Fathering Forgiveness

Sunday June 15th, 2014 – Island Lake, IL

Happy Father’s Day! Those that know me well may think I have finally flipped completely, but I couldn’t be more sincere. I think this is going to be the best Father’s Day of my life, and it once again took me by surprise. At this point I don’t care how it took me – I am just delighted it did.

I have finally found it in my deepest being to forgive my father unconditionally for everything he ever did or said to hurt me. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I know that I have finally gotten over one of if not the biggest psychological humps in my life. It won’t be an issue again.

There have been so many things going on in my life lately, Father’s Day took a back seat in my mind this year. As with all the family based holidays that have been so difficult for so long, some years are better than others. This year Mother’s Day sent me over the edge, and that was enough.

I’ve still got some hurt I need to work through with her, but the old man and I have completed our business as of today. I think it was due to my sitting with my sister Tammy and talking about everything I felt a need to talk about on Friday. As we were looking through family pictures, we ran across his driver’s license and old work ID. Seeing him from a distance changed everything.

As a child, he was a giant fire breathing dragon to be feared. One little mistake or indiscretion could and often did bring the undiluted wrath of hell’s fury. Sometimes it involved beatings, but even getting yelled at with his intimidating snarl would strike extreme fear into every one of us.

He was a bully, and loved to get over by using fear and intimidation tactics. I eventually caught on to his game, and after that I no longer feared him. I learned to despise him and all bullies, and I have stood up to them in all forms my entire life. I’ve gotten some world class ass whippings as well, but at least I went down swinging. He was the inspiration for it, and the emotions ran deep.

For years and years no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t let it go. I read books and articles about forgiveness, and I knew they were correct by saying I needed to do it – but I couldn’t find the button and it wouldn’t go away. I thought I did a few times, but I was only fooling myself.

My step mother was the only person I ever knew that was in his class of evil, and between the two I had more issues than Mad magazine. She was the only humanoid I ever ran across that was in his league of evil, and as a child I prayed for her slow and painful death. Guess what? I got it!

It was only when I heard she had died that I was able to forgive her. My grandmother told me, and Grandma’s brain was in outer space due to Alzheimer’s. She must have told me ten times in two minutes, and when she did I immediately knew how wrong I was for wishing what I wished.

I was an adult by then, and when I heard the witch was dead I was able to see the situation a lot clearer than I could as a child. My step mother was a small town girl from the U.P. of Michigan, and came to Milwaukee the ‘big city’. Then she married Satan, and she had her cross to bear for the rest of her life. I’m not condoning her treatment of me, but I was able to forgive her for it.

I knew right then I was over it, and that it wouldn’t be an issue ever again. It hasn’t been, and it won’t be in the future. The damage is done, and I see things differently now. I don’t want to wish her soul to barbecue or anything like that. I’ve got my own problems, and wasting energy on her is not going to help either one of us. Getting closure on it all has been a huge load off my psyche.

I now have the exact same feeling about him, and I can finally dust off and move on. It used to eat at me from within, and quite often Father’s Day was a major trigger. I’d see my friends with good fathers be able to have someone to go to in times of need, and know I’d never have that. It made me angry, bitter and hurt more than I can put into words. Now, I don’t feel that anymore.

Do I still think he was a butt plug in the poop shoot of humanity? Without question. He was an all out loser that never should have had children, but he had his own problems. He was never that all powerful ogre he portrayed so well all throughout my childhood. He was a scared little boy all along, and didn’t want anyone to know it. He tried to cover it up by pretending he was a monster.

I think the biggest monster of all lived inside his own head. My grandfather used to tell me of how he would try to motivate my father time and time again and was never able to reach him. It always bothered Gramps, but he never stopped trying. When I got to be a teenager we would go out for breakfast once a week and catch up. He did the same with my father. It became tradition.

Gramps told me many times that between the two breakfasts each week I was without a doubt the adult of the two. My father apparently bitched about everything and was still that unsatisfied kid while I was growing into adulthood and maturing. For whatever reason, the old man was not able to figure life out. He told me himself that he was “a major underachiever and proud of it.”

There are a grand total of ZERO pictures of my father and me at any point in our lives. Not as a baby, not as a kid, and surely not as an adult. We didn’t have contact for years, and I talked to Tammy about that. She said he was a huge pain in the ass at the end, and made all of their lives a constant circus. I’m glad I wasn’t around for it, but I’m sorry they had to endure that for so long.

