to be treated like a queen

When I was about 30, I was visiting my mom in Ohio. My parents had been divorced since I was 18 and, although they were cordial to one another when events in their children's lives put them in the same place, they did not talk to one another unless they ran into one another. They both came to my law school graduation. Dad did not come to my college graduation because mom came with her new husband and dad couldn't face it and I totally understood dad's resistance. He had not wanted the divorce and it broke his spirit. I don't believe he ever met mom's second husband, who stayed away from my law school graduation so dad would feel comfortable. Blah blah blah.

When I was 28, and I remember the age because my daughter was a small infant, my dad underwent a medical test conducted by a resident who made a mistake that left my dad paralyzed on his left side.  My dad sued and won $680,000 in a malpractice law suit. Not only that, but he got a prestigious law firm to represent him pro bono, so he did not have to pay the firm any of his award.

I get ahead of myself.

Dad's law suit had been going on a couple years, maybe longer. Maybe I was older than 30. How old I was doesn't matter. I was an adult, a mother, a wife, a lawyer and lived five states away from mom and three states away from dad. I mostly saw both of them to give my daughter a sense of family beyond me.

My dad did not talk to me about his lawsuit. One of my brothers tried to keep tight control on info about the law suit. This brother, as my dad once said to me, wanted it all. "He would be happy if I gave it all to him and forgot all of my other kids. He's greedy. It's like a sickness. He wants it all and always has.  He takes money from me but complains when my other kids do."  So this brother, who is so mean spirited that I won't write his name on a blog I am sure he has never seen. I am afraid of him. He went to law school only two years but that's all one needs to know how to use the legal system. He is not eligible to be a lawyer but this brother is a bona fide genius. Seriously smart.  Scary smart.

I believe he conducted most of the communication with my dad's lawyer, purring to dad about dad's vulnerability and assuring dad that he, with two years of law school, would do right. Dad might not have known when a settlement offer was imminent. And if my brother could have accepted the money and kept it entirely from my dad, I am sure he would have.

During this visit at my mom's, suddenly I knew my dad had gotten his settlement. I said I would leave Ohio early so dad didn't give all the money to the brother I have mentioned and another brother, my dad's favorite child. Both my parents had open favorites. It was painful to see how they favored some of their kids, painful to know I was never a favorite.

Mom asked me why I thought dad had settled his case and thus felt a need to go to Chicago.  I knew the money would be all gone quickly. If my dad were ever going to keep it, I would have totally supported that. In fact, I had suggested dad put the money in a living trust, available to him until he died. My brother the half lawyer was furious and that is probably why he went below the radar with info about the lawsuit. Goddess forbid dad listen to my licensed attorney concern that he use the money for his own needs.

My dad didn't need anything. He never cared about stuff or status. All he ever cared about was his kids, his sons, two of his sons mostly with my gay brother a weak third and my older asshole brother an even weaker fourth. His two daughters did not exactly rank at all.  Dad loved Dave, my gay bro, because Dave is so lovable but dad was uneasy with his homosexuality. And his favorite sons constantly harangued dad about their faggot brother. Shame on them.

Mom said "how could you possibly know your father has settled his lawsuit?" I said "I just know. I am sure I am right but if you want me to prove it, let's call him and ask." And I did call dad and, yes indeed, he had settled.

Then mom said "You have always been like this, ever since you were a very young child. You just knew things no one had told you. Sometimes it felt like you knew everything."  I can see her taking a drag on a cigarette, then tapping the cigarette as she spoke.

I have my longest-running therapist Jane to thank for learning I am a high impath. Once she said to me, when I was crying about how my parents had not treated me as well as my brothers (I was the only daughter until I was fourteen). Jane said "I understand why they treated you the way they did. They sound like weak, damaged people who probably shouldn't have been parents, people afraid of the world. A child like you would have frightened them. I bet you knew everything that was supposed to be a secret. That would be scary to two already fearful, damaged adults. I bet you knowing as much as you did would frighten many parents."

The people I tend to be drawn to for close friendship seem to also be high empaths. If they aren't high empaths, they are damaged and I am drawn to their damage, confuse their damage with my own and things can be painfully muddled.   It had been  hard work, after thirty+ years feeling all kinds of stuff  until I understood I felt a lot of gunk that wasn't mine.  It was such a relief to finally start identifying "oh, this is me, and this is not."

When I feel a person very strongly, I want to get close to them, to understand what it is that I am feeling. And maybe, just maybe, help them. I gradually improve the quality of life of people I am attracted to, as they improve mine but I still let very damaged humans slip under my radar, get inside me and let them offload their shit onto me.

I am reminded of my dad, who I miss lately, missing him a lot. My dad had many astringent sayings that I don't think he ever said to my sister. He always treated her more delicately than me. I took it as a compliment that he treated me like one of the guys, like his friend. In hindsight, my dad gone almost 30 years, I remember that it pinched to see my dad maintain a meticulous gallantry with my sister, never uttering profanity in front of her but always doing so in front of me as long as she was not present. I was also mildly pinched that my sister got to be the girly girl.  Actually, I didn't mind being a plain chick. I am a plain chick. What I minded was seeing my misogynsitic family of origin, my father, my mother, and my four brothers dote on my sister's brand of femininity and scoff at mine.

Once when I had used some profanity dad said "Why do you use the word fuck?  it is unfeminine. Do you think your sister-in-law Marilyn, a long-since divorced first wife of my one older brother, a sadistic pig -- both of them were sadist pigs, come to think of it, the ex-sister-in-law and my one older bro.  Anyway Dad said "you'd never heard Marilyn talking like that."

I said "Dad, no one would ever hear you or any of my four brothers talking like that in front of her. You all talk like that in front of me, that's why I talk the same way to you. You are being unfair."

And he was unfair about Marilyn because she really was a cold, mean, greedy woman. And a phony. She used profanity all the time ,just never in front of dad who she thought she conned. Maybe she did. He sure deferred to her femininity.

Anyway, one of my dad's favorite sayings was "He thinks his shit doesn't stink.  Lots of people in this world think their own shit doesn't stink. Fuck 'em, honey. Don't let them know they hurt you.  Just fuck 'em."  By 'fuck 'em' he meant let them go from your life, don't take shit from them and don't let their shit hurt you.

I miss my da.  If he had been around when a guy was projecting his own unworked shit onto me, my dad would have said 'Forget about this asshole. He treats you badly when you deserve to be treated like a queen.It breaks my heart to see you take his shit."

Nobody around telling me these days I deserve to be treated like a queen.  Just me. And I do.