

Am I the only person who wants what I can't have? Is this something that is inherent to humans? Or is it something that is unique to those who have or are missing something from their lives?

I want a father. But my father is dead. He passed away in January 2003. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to write a tribute to him about how much I learned, and how much I miss him? But I can't, because even while he was alive, he wasn't really my father. He was old, and an active alcoholic, and there wasn't a lot of grey matter left. He didn't know who I was, and that's probably a good thing because quite frankly, I was resentful as hell.

My mother raised me. I don't pretend that she did a perfect job, and as time goes on, I learn more and more of the mistakes she made, but she had five kids, and I was the youngest, and by gawd, she had her hands full. Her first married memory was of her new husband letting his buddies into their marital hotel room with a case of beer because he was a 'Good Time Charlie' and didn't want to turn them away. Situations like this continued in one form or another until I left home; it was never calm. The mantle of alcohol was heavy on the shoulders of each of us there. Rarely was there laughter and happiness.

Dad was a workaholic as well; he owned his own business and put in long hours each day, each week, each month, each year, simply to drink away the profits or watch people rip him off, too addled by booze to stop it happening. My mother saw it and did her best to curb it where she could, but since she was a part-time employee, it was limited. Each of us kids worked with him as well, and this was where we got to "know" dad. He had pride in us when we worked there. Why? Because we were doing something for HIM. We never saw him at home, with the rare exception of a meal, or a fight over liquor with mom.

I took up hockey for a couple years; hockey was my dad's passion outside of work. For a very brief time, I saw pride in my father. He would actually step away from his business and come to the rink to watch me play. I was good, too. A great skater, a good puck handler, and a goon. Yup, that was me. My nickname was, "Hacker". He'd go back to work and regale his cronies with tales of my misspent time in the penalty box, with glee! He liked that. I liked that.

But mostly, I grew up without a father, and I needed one. There was just this man, who seemed to cause my mother great anguish. I knew, as a relatively bright teenager, what I could get away with, and if I wanted something, how to get it through my father. What I didn't ask for, and what I needed most, I did not get: guidance; structure; form; discipline. There was no man to teach me that I could strain against the boundaries all I wanted, but that he would stop me each and every time I went too far, because he loved me and wanted to keep me safe: from myself, and from others. No father to teach me how to be a lady because he wanted others to see the best in me. No man to teach me that I could be anything I wanted, not because I had boobs and a vagina, but because I was smart and capable. No man to hold me tight when I screwed it all up and tell me he loved me, even though there would be consequences for what I had done.

There was no man to teach me what I needed to know about other men: that I was worth more than the sum of my parts, and that a man worthy of me would seek to know more about me than that.

So what do you do when you're 43 years old, and suddenly you realize what it is you're missing in your life? Where do you go? How do you reconcile yourself to the fact that you never had and WILL never have what it is that you're craving? That it was a time-limited offer, and the offer has expired?

Where do you go to find that structure as a grown adult? Ask someone, watch them recoil and see their faces reflect the anxiety and uncertainty the question provokes. No one knows ~ no one has an answer.

But....the question remains.