I know I’m not the only one that has had father issues, but mine were pretty intense. My friend C.J. Vincent reminded me that “you don’t forgive your father, you forgive yourself.” I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I think it’s important to be able to see things from the father’s viewpoint to do it completely. I’m not saying anyone has to forgive the actions, but knowing why is crucial.

My father was a coward. He was a social misfit, and had extremely low self esteem. None of it gives him a pass for how he treated us, but it sure does explain why. I looked at his picture on his driver’s license and ID card, and I saw a pathetic lowlife rather than that fire breathing monster.

I should have had Tammy make a copy of it so I could show it, but I didn’t think of it then. All I could do was just look at it with disgust and know with total certainty that it wasn’t any of our faults that we were treated worse than cattle by him. I think that’s what C.J. means by forgiving ourselves. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get to this point, but I can feel that I absolutely have.

That doesn’t mean I’m ‘fixed’ though. There are still a few bubbling issues with my mother to work through, and I’m just not there yet. I know it’s basically the same story and the exact same principle should be used, but I’m human and there’s still some hurt there. I’ll get to it when I do. Apparently according to Tammy she’s still alive, so maybe there will be a meeting in our future.

I have a strict limit of one crisis at a time, so I’ll just enjoy this victory and know that I just got dealt a bad hand in the parental department I’ll have to play out for as long as I continue to draw breath. The only kind of true revenge I can get is to be a father figure and mentor to as many kids of all ages that I can. I was shown kindness from Gramps, and that’s what I am going to use as a model to show others. I feel like I’m finally free from the dragon’s evil grasp. Next crisis please.

Father issues run deep, and unfortunately with many. Forgiveness can be extremely difficult, or even unheard of to some.

Apparently I am not alone, or this poster would not exist.

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Reboot Needed

Sunday May 11th, 2014 – Island Lake, IL

Happy Mother’s Day – and I mean it. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Christmas all should be celebrated to their fullest by everyone possible. I just happen to be an exception to a rule I had no part whatsoever in writing. We all get poker hands dealt in life, and it’s up to us how to play.

I happened to get the hand I did, and by now I’m really sick of playing it. I thought I was going to be playing high stakes poker when I sat down at life’s table, but at this point I’ve got a hand of Jokers, Uno cards and the old maid. I don’t even know what the hell game I’m playing anymore.

I wish I could just start over and have a chance to succeed somewhere. A reboot would help me shuffle those cards and hopefully get a hand I can potentially win in life. Right now, I’m circling the drain and nobody hears my cries for help. To me they’re plain as day, but nobody else hears.

All I’m asking for is a chance to work steadily and earn a respectable living at what I was made to do – entertain people. It wouldn’t take all that much to turn my life around in just a few weeks of steady work. Three months on a cruise ship would change my life, as would a tour of comedy clubs in bigger cities or something like a Bob and Tom tour. It’s not like I wouldn’t do the job.

I’m in my absolute prime right now, and every second I’m not using my talents they’re wasting away and soon will be gone. Just because a few people don’t like me personally, I seem to be off the radar of the entire world. The saying “When you’re hot you’re hot” works in both directions.

I have heard all kinds of stories of people getting one break and it turning their life around, but are any of them completely true? Stories often tend to get bent in translation, and a legend comes into play that might not be totally accurate. All I know is I could stand a break right about now.

Everything is piling up around me, and I feel like Adam West’s Batman character being caught in some trap where there looks to be no escape. He and Robin always managed to get themselves free and stay alive at the last second, but that’s the TV version. Real life works quite differently.

I don’t know what else to say other than I’ve tried everything I know how to try and I’m out of ideas as to what to do next. I’m having a hell of a time faking it, and at some point I’m just going to snap and that will be it. I’m trying my best to avoid that, but how? What is going to change?

Last night I opened the show for a very nice and funny lady named Caryn Bark. She is known in the Jewish community, and we performed at her synagogue of all places. That’s fine, and I’m unbelievably flattered that she would ask me to open for her. I only had to do about half an hour, and that’s not very difficult as a rule. That wasn’t the case tonight, and it was anything but easy.

