So for the longest time, I blame my dad for...
that happened with my family. And I hated him,
like deeply hated him for everything I saw in
him. I have to probably backtrack quite a bit
to explain where all this is coming from. You
know, it began with another thing, but I'm actually
not quite sure when it actually began. My guess
is that it must have developed over the years
and just got worse and worse. There were several
things that I do know contributed to my perception
of my dad and my feelings towards him. So if
I had to say probably the earliest memories of
when I started to at least dislike my dad, it
was probably all the way back in maybe an elementary
school. He tended to, at an early age, he tended
to have a fairly authoritative approach to disciplining
at home. What I mean by that is that he tended
to value obedience and rarely explained himself
or the reasons for the rules he had. In fact,
even as a young kid, I remember the rules not
making any sense. I wanted the rules to make
sense. But he didn't explain himself. He just
said, you know, this is, I'm the, you know, dad
in the family. I'm the parent here. You know,
what I say goes, and you just need to abide by
it, and it's important for you to learn how to
obey. The best reason I would get from him is
that he's doing it for my own good, though I
didn't sometimes understand exactly what that
meant, and that I might not get it now, but I
will later. He was always very quick to kind
of explain that, you know, he doesn't expect
me to understand anything now because I'm just
a kid. But eventually it'll start making sense
as I get older and become a parent myself oftentimes.
He was also heavy -handed with the physical disciplining.
So it was pretty common in, I guess, a lot of
Asian households. We would share war stories
about how we would be punished. But I think his
punishment of choice was holding our hands up
in the air, holding a chair above our heads for
the longest time. Getting on our knees and just
staying in that position, very uncomfortable
and sometimes painful after a while. But that
was only in the early days, maybe up to like
third or fourth grade. After that, he would actually
spend time trying to explain the reason for the
disciplining. I think I just didn't respect his
reasons for the rules or punishments. Like, his
reasons just didn't make sense to me, right?
Like, he could try to explain it, but the way
that he tried to connect the dots just didn't
make any sense, right? I just thought too many
of his reasons relied too much on some sort of
theological or cultural commitment. Maybe that's
why I didn't acknowledge those reasons. Maybe
because I didn't have the same sort of commitment,
right? So I think some of the times the reason
he would give is like, It says so in the Bible,
right? And it's like, well, it's saying so in
the Bible doesn't give me an actual reason for
the punishment. It just tells me you're following
orders from somebody else, right? And sometimes
it was like cultural commitments, like this is
just how I grew up or this is what I was taught
or this is what my community and the other parents
tell me I should do. It's like, that's not a
real reason. It's just you just following other
people's orders, right? honestly didn't sound
in my mind right at the time it didn't sound
all that different to me than when he would have
all kinds of other garbage reasons right he's
such a bunch of wild shit like um i think one
time he said something about broccoli causing
cancer and when i challenged him like that doesn't
make any sense at all how is broccoli causing
cancer and he would say like oh it was it was
in the korean newspaper and i was like Who made
them the authority on anything, right? Like,
is this a credible newspaper? I mean, I think
when I heard that, I thought one or two things,
right? Either the newspaper was just not credible
and they're just saying irresponsible shit that
they shouldn't be publishing. Or I, you know,
thought that maybe my dad just did not. was an
idiot right like he just believed whatever he
read or he just had no critical thinking skills
he just kind of or maybe he just even read it
wrong i don't know what right but either way
like none of it made sense to me right so um
the point is that his justifications for the
punishments for the rules for the guidelines
for how the household is to operate they always
sounded a little suspect to me I mean, he was
essentially telling me something is wrong because
someone or something said it was, or if I didn't
see that it's wrong, that I'll just eventually
get it eventually one day, right? It'll all make
sense. But none of those actually served as real
reasons, right? Like if I was somebody who was
looking for real reasons why the punishment is
there, why the rules are there, right? What is
it good for? What's the purpose it's serving?
None of those questions were answered, right?
