"Hi Courtney...it's your dad. I was just calling to chat with you, uh, we haven't spoken in a long time, um...gimme a call? When you get a chance? I will talk to you soon...I love you. Bye now."\n\nWhat text cannot convey is how this message is delivered in a vaguely pissy, exasperated tone, as if this is the next in a long line of voicemails, as if he's been reaching out and you haven't bothered to respond, as if he's trying and you aren't.\n\nIn reality, you talk maybe four times a year, email even less, and at least half the time it's you initiating it. But the holidays are one of the times you actually do talk to him, you knew you would, so you [[call him back]].
Your father has probably forgotten more major events in your life than most people will ever be aware of in the first place. He calls "around" your birthday, and you're pretty sure he still has absolutely no idea what you got your degrees in or what you do for a living. \n\nEveryone else in your family attempted to teach you that someone trying to love you was good enough, but you ended up learning a [[different lesson|your life]].
You have a nice conversation about how much snow Indiana has, how little snow Boston has, how the weather is in Virginia where you're visiting.\n\nOne of the ways you can gauge your dad on any given day is how long it takes for him to ask you about anything in your life. Sometimes he just talks the entire time about himself and hangs up. Today he finishes telling you about how many winter storms are in his local forecast and asks about where you're spending the holidays...seems like he's having a good day.\n\nTalk about:\n*[[climate change]]\n*[[his work]]\n*[[his plans for the holidays]]
Your dad fixes other people's cars in his garage. You're pretty sure he's operating an illegal business, but you have learned to just not ask about a lot of things. He's good at the work and he [[loves cars]].\n\nHe usually has stories about cars he's working on, what's wrong with them and how he's planning on fixing them, but apparently it's slow around the holidays.\n\nTalk about:\n*[[his plans for the holidays]]
He's clearly having a pretty good spell, because he [[asks]] after your spouse, your new job, the house you bought this year. And you tell him...maybe not your deepest hopes or fears about any of those subjects, but you let him know how his daughter is doing. \n\nYou give him the ability to tell the rest of the family, or his friends who ask, What Courtney Is Up To These Days. You know that on one level, it is the //appearance// of engaged fatherhood that he's invested in, and you don't mind supplying that, because it doesn't [[cost you very much]] anymore to do it.
Several months ago, your dad admitted to you that based on recent weather patterns and Maude only knows which scientific study, he had been forced to conclude that, "maybe there's something to all this global warming talk." \n\nHe's still an NRA member and a FOX News viewer, but you'll take what you can get...but maybe it's not the most uplifting topic for the holidays; you both can get maudlin pretty fast.\n\nTalk about:\n*[[his work]]\n*[[his plans for the holidays]]
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The problem with this topic is that you end up asking about how your relatives are doing, which means you end up feeling frustrated and sad.\n\nYou live almost 1,000 miles away for a reason.\n\nThe weird flipside of the meandering update on the small tragedies in the lives of people you love but don't really know is that you end up feeling pretty okay with your dad and your relationship with him. You two don't talk about a lot of things, but that's because you very clearly drew boundaries around those topics and after a rocky start, he has respected those boundaries. \n\nTalk about:\n*[[your life]]
The phone rings a couple of times and you wonder if you're actually capable of just leaving a message on his answering machine for Christmas without even trying his cell phone...but then he picks up.\n\nTalk about:\n*[[the weather]]\n*[[his work]]\n*[[his plans for the holidays]]
Daddy
Ugh, what if he called because someone tried to kill themselves or actually died? That is, weirdly, an ongoing concern with your family, so you should at least [[listen to his voicemail]].
It's almost Christmas and you check your phone because you can't stop checking your phone anymore.\n\nWhoops, your dad called.\n*[[listen to his voicemail]]\n*[[call him back]]\n*[[do literally anything else with your time]]
You excuse yourself from the living room where your spouse and his relatives are hanging out, and sit in the guest bedroom, make yourself comfortable.\n\nThe thing with your dad is it's either a five minute call or a [[five hour call]], and you know you can't get away with a five minute call two days before Christmas...at least, not two years in a row.\n\nYou go through the usual exercise of thinking over a few things you can talk about and do the visualization exercise one of the therapists suggested, imagining you're about to talk to a nine-year-old boy and setting your expectations accordingly. \n\n*[[call your father]]
Once during weekend at his house you ran away and left behind a note that you wished you had motor oil in your veins instead of blood because then maybe he'd love his daughter more.\n\nHe tracked you down in the neighborhood and took you home and told you you'd mis-spelled "daughter" in your note. [[You were seven|his work]].
December 23, 2012
Courtney Stanton
You stopped assessing whether your relationship with your dad is "good" or "bad" a long time ago. The significant thing is that it exists at all, that it persists. You loved him enough to negotiate a way to keep speaking at all, and he loved you enough to accept that his daughter mostly wouldn't talk to him anymore.\n\nOne of the things you've learned is that love is in the behavior, not the words, and so you behave as warmly as you can bring yourself to be toward your father. You're pretty sure by now that he's doing the same thing. This is all there is.\n\nYou end up talking for two hours, which is an hour longer than you were hoping for but also an hour less than you [[assumed]] it would take.
The last time you talked with your father about whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted, you hung up, went into your bathroom, ate most of a bottle of Tylenol PM, waited to die until you chickened out and got help.\n\nYou used to be too close and now you aren't close at all because it's the only way you can keep yourself alive. It probably hurts his feelings. [[Too bad|call him back]].
Before you hang up, you say, "I love you," to each other. You mean it.
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