Were they nice people? Absolutely. Was it my crowd? Absolutely not. They were older Jewish people that were there to see Caryn. Caryn does a lot of Jewish material in her show, and she was terrific. They loved her, and well they should have. They didn’t hate me, but I wasn’t their thing.

The fact that I’m even doing gigs like this so far into the game is a major red flag. I should be a draw by now, and have an audience of people coming to see me like they came to see Caryn. She is a very smart business person, and also funny. I don’t begrudge her in the least and I don’t want to sound ungrateful either. I’m the one that is in the line of fire here, and I don’t know how to fix the problem. If I did, I would have done it years ago. Something went wrong, and needs a reboot.

I just wish I knew what it was. There are so many things broken right now, I don’t know where to start or what to look to fix first. The pain about the situation with my mother is not ever going to go away. It may fade into the background for a while, but days like today it will come back to torture me for as long as I’ll be alive. The damage is done, and I don’t see how it can be repaired.

For the longest time I wasn’t sure if she was living or dead, but I did get confirmation from my brother Larry that she is indeed still alive and living about an hour north of Milwaukee. He’s the one that has always been in touch with her the most over the years, but he isn’t thrilled about it.

There are just some people alive that should flat out not breed. I’ve done a comedy bit about it for years, and it lays crowds out. Unfortunately, I happen to be the product of two prime parents that qualify for the list. Both of them should have been spayed, neutered, clipped, trimmed, fed salt peter, sterilized, fixed or whatever other term anyone wants to use. Why was I ever born?

There’s no way life needs to be this difficult. It’s like trying to run a car engine without oil. It’s going to seize up at some point, and that’s where I feel my life is right now. It’s miraculous that I made it this far, but after taking so bad of a pounding for so many years I’m just too banged up to continue under my own power. I need a hand from somewhere, but it’s not coming. I feel so lost.

And to think just a few months ago I was feeling on top of the world. My drive to Tucson and back for New Year’s Eve week was a total blast in many ways. That’s how life should be every week, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why it isn’t. I’ve come so close so many times, but then through no fault of my own I’m out of the groove again off my game. It gets SO frustrating.

A radio job somewhere would be fantastic. Again, it’s not like I haven’t paid my dues or would stink up the joint. I’ve got legit experience at some real radio stations, and my ability hasn’t ever been the issue. It’s always some outside factor I can’t control, and I can’t keep taking direct hits.

If I’m going to keep plugging, I’m going to have to have some stability. Period. If I can’t find a way to do that my life will be over a lot sooner than later. The stress of keeping it together week to week is really starting to take a hefty toll. I feel the life draining from me, and I can’t stop it.

It’s like I’m a plate spinner and all my plates are coming down at once. What the hell do I do to stop it without turning everything into a Three Stooges pie fight? I wish I knew. I’ve been trying as hard as I can to figure that out my whole life, but it’s been especially tough since getting fired from the radio job at The Loop in Chicago in 2004. It’s ten years ago now, but it still haunts me.

I put all my chips on the table for that gig, and it was looking like I would be set for life. There is no reason I shouldn’t be other than some clueless nimrod decided to fire us because “once in a while change for the sake of change is good.” Well, apparently that was one of those times in the confines of his marble sized brain and ten years later here I sit debating whether to off myself.

I really don’t see why I’m alive right now, and I can’t scream out any louder for help. One day I will just pick up a rope and a maid will find me swinging from some hotel room shower head and that’ll be it. I’ll get my picture in their local nose blower – and they’ll spell my name wrong.

Looking back over my life it seems like such a waste. I was given a scoop of talent, and when I tried to develop it I kept getting my legs clipped out from under me. When I asked for help there was nobody there, and there still isn’t today. I’m hurting. Thanks Mom! Happy Mother’s Day.

This pretty much sums up my current life situation.

Mother Flunker

Saturday May 10th, 2014 – Island Lake, IL

I am in pain today. It is excruciating pain. It is a pain so intense and overwhelming that I don’t want to live anymore pain. I thought I would never have to come back to this horrible place, but here I am. It is an ugly and a terrifying place. I wish I wasn’t so damn familiar with it. But I am.

