The man that never was.

Words constantly echo in my head, precious sentences that once held
importance, but are now only dull reminders of places once visited and
people once known. Your words and his words and my words bounce
between other thoughts. If I have a memory for anything, it is
conversation. There are things I wish I said differently and sometimes
not at all. The reconsideration comes mostly in silence. During early
morning hot shower trances when there is nothing but the persistent
scalding of the trickling water. Or when I find myself awake at
strange hours of the night, enveloped by a darkness that transforms
the familiar into the foreign. Both times are marked by solitude and
isolation. It isn't really regret that I feel, just a peculiar
questioning that comes and goes.

Being from a world where silence is encouraged, where thoughts are not
to be shared and emotions are not meant to be experienced but instead
ignored, I am much more inclined to say less than more. And maybe
that's where the reservation comes, the reason why I chose some words
over others.

Growing up in a place where any sense of self-efficacy is minimized,
where your faults manage to outweigh strengths and weakness is
exploited then punished. In a house where it is easier to formulate a
story than relay the truth, it is a miracle any sort of functional
life has emerged.

And we sat at that dining room table as a family without really being
one. The phone rang, relatives wishing us the happiest of holidays,
their messages dutifully erased as if their words were meant to scorn
rather than reconnect. The only thing that truly bound any of us was
common experience and the same last name and that was more clear than
anything else. The man that sat at the end of the table was not
anyone's father. He was only the product of even worse circumstances
than our own. Our heads hung low, our mouths shut tight, afraid to
utter any kind of sound lest it compete with the wisdom flowing from
his. And so we ate in fear, we lived in fear as we always have.

I'd never be what he wanted. I'd never meet his expectations. And only
now was this beginning to be okay. Only now did his words sting less,
did his judgement carry less weight. It is becoming easier now to pity
him instead of fear him, to accept his words not as just criticism but
a manifestation of his own inadequacies. Instead of fighting him, I am
now understanding him. His actions and words will never be right, but
he is so far gone, so removed from reality, that I am forced to accept
him for what he never was. His internal battle must be punishment
enough. His memories are surely torture enough. To know what images
and words are streaking through his mind would be too much for me. I
don't really want to understand it, just move on from it all.