I think along with all the theological arguments,
I think I've mentioned before in other places,
that we'd have these theological arguments at
these weekly home Bible studies, right? I just
would not respect him for his reasoning abilities
there. I think I just did not have a lot of respect
for him. And this is at a fairly early age. We're
talking like late elementary school, early junior
high. The reason was that I was willing to...
question every one of his judgments on everything
um i mean that's what ended up happening like
if if i don't trust him on anything that he's
actually saying then i'm going to like actually
search for real reasons right i would evaluate
the veracity of the information that he was giving
and it was on anything like it was Everything
from what's real, what's actually happening in
the world, things he claimed he saw in newspapers
or saw in the news, to just moral judgments,
theological judgments, judgments on relationships,
just everything. I just became dismissive of
everything he said, for better or worse. Now,
I want to... I kind of level with you here, right?
This is actually, I think, from what I understand,
fairly normal for a kid growing up. At some point,
kids start to question their parents and their
authority on things. They start to form their
own thoughts about the world. And, you know,
this is just a normal part of a child's development.
And, you know... People have different perspectives
because they have different lives that they've
led. And some of the things that my parents would
talk about just didn't fit in with my own experiences,
right? So there would be disagreements. None
of this is out of the ordinary. I think this
is all fairly normal for kids to question their
parents. He was, you know, I mean, I knew, I
think, at a very early age. that my dad and my
mom, both of them actually, had a fairly skewed
view of the world. I think my dad was just a
little bit more insistent on holding on to his
world perspectives, right, worldview. But I was
aware fairly early on that he just had a very
different set of life experiences because he
was fairly transparent about how it was for him
growing up, where he grew up. And I think I mentioned
that in junior high, I was shipped off to Korea
where I... lived for a couple months actually
in the home that my dad grew up in right like
I could see exactly what he experienced and it
was shockingly so vastly different than what
I was experiencing growing up so I could tell
that much of what he saw as quote -unquote the
right way to engage with others to engage with
the world, his views on morality, on what's right
and wrong. These were all heavily influenced
by his own experience growing up in this rural
community where everyone knew everyone else.
And it's hard to see that translating to a place
like Los Angeles, where people didn't really
know each other, except within these like little
niche communities, weren't really part of all
collectively part of the same community and just
were from all over the place with different backgrounds,
like a lot of immigrants, a lot of people just
who came from different states, right? Like they
just had a different way of living, different
set of values. So I cut in some slack even early
on. But I still was fairly firm that I thought
he was wrong about most things in life, at least
for me, in the place that we now live with the
people that we now engage with. None of the things
that he would say would actually make sense to
me. But I always cut him some slack and said,
you know, he's just from a different era and
a different place, a different time. It's hard
for him to adjust. It was frustrating that he
wouldn't adjust. In his mind, he just had a hard
time kind of adjusting to the reality that there
is a world beyond the one that he kind of knew
growing up. So to be honest, if things remained
in just this space, our relationship probably
would have had its struggles. But I probably
would not have had the experience or the level
of anger and resentment that I actually had towards
him for so many years. What really derailed our
relationship started early in high school. It
must have been around then because it coincided
with something that happened at the church. So,
you know, in elementary school, we were in Redlands.
There was a church there. It was already established.
There was a decent number of membership. It dwindled.
Then we moved to Colton. Then it built up a little
bit and there was a decent number of church,
regular church members there. But I think it
was fairly early on in high school when that
church membership started to dwindle to the point
of, well, zero. You know, I experienced, this
is what's crazy, I experienced the times when
the church was flourishing and then I also experienced
the downturn. And the downturn was a really bad
downturn. Like I'm talking like there were Sundays
when it would just be our family in the sanctuary.
there would be nobody that would step into the
church. And it was like we're having a family
service. It was in all weeks. There were some
weeks. There were some weeks where there's a
couple people in the neighborhood that would,
you know, regularly show up. We're talking like
two people at most, right? Like two, three people
at most. The church basically died. The church
basically died. And because my dad's, I mean,
I think at the time I didn't fully grasp the
gravity of what that meant for my dad. But thinking
back on it now, right, I imagine that would be
like not only losing your job, but having the
loss of your job kind of rubbed in your face
every Sunday. I don't know exactly how big of
an impact it really had as a kid. I think all
I saw was the result. I don't know if it was
just the dwindling church membership either.