It’s like my soul is a teatherball attached to a giant rope on a pole, and no matter how hard I try to escape I just come back to where I started. This is the place I have been trying so diligently to escape from as long as I can remember, but here I am again and I don’t know how to deal with it.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I have been getting that stinging fact rammed down my throat every time I have turned on my radio for the last week. It’s been non-stop, and it’s getting to me just like Christmas ads. It’s unavoidable, and a constant reminder of what I have missed in life.

I must admit, I assumed getting back in touch with my siblings would finally remove that pain, and to some degree I think it did in the Christmas department. I felt a strong need for some kind of closure, and I got it. One dinner meeting doesn’t mean everything is now “fixed”, but it was a gigantic step in the right direction. At least they showed up so we could compare notes as adults.

I didn’t think we’d ever have the chance to do that but we did, and I know it was good for all of us. I’ve been in touch with my brother Bruce since, and it’s been all positive. He was the one that I never dreamed would be willing to come around but he’s been unbelievably great. I hope we’re all able to keep it going so we can heal. It took a long time to get it done, but it was SO worth it.

Deep inside I always felt that if we could just sit down peacefully as adults we would be able to talk things out intelligently, and that’s pretty much what we did. I don’t anticipate any arguments with any of them ever again, only because it takes two to argue and I’m not up for it. If they had smoldering issues with me, I’m sure anything would have been brought up during our meeting.

The issues we all had with our tyrant father are hopefully dead along with him. We don’t miss him, but we all missed out on a nurturing father/child relationship. He was a vicious bastard, and a bully to boot. He didn’t love himself and he sure didn’t love us, but his memory is now fading.

With my mother it’s a different story. All of us are united on the fact our father was a pecker of epic proportions, but our mother situations are all different. Bruce’s mother and I never hit it off, but I will say she doted over Bruce and gave him everything she could under the circumstances.

I say good for Bruce and good for her. She was forced into the role of step mother, and I have a whole different view of it now than I did then. Bruce was her only child, and I see why it worked like it did. It was brutal to deal with back then, but I get it now and have no hard feelings at all.

Whatever problems Bruce may have sure don’t originate from a lack of love and attention from his mother. In retrospect I’m very happy for him, because he doesn’t have that hideous feeling of total isolation that I have felt for a lifetime. It’s overwhelming, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

My mother Jean left abruptly when I was five months old. Tammy was 4 ½ and Larry was 2 ½, and that can’t be good for any of us. Kids need a father figure at the very least, but the mother is the source of loving and nurturing and life itself. Fathers take off all the time, but whoever hears of mothers doing it? I can’t think of many others, and most people can’t relate to the aftershock.

Looking back from an adult perspective, I have no doubt my mother leaving when I was at the age I was did major damage to my emotional growth. How could it not? I have to believe it was also devastating to Tammy and Larry. They were to the age where they had at least some sort of memories of her. Larry might have been a tad young, but I would think Tammy still has some.

I never talked about this with either of them, because it just never felt right. I was never all that close with any of them growing up, and it was a delicate subject that wasn’t ever brought up. Our father never sat us down and told us what went on, so it kind of got swept under the rug forever.

This is all very deep and personal, but I’m writing about it because I need to get it out so others that have similar struggles – and I hope they are VERY few and far between – can know they’re not alone and hopefully gain at least a little comfort in knowing others are suffering like they are.

I don’t enjoy knowing that others are in pain too, but it does make me feel a little less freakish. Nobody wants to be out there all alone, but that’s where I’ve been for as long as I can remember. I grew up with our grandparents, and Tammy and Larry stayed with our father who’d married the woman that became Bruce’s mother. They all grew up in the same house, while I was the freak.

People have told me my entire life to just “shut up and get over it already” and “that was in the past” and any other kind of half baked Zig Ziglar or Hallmark Card cutesy slogan. “God is in the driver’s seat” and “Everything happens for a reason” is really easy to say when you’re doing ok.

Well, I’m not ok and I know it. I’ve tried to “suck it up” and “hang in there” as long as anyone can, but after enough time passes one realizes the hoped for “ship” is just never going to come in. If it hasn’t by now, it isn’t coming. My mother left and never came back, and that’s what dented my can the deepest. If she was dead at least I could have closure, but she isn’t. All I have is pain.

My self esteem and self worth is completely in the toilet. How the hell could I expect to attract the ideal quality mate when I’ve got so many things still hurting so badly inside? If I at least had some financial security I wouldn’t be under so much constant stress to survive month to month.

