First things first. After my post about “are there any happy men” I think some thought I was actually looking for one. Hell no. No men. I have plenty of the critters running around my world, and I like my bed the way it is right now. I was just curious whether or not the mythic “happy man” existed or if society/breeding/Darwin/sports had beaten the happy right out of all of them.

(Incidentally, Scout has been here about 6 hours and the toilet seat is already in the “up” position. Just sayin’.)

The Dude can only connect with me when he feels good about himself. When he’s in hate himself mode, he makes horrible choices.

Which, let’s just assume that was the same for my dad.

Which would mean that all those times I thought he simply didn’t give a fuck about me, would ACTUALLY mean, he didn’t give a fuck about HIMSELF, and couldn’t reach out to connect with me.

Which is, of course, impossible for a child to process. All the child knows is that she is not getting what she needs, and therefore reacts in her own ways. Creating more patterns and problems and issues and challenges and blah be blah.

But it’s certainly a hell of a lot easier on me to reframe my father as a PERSON who was broken and couldn’t reach his way out of his own problems to connect with me.

Much less painful than the long running script of thinking he didn’t love me and I wasn’t worth his time.

And more than a little mind bending. But when I come to a conclusion and tell my girlfriends and they ALL go, “Ohhhhh. . . . ” – THAT’s when I know I’m on the right path.