All those years later...

It's taken decades for me to be able to have healthy conversations with my father. When I was younger it seemed close to impossible to me. Maybe it was my inexperience, my pride, but every single time he attempted to give me any type of advice I would just shut down.
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I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had a difficult relationship with dad, I'm sure there are thousands of us with similar stories. But I often wonder how much turmoil I could have saved myself If I had just listened for a minute or two. You see, it may sound obvious to you or me now, but when I was "becoming a man" I believed he was out of touch on how the real world worked.

I remember vividly thinking "but... look at his life... what does he really know?" over and over again. The one cognitive move to dismiss even the most obvious advice he could give. Often my brothers and I joke about this today, now that we are older, now that we no longer care who is right, but what is right. My younger brother calls them the little golden nuggets. I think the name is quite appropriate.

The way I discovered the golden nuggets my dad once gave me were always in hindsight of course, and somehow waking up to their recognition always made me smile.

"Darnit... Dad was right about this too... "

The thought that sometimes escaped my prideful mouth regardless of who was in front of me. Maybe those around me could not really grasp what was going on inside my mind, but to me another nugget had been revealed, another door had been opened, the guessing game for that particular wisdom was over.

I've been trying to collect some of the little nuggets lately. They've become an integral part of this blog, even of some of the videos I've been recording. Of course they are not obvious, they are not mean to be, possibly they never could. But I know deep inside they are there and that some of the most valuable ones were given to me by my unique Dad.

I just got off the phone with him again today. He's trying to help us in this dire times, and it's easy for me to recognize his intentions now. It pains me to admit they were not obvious when I was young, not obvious to me at least, but now they are.

Anyways... I guess I'm feeling gratitude for having him around, with all his flaws and all his gift, and for giving me those crazy psychology books to read too, even if the powerful messages arrived twenty years later.