It could have been the toll of poverty and the
fact that my mom had to be the breadwinner for
so many years. But I saw something shift in my
dad. Because he was a guy that I remember growing
up as a kid was so enthusiastic about his work.
He was so passionate about serving his community,
about the church and serving the people, the
congregation members, meeting with people, breaking
bread with them, just talking life with people.
That man that I used to know completely disappeared.
And he turned into not only a shell of himself,
but a shell of a person. He spent much of his
days, like we lived in the, like the church owned
or bought out the property and probably still
pay him a decent amount of mortgage on it, right?
But they had the sanctuary and then they also
bought the home next to it for, you know, the
pastor. This is, I guess, pretty common in these
religious institutions, right? But that was for
us to live in. You know, there was a little area
for growing like plants and so on. And it was
like he reverted back to his childhood days or
something in the farm where he would just tend
to his garden. He would read the newspaper. I
rarely saw him working on anything. He would
get ready and go out when there were some sort
of meeting with other pastors for some, you know,
denomination gathering of some sort, right? He
would present okay in these hour settings, but
when I would come home on a day -to -day basis
on most days, I just never saw him doing anything.
If I had to make sense of what happened back
then, given what I know now, I'd probably say
that maybe he didn't know it, but it seemed like
he fell into severe depression and probably lacked
any sense of self -worth. At that point, I mean,
we're talking his livelihood, his passion. It's
just like all of it was a strip from him. But
as a high school kid, I didn't I didn't see that.
I didn't see it as like a sad situation where
he was depressed and he was, you know, feeling
whatever that he was going through. I'm a high
school kid and I'm his son. Right. So, you know,
as a kid, I saw him and I just saw this lazy
piece of shit. That didn't do shit for the family
while my mom worked hard to put food on the table.
And that view of him turned into a deep, deep
sense of resentment and anger. And it just grew
day by day every time I would come home and see
him. I was enraged with him on the daily. Like,
I don't know if he knew back then or not, but
he had lost At least before I had some modicum
of respect for him, I had zero respect for him
as a person. I saw a man that was emotionally,
physically, cognitively just completely checked
out. He was physically around in some ways, but
it's almost like his soul left his body and there
was not a real man there. And it enraged me.
It enraged me because a couple of things. One,
I thought he wasn't handling his responsibilities
as a father, as a husband, as just a person in
society. I thought he should have been finding
something to do. I think a lot of the gripe I
had with him at the time was I saw it as a form
of him holding on to a foolish sense of pride
and that he needed to get a job or give up. Do
what it needed to be done to handle his responsibilities,
right? However I understood what his responsibilities
were to be. But in the base, in the most basic
level, it was put food on the table for the family,
right? Don't expect me to be, as a kid, to be
the one to work and then make ends meet, right?
Do something with your life. Like, just do something,
anything with your life. And I hated him because
not only was he not handling responsibility because
he wasn't handling his responsibilities. I thought
that it was putting a burden on everyone else.
And the toll I saw it take the most on was my
mom who was just hustling. Like she was not,
my mom is the kind of person who works hard,
but is not very mindful or thoughtful in what
she's doing. So I never expected my mom to like,
develop skills. It was hard for her mind to slow
down long enough to really do something well.
But she would work hard, right? So she would
find ways to make ends meet. She would pick up
odd jobs here and there. And it was at least
something, right? But the fact that she had to
go to the lengths that she did in order to make
ends meet absolutely enraged me. My goal at some
point became... To be just not my dad, like that
was my goal. It wasn't to be anything in particular.
It was just don't be like my dad. I wanted to
distance myself from him. To never to be the
man that I saw just that deteriorated right in
front of my eyes. You know, I still fulfill certain
obligations, like whatever that meant, right?
