Standing Up

Posted on | May 22, 2011 | No Comments

as written May 22, 2011

I think every relationship between a daughter and her dad is multi-leveled complicated. I’m no exception. With snippets like this, this, this, this, this, and this I want to add one more pivotal event as my father and I stumbled through another wall between us. It was the summer of 2006, and my folks and I took a trip down to Moab to canoe on the brown and beautiful Colorado river. We were all in the same canoe; my father steering in back, my mother in the queen bee spot in the middle, and me pulling us forward in front. We’ve done this all our lives, and we’re adept, proficient, and capable. I say that as a precursor of things to come. Anyway – the hours long trip was beautiful, warm, and all things Moab-esque…

Towards the end of a lovely, uneventful trip in the great outdoors, we were finishing up the last couple miles down the river. We came across some sand bars that needed maneuvering around, and in the tight spots, I would just hop out and pull the canoe into deeper water. My dad was trying not to get his feet wet, as he was recovering from some surgery on his toes – and I certainly didn’t mind the adventure of solving the problems. However – out of the blue, as I was half out of the canoe ready to pull us across another sand dune, my father suddenly lost it. Had one of his “fits,” swearing something about my incompetency and leapt into the water. Abruptly, he started jerking the canoe in the opposite direction I was, and so I was dragged a foot or two since my left leg was still hooked inside the canoe. In that quick couple seconds under water, something snapped in me that had been building for my entire life. All 27 years of it.

As I came up out of the water, I planted my feet, reached over and jerked the canoe out of his hands. And then, what ensued can only be described as an eruption of the deepest stuffed lava within me. Out flowed geysers of anger towards my father that I never had the confidence to feel, let alone express. Out spewed venom sucked down my gullet the endless times he hurled his at me. Out erupted all the repressed profanity, screaming, yelling, abuse, unfairness, and pain – I was being bullied and bulldozed no longer! What I remember is in bits and snippets; although I do vividly recall how my body literally shook from head to toe with the expulsion of a lifetime of repressed emotions towards my father. Out it came, in the middle of the Colorado River, dripping with the brown water, my mother sitting stone lipped in the canoe, and my father standing on the other side – just staring at me.

I screamed that he was never allowed to treat people like that, that I would never accept it again, and who did he think he was, and ^$&*#(@*&@#@#@#(!!! a thousand times over. It went on for close to ten minutes straight. At least. There was no thinking, there was no hesitation, there was no fear. Finally, I was no longer afraid of my dad. I spent a lifetime being afraid of him; of never standing up for myself, of allowing his shit to rule how I reacted or didn’t react. I was passive my whole life; trying to keep the peace. But you can’t keep peace with crazy, the crazy that lives in each of us. On that river, I became the crazy. And it’s one of the proudest moments of my life.

It was the first time I stood up for myself to my father.

When I was done, body still shaking, I simply got back into the canoe. He did the same. And we paddled in utter silence the last couple miles. Got back on the shuttle to our car – where I went into the bathroom, sure that my folks were going to disown me. My mother walked in, looked at me, and said the last thing I ever thought I would hear:

“Thank you.”

She was grateful for my honesty, that it was no longer just her trying to survive his imperfections silently. I couldn’t believe it. And I realized what I had just done, and how pivotal and significant it was. Before we drove away, I grabbed a piece of driftwood from the shore, and have kept it since then as a reminder of the day I finally stood up for myself.

But more amazing than the event itself, was what my father said to me the very next day at dinner. I always knew he could climb out of the hole of his issues to see the bigger picture, but I sure as hell never expected this:

“Monica. There are many things that I am proud of you for. But the greatest thing I am most proud of you for for your whole life – is what you said to me yesterday. I am so proud of you for standing up and defending yourself, your mother, and me against myself.”

Ever since that day, he’ll bring it up at random times and places; THE DAY MONICA FINALLY TOLD HER OLD MAN WHERE TO STUFF IT. And without a care in the world that he’s revealing his own not-so-great-moments, he lets the importance of my growing self-love and boundary setting take the stage:

How I stood there, in the middle of the river, “Shaking with fury and dripping with the Colorado and you could hear her screams against the unfairness and injustice of a lifetime of things I’d done echo from the cliffs above.”

And then he’d smile this enormous grin, slap me on the back, and tell me one more time (it never gets old), “I love you. I’m proud of you.”

Keep reading…

Category: Family, Stories From My Past

Comments

Leave a Reply





  • Recent Posts

  • Categories

  • Recent Comments

  • Archives

    • Get the button, share the love