Berrybean

Your dad sounds lovely.

I think as I grew up my mum and dad took the two extremes. My dad on the grumpy bench, glass always half empty, ranting and raving about others and their side of the street, and woe betide anyone who so much as glanced towards the poop he was piling up on his own side.

My mum, I think, was trying to overcompensate for all this by pretending everything was fine. Trying to keep her side of the street clean and attempting to polish his side up as well (which was never graciously accepted , as I'm sure you can imagine)

For my part, I suppose I learned to swing between the two extremes, depending on what I felt would work best in any given situation, and then my drunk interludes to give me a break from any of it. It's only since entering recovery that I've learned that there are far more healthy attitudes to have that either of those extremes, and that acceptance and gratitude tend to be the way forward. And yes, to finally be able to say "I'm not feeling that great today" with no guilt, and also to actually WANT to feel better rather than wallow in my grumpiness (after all, that was what I saw as the more powerful position in my FOO - it was only later that I realised that as well as making everyone else miserable, he really did make himself miserable as well, when in fact he had an awful lot to be grateful for).

I try nowadays (and some days it is just 'try') not to attach myself to those negative emotions and become them. I am not my emotions. I can observe them, acknowledge them, air them, but I don't need to Velcro myself to them. Because that Velcro can be industrial strength, and its very easy to stick it on independently, but once it's in place I can then need some help getting the darn stuff unstuck, and meanwhile I'm left in a place of discomfort of my own choosing.

Maybe that's just me though.

BB

teatreeoil007

Thanks Berrybean. Well, if my dad heard you say he was "lovely" he'd probably crap his pants....err...knickers....err whatever you call them in Great Britain. His had his charm...he was like the Marlbarro man, ruggedly handsome...if you called him a "cowboy"....he'd say...' ______, I ain't no cowboy, I'm just a logger." Although, he did have cows and put up hay. I like to think my mom and dad leveled one another out. In mathematics they canceled one another out.

Wamama48

Cows and hay, what did he log? Lol

teatreeoil007

He was a full time logger (evergreen trees) to keep the family farm (cows and hay, etc) solvent and raise a family of five kids. I never really 'got' how hard he worked and the long hours he often put in until I got older.

Wamama48

He sounds like a good man who loved his family. Reminds me of that country song Daddy's Hands. Makes me tear up everytime I hear it.

teatreeoil007

Oh Wamama...I cry every time I hear that song.....it reminds of my dad for sure. My dad's hands did tell a story....or many stories....he worked hard from before sun up until sun down sometimes...and when the work let up ...late at night after we all were in bed and he thought no one could hear: he'd be playing his guitar or banjo and singin' ... he was shy with his singin' but he could sing and I think it soothed his soul for his soul surely needed soothing. He encouraged us to make music. He didn't treat us like slaves on the farm and wanted us to always make time for music because he felt that was the best thing on earth really: music.

Wamama48

You were so blessed to have a father like that. What a good man he was. Every child deserves a dad that loves them unconditionally, and who's not afraid of hard work. Do you enjoy making music, or just listening?

teatreeoil007

Good day, Wamama. We were encouraged to make music and that is what we did. But there was plenty of listening going on and drawing inspiration that way. I saw an expression of rapt joy on my dad's face when he listened to the kind of music he dug the most...rapt joy. But oh how he toiled. Maybe that's part of why he needed music in his life. And really...when we traced back through our musical ancestry....we found that they toiled hard just to put food on the table. But: there was always time and space and place for music.

Wamama48

This cracked me up!......cowboy knock your socks off coffee stout enough to sink a barge in the muddy Mississippi. 😂QUOTE=teatreeoil007;6850193]I'm not sure what's worse: A grouchy person or a fake cheerful person who looks at real problems with rose colored glasses and who pretends there is no elephant in the room when in fact there is a very big purple elephant with pink polka dots all over him.

I'm a bit tongue in cheek too....

I get what dandy is saying....and maybe this isn't so for everyone, but God forbid if you give an honest answer to how you really feel when someone asks how you are....is it that people are asking "amiss" or is it that we answer them "amiss" (as in we don't tell them the truth about how we really are.). Now, mind you, those who know me well can tell whether or not I am telling the truth or just saying something "nice".

Why is it not okay to say, "I'm not feeling that great today."? Why do people react the way they do when you just tell them the truth? Some of it is how people are raised. Well, my dad was the more honest one of my parents...my mom was more like an ostrich who would bury her head in sand rather than say something like, "It's been a crappy day." No no no....she taught us as kids to say nice things no matter what. So, I landed somewhere in the middle between my mom and dad. I like to find nice things to say about others when I can....I like to point out the positive....but if something is truly wrong....I'd like to think it's okay to speak up about it....and , sometimes, I'd best just leave the premises before I say something I'll later regret. Which, it turns out is also considered "unacceptable" in certain settings.

No wonder my dad liked to be alone on his property so much. The world is just full of people putting on pretenses. Look at the media, for heaven's sakes. All those glamorous pictures of people on the red carpet...."appearance" is "everything"....except....it's NOT everything. No one tells you about the fight someone had with their red carpet date before hand....well, in some cases they tell us TOO much about a person's private life, huh?

So, with tongue in cheek, but also being as nicely honest as possible here(wink, wink)....I'm going to follow in my dad's footsteps a little and stick to my plaid shirts and cowboy knock your socks off coffee stout enough to sink a barge in the muddy Mississippi.

Off my soapbox I go now, which by the way is big, and purple, and has pink polka dots all over it.[/QUOTE]