The people that tell me to “lighten up your blog” can kiss the fuzziest part of my pink buttocks. This is not for you. If you want light and fluffy, go read Marmaduke in your morning newspaper. This is mainly for myself, but also those that have had to navigate their own insane life jungle. It isn’t easy even when things are ‘normal’, but for dented cans life can be absolute hell on Earth.

That’s where I am now, and I’m not going to lie. I am REALLY hurting to the point of wanting to end my life. I’ve had enough and I can’t stand the pain anymore. I have talked to a few shrinks over the years, and I guess it maybe helped a little at the time – but I don’t see what’s so different about writing about it here. The only hope I have is that it might give someone else a little hope.

No matter what happens, I can honestly and proudly say I have tried my best to pay back all of the bad breaks I’ve caught in life with good. I never thought I was the only one suffering, but my problems are far from what most others face. I have helped a large number of other people when I didn’t have to, and I did it because it was the right thing to do. Warts and all, I do have a heart.

What I don’t have is someone to go to when I need a boost. Where was my mother? I never got even ONE hug, or a cake for my birthday or anything a child is supposed to get from a mother. If you haven’t experienced that deep emptiness, you have zero right to tell me what to write about.

No matter how old I get, there’s always going to be a lost little boy inside looking for his mother.

The Unfixable Hole

Sunday May 12^th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL

    Depending on the year, certain holidays hit me in different ways. Christmas can be a source of major pain one year, but not so bad the next two or three. Father’s Day has also drudged up some ugly memories I’d rather forget, but try as I might they still find their way to the top of my head.

    I wasn’t even thinking about Mother’s Day, but I happened to turn on my radio and listened to sports talk radio of all things and heard ball players giving shout outs to their moms and thanking them for all their support through the years. After a few minutes of that I was feeling mighty low.

   It drove the point home again and again that I got cheated out of one of the most basic elements of human life, and I’ve lost out on more than I realize. If my mother was dead I could put closure to the situation, but as far as I know she’s still alive somewhere and the whole situation rots ass.

   I have very few memories of my mother, and those I do have are far from pleasant. She left my father, two older siblings and me when I was five months old, and that’s when I went to live with my paternal grandparents who raised me until age 17. My mother stayed away and it really hurts.

   This is pain I can share with few others. A mother is supposed to be the one who’s there for the tough times – not be the source of them. I’ve tried to push this to the back of my mind since I can remember. Today it came back. There’s a dark empty corner of my soul I don’t know how to fill.

   I wanted to forget about it and ‘just move on’ and ‘get over it’ like so many have told me, even though not one of those self taught know it all back alley aspiring Dr. Phils of the world have felt anywhere close to a crushing blow like that themselves. They think they’ve got all the answers.

   Nobody I know has any of those answers, including me. How does someone deal with such an ugly situation? I wish I knew. My whole life I’ve tried to suck it up and do the best I could with what I have, but that hasn’t been effective. All these years later, I’m still a lost kid. I need a hug.

   If she were to come out of the woodwork again, I’m not sure I’d want to see her. I don’t think I would feel any better, and every other time I’ve seen her in my life it has been nothing but brutal to the psyche and a waste of my time. I’m not going to get what I want, and that’s the way it is.

   I’m writing about all this so openly because I hope I’m able to touch someone who reads it and has something maybe as painful in their life. I don’t know anyone to talk to that I think can relate to what I’m going through, and that makes it worse. Keeping it all quiet just adds to the isolation.

   This is an inner torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but I don’t know how to get rid of it. It’s drained me for a lifetime, and continues to be a source of agony. I drove around in a funk all day, and it didn’t help when I wanted to stop for lunch at three of my favorite restaurants and lines were out the door because it was Mother’s Day and people were enjoying their family meal.

   That added gas to the fire, and I was hurting so badly I thought of ways to end my life without leaving a mess for someone else to have to clean up. Why am I even here? No matter how much success I may ever achieve, there will always be this ugly void in my life. It’s the unfixable hole.

   I’ve been far down like this before on Christmases and Father’s Days and even Thanksgivings. I usually move on and keep slugging, but it always sucks a little more out of my soul. If you have loving parents and a family, be grateful. It can’t be bought, and without it life has little meaning.