Like these are kind of like more habits, I guess,
right? Things that... uh were ingrained into
me as these are kind of like your obligations
as a person a lot of this comes from uh you know
my parents own korean uh you know influence right
and i just things i'd never really thought too
hard about but i think in part i think because
i in seeing my dad check out i think one thing
i wanted to do was look if it took me to do the
bare minimum to distance myself to not have to
think about it to not stress over it and just
get it off my back I'll do it. So I fulfilled
certain quote unquote obligations. You know,
when I was in college, I remember I would send
home money regularly. I'm talking to a college
student who was taking out loans, you know, working
part time to try to minimize those loans. And
I would still find ways to save up at least a
little bit of money. Well, not really saving.
I mean, it was money I was going to owe later
down the line. But I would send home a few hundred
dollars here and there. in order for my parents
to, I don't know, make the food on the table,
for my brother to not have to worry about getting
a job. And I did this with another thing in mind,
which is at least if I'm doing this, I just didn't
have to actually fulfill any other expectations
they might have had of me, like coming home.
I tried so hard to avoid being around him. I
mean, I tried to avoid being around home altogether,
but I tried to avoid being around him just because
it would get my blood pressure high. Like just
seeing him made my blood pressure elevate, right?
So I'd make excuses for why I couldn't make it
to certain events, right? I would try to avoid
coming home. Sometimes I just did it out of feeling
it's an obligation. But, you know, in the summers,
I purposely tried to stay away from home, find
a job in L .A., away from my parents. I tried
to, you know, in whatever holidays, like three
-day weekends there were, like I would just make
excuses like school stuff or whatever. I think
they always thought I was busy because I constantly
got into the habit of making so many excuses
for why I was too busy and I couldn't come back
home. But the reality was I didn't want to come
back home. I didn't want to see my family. It
was depressing to see my family. My brother was
fine, but, you know, my mom and dad, seeing them
in the state that they were in, I just... I couldn't.
I never gave enough weight to just how much that
image of my dad shaped my relationship with him
for the two decades that follow. Two plus decades,
maybe. You know, before he was just wrong about
stuff, right? As a kid, that's what it was. But
now the narrative was something much harsher,
right? He's a pathetic, lazy, useless, self -absorbed,
arrogant piece of shit who just couldn't give
up on his wild dreams that he seemed to suck
at. And then as a result, just drained family
resources and didn't take care of his own family.
That's a huge difference in my attitude towards
him. One meant that... One that meant that any
mistake he made became just another piece of
evidence. It's almost like once that narrative
was in my head, everything he did just reminded
me of all the other things that I remembered
and cherry -picked in my mind to support this
idea that I had already of him. And there's no
better evidence of this when the housing bubble
burst in 2008, right? I was already concerned
with my parents deciding to buy a home. So just
to kind of give you the context, right? So my
parents, after living in Colton for so long,
housing, they were finally, because of the subprime
mortgages, they thought they were able to afford
a house somewhere in Orange County. They decided
to kind of start over because the church was
essentially dead. You know, they had friends
in Orange County area, not so many that lived
out in an empire. Right. So it was something
that gave them some life. Right. But for whatever
reason, they decided, OK, we're going to buy
a home. It's going to be big enough that maybe
we could house some nearby, you know, international
students and help them place them into a home
and get them acclimated. They had all these ideas
of things they wanted to do to try to, you know,
jumpstart and change their life midway through.
midway through. Right. So, uh, even though, you
know, I had some concerns, I was like, I'm going
to stay out of it. They can make their own decisions.
Now I had some serious concerns. One was that
it wasn't a fixed 30 year mortgage. So I was
like already, this is a little odd. Um, and also
the bigger concern was they didn't really have
a set income coming in. So I was like, A, I don't
know how you got approved for the loan, but B,
like, how are you going to actually pay for this?
It seems like you have plans for how to make
money, but that seems after the fact. That doesn't
seem like something that's already set in stone.
But by then I had already checked out. So I was
like, you know what? I'm going to let them make
their own mistakes, have them live with their
consequences, and I'm not going to exhaust myself
trying to take care of them. That's going to
kill me. It's going to send me into a spiral
depression. I had essentially... given up on
them already by that point. Given up on trying
to get them to make better decisions, given up
on trying to encourage them, given up on caring
in any way. But then, of course, like, shit hit
the fan. Things got worse, right? Before the
full -blown recession, they were already struggling
with the house payment, so they doubled down
on bad decisions and decided to buy up a coffee
shop to at least have some revenue. Now, they
couldn't afford the coffee shop, so they took
out a loan in order to get that coffee shop,
I believe. I mean, they might have paid for it,
but if they just paid for it outright, then that
was dumb themselves, right? Now, this might not
have been the worst decision if they knew how
to run a business, if they knew anything about
how to attract customers or anything like that,
but they were learning from scratch. They didn't
know anything about coffee. They weren't even
like big coffee drinkers, right? And they just
were taught by the previous owner, like how to
do X, Y, and Z, like follow these steps. And
then, you know, this is how you make the stuff
that they made, right? The sandwiches and the
coffees that were available. And they thought,
oh, okay, this is something we can do. But they
never thought like, oh, maybe we need to invest
back in the business. They never learned anything
about how to price things in a way that would
be profitable. They never learned about properly
advertising or getting the word out or anything
like that, right? I mean, their shop was outdated,
overpriced, just overall a bad investment, right?
If I had known that this is what they were going
to do, I would have done my best to just like,
if I cared enough, I would have stopped them,
right? If a friend was making this kind of investment,
I would have told them they were a complete idiot
and I will actually do everything I can, like
put my body in front of them to prevent them
from making this terrible decision, right? I
tried to help when I had some time and energy
in the summer. I think part of it was, you know,
I got free coffee out of it. I was a big coffee
drinker. I actually was addicted to caffeine
at that point. But it was also kind of like a
nice quiet place when it wasn't too busy for
me to get work done for grad school during the
summer. So I thought, oh, maybe I'll go ahead
and at least do it, try it out, learn a few things.
And I did. But of course, you know, I couldn't
help but see what a shitty establishment it was.
And I was like, oh my goodness, I wish I could
change some of the things that are done here.
at least make it more efficient, you know, at
least have products that people would actually
want, try to be a little bit innovative to attract
new customers. I put a little bit of energy into
it, but it was always a struggle because, you
know, my parents would always kind of put things
back to the way things were, what they were comfortable
with. Change was really hard for them. Change
was, I think, I think I see it better now that
it wasn't, the change wasn't just. I have a rational
disagreement about this as a business choice.
It was just change was overwhelming for them,
just emotionally or cognitively. It was just
an overload. And as you would expect with any
business that just, you know, doesn't grow with
the times is that the business was a bust. The
house was lost, you know, subprime mortgage.
They were lucky enough that they were able to
short sell the house before. The full -on, full
-on crash happened, but they were left pretty
broke. They lived with my brother for a period.
I know that, God, I'm so grateful for him because
I know that he was, he might not have admitted
it, but he wasn't, he did his duty. Let's just
leave it that way. He did his duty. It wasn't
from joy that he was doing it. I can tell because
he didn't want to come home. He didn't want to
come home because my parents are living there
with him. I mean, he was a grown man at that
point, right? He had a job, a full -time job,
and he's there living at home with his parents.
Not because he was the one who wasn't able to
take care of himself, but because my parents
made so many bad decisions. You know, I guess
I could have put the responsibility on both my
parents. even in these situations. I mean, I
learned after the fact that a lot of the decisions,
these were, like, egged on by my mom, too. So,
I mean, they were both terrible with finances.
So I imagined, like, it would have been probably
much more fair to probably play responsibility
on both. But when you have the image of your
dad the way that I did, I just stuck to it. I
was like, you're the man of the house. You should
have found a way to say yes or no to bad decisions,
right? I probably put more of the blame on him.
Even though, to be honest, by that point, I think
I was equally frustrated with my mom. All this
to say, every step of the way in my own education
and career, I was in part running towards something
that I loved. But there was another, probably
a bigger part of me where I was running away
from something. I've mentioned before that I
was running away from poverty, but I was also
running away from this image that I had of my
dad. I feared in the depths of my soul, like
a dreadful fear of being like my dad. I didn't
want to be like him in any way. I loathed him.
And when I would see an image of him in me, When
somebody would point out, like, oh, I'm just
like my dad in such and such a way, like, it
rarely happened, but the few times it did happen,
God, it would put me on a tailspin. Like, that
would be my Achilles heel, right? Like, I just,
if I saw it in myself, I hated myself. I would
yell at myself. I would be enraged with myself.
And I would, like, do everything I could to try
to run away from being that thing. And that's
exactly what happened. You know, when my marriage
was on the rocks while I was in Pennsylvania,
I did exactly what my dad did. I mean, I didn't
notice it at the time, at least not immediately,
but I would do the thing that he did that I hated
him for, where he just checked out. Emotionally,
cognitively, just completely checked out. Physically,
he was around. He would physically do stuff.
You know, when I was in Pennsylvania and I was
struggling, I would do stuff. I would still go
to work. get the job done, I would, you know,
make sure to pay the bills. I mean, it became
easier with auto pay. But, you know, I did what
I had to do. But emotionally and mentally, I
was checked out. That was my solution to the
problems in my life. Not just in my marriage,
but finances, adulting, like whatever it was
like. Everything, any responsibility that I just
felt overwhelmed by, like my go -to response
was, I just checked out. It was the same thing
that my dad did years ago, and I didn't want
to acknowledge it, that that's what I was doing.
I would tell myself that I was at least better
than him because I at least still had a job and
I still was working and putting, you know, money
was going into the bank, food on the table, right?
Like, even as I started, I really never wanted
to acknowledge that reality that I was in any
way like my dad. Like I talked about him as if
he was this thing that I was wholly different
from, that I was better than. I mean, I wouldn't
use those words, but essentially, yeah, that's
what I wanted to believe, that I was just better
than him, that I would never do the things that
he would do. Because acknowledging that I was
like him would, it would be worse than death.
Like, it really would. The shame and the hate
I would feel towards myself, like, I honestly
wouldn't know how to go on living. But, you know,
this is just, I think this is what I learned
about the way life is, right? You could try to
avoid things as much as you want to, but at some
point reality will hit. It all comes home to
roost. Is that what they say? I don't know what
the saying is, but eventually my relationship
got bad enough. Eventually the way that I handle
finances got bad enough. Eventually everything
that I was doing got bad enough that there was
no denying the reality. I was falling into the
same spiral that my dad was. That my dad did.
I did all the same things when things got too
difficult. I checked out. And it might have looked
a little bit different. I wasn't gardening. But
I'm sure that if I were to see myself now from
the outside, I would have the exact same impression
that I had of my dad as a kid, which was a man
that was a shell of himself. That was a shell
of a person. I can do day -to -day tasks, but
it felt robotic. It felt like I was just doing
stuff. Making it through another day, ignoring
the bad, trying to be positive. Yeah, positive
thinking. That'll get me through. It'll all be
better tomorrow. This is all the same shit that
my dad would often tell me. Things that he probably
told himself. And I did the exact same thing.
In essence, what he and I both did was we avoided
addressing the real issues in our lives head
on. For my dad, I'm sure that was acknowledging
his own insecurities and failings with regards
to his mission, his pastoral career. For me,
In many ways, it was probably worse than my dad
because I needed to not only face those insecurities,
but that also meant that it had to do with shit
about my feelings towards my dad that I never
really addressed. And I just didn't want to face
them directly, so I would always make excuses
for them. for not facing them or deflecting and
saying that that's not really the issue. Or sometimes
it hurt others because I would blame others for
the mistakes that I made. And when I had to start
seeing the parallel in what I was doing and what
I hated my dad so much for, like I fell into
depression all over again. I hated myself. I
felt... undeserving of anything at all. I just
wanted to crawl into a hole and just die. If
anything, I felt like it was justified if the
people that I had hurt along the way, that they
deserved to put me in that hole and to bring
about my death. Everything I had worked on just
felt meaningless in an instant because as much
as I tried to run away from being the man that
I hated so much, I ended up becoming just like
him. I cannot describe fully what those therapy
sessions were when I would have to go back to
these spaces and acknowledge how I actually felt
about my dad. I can only describe to you what
I did afterwards, which was I would just crawl
into bed and I would just cry for hours. I would
just cry for hours. And then I would sleep. And
when I woke up, I didn't necessarily feel better.
I stopped crying. It was cathartic, I guess,
in that way. But I also felt a little bit numb.
Because it's almost like so much just got sucked
out of me. At this point, there honestly was
nothing left to do but to sit with this truth.
And that's all that the therapy sessions provided.
It just provided a space for me to sit with the
truth. You know what's crazy? I think there are
times when I would just tell my dad, like, you
know, years after all this has happened. I forgave
him, but it was like a cognitive, I forgive him.
I don't think I really actually forgave him in
terms of from the heart until I was able to forgive
myself. It's weird, but learning to accept my
own weaknesses and my own failings and... my
own mistakes. And it took years of work to really
get to that space. But to be able to forgive
myself, to stop screaming and yelling and hating
myself for all the things that I saw in myself
that I just thought was like my dad, right? In
learning to forgive myself, And eventually coming
to embrace myself, it's only then that I was
able to really forgive my dad. And that should
make a lot of sense now, right? Because what
is it that I was so angry and spiteful with myself
for? A lot of it was all the stuff that I hated
and hated my dad for. But it's just... A million
times harder to actually stop hating yourself.
Like, I don't know why it was so hard, but it
was really hard for me to just stop hating myself.
And that's honestly the only thing that really
changed. Like, it's not as if my dad isn't who
he is. It's not as if he doesn't still make the
same mistakes. It's not as if, like, he doesn't.
He still seems to make poor decisions on a lot
of ends, right? He is who he's always been. He
hasn't changed one bit. So you think, like, why
would I end up being able to forgive him? Because
it wasn't about him. It was about me. It was
about me having to learn that he and I, like,
maybe all people, We're just all broken in some
way. And until I was able to kind of accept that
about myself and stop hating myself, I just had
a harder time not being able to do that for other
people. I can't tell you that I don't have daddy
issues. I still have daddy issues. I mean, I
am just like my dad is on an incomplete, broken...
fallible human being with flaws and vices to
work through. I can be an uncaring, unfeeling,
inconsiderate ass at times. It doesn't necessarily
define me. I don't know if any of these things
do, but there are moments when I do things that
are irresponsible or thoughtless or bad decisions.
All I can tell you is that at least how I feel
about myself, it has shifted to some degree.
It took years, but it's shifted. And it's not
like an intellectual shift. It's not like a cognitive
understanding of people as all just people and
that's just how they are, right? You know, the
way that people just generically say that all
people aren't perfect, right? And cognitively,
yeah, that always made sense. You know, just
like cognitively it made sense that my dad had
a different worldview because he grew up in a
different place in a different era, right? No,
this feels different because it's like a heart
transformation, right? Where you really actually
feel okay. It doesn't mean you approve of everything
about yourself. It doesn't mean you, you know,
just, you know. You're not just like letting
yourself off the hook to do any irresponsible
thing, right? It's not like that. But there's
a sense in which I just am at peace with myself.
And what's crazy is that even regardless of how
other people are, whether or not they grow and
change, whether or not, you know, whoever they
are, people are people. They're going to be who
they are. Like, what's crazy is that it doesn't
seem to matter. Because what mattered... For
me, it was more that I found this change in myself
and the way that I view and feel about myself.
It's my heart that has finally accepted that
he, my dad, and I were broken. And in that brokenness,
we've come to find love and forgiveness. So to
you, dad, thank you for doing what you could
for me and the rest of the family. I can't imagine
how hard life has been for you, but you lived
it the best you can. And I hope I can do the
same.