Father's Day

Pops. Daddy. Father. Dad. The Old Man.

We have a lot of names for our fathers (and some I won't post here because I like to keep it family-friendly!). We have all sorts of words we can use to describe our dads, too. And in honor of Father's Day, I want to tell you a little bit about mine.

{Dad getting excited about socks at Christmas. No really, he was excited!}

Throughout my childhood, I was a TOTAL daddy's girl. I loved to sit with him in his recliner (my father is a skinny man, and I was in 4th grade before I hit 40 pounds, so we could easily squeeze into the seat). He always took my side when my sister picked on me. I loved the days when he drove me to preschool (let's not talk about the lack of airbags in his little tiny 1988 S10 pickup truck and that I could ONLY sit in the front seat (there was no back seat!). Cars like that are why we have safety ratings these days!).

As a young girl, I knew that most nights my daddy had one thing he would drink. It was a grown-up drink, usually in a silver and blue can. Beer.

And it took me until I was in the 7th grade to understand that the amount of beer he was consuming, and the regularity with which he consumed it, wasn't healthy. At that time, I became aware of the fact that my dad is an alcoholic.

My dad was never physically abusive to my mom, my sister, or me. He was emotionally absent, however, and that is a kind of abuse that is hard to identify, and hard to acknowledge, too.

I spent the 5 years between 7th grade and my junior year of high school trying to hide my father's disease from my friends. I hated it when he drove me anywhere--I could never be sure if he was sober. He was laid off from work several times throughout his career, finally ending up working as a Wal-Mart associate by the time I was in high school. I attended a high school in one of the most affluent areas of Knoxville. It was beyond embarrassing to answer the question "what does your dad do?" among my friends whose dads were doctors and lawyers and successful business men. Over time, I became incredibly ashamed of my father.

The summer after my junior year in high school, something finally broke me, and I told my friends about my dad's addiction. It was so freeing to be able to tell them the truth about me and my family. I was, of course, terrified of their reaction. My goal was to live a perfect life (Hello! Overachiever!), and the truth about my father ruined that image I wanted for myself. But there was SUCH freedom in confessing to them. They may not have ever experienced an alcoholic family member first-hand, but at least they were finally able to understand a little bit of where I was coming from. Of why I am the way that I am.

Part of the reason I was able to tell my friends about my dad is because I came to the understanding that addiction of any sort--drugs, alcohol, anorexia, bulemia--is a disease. I could write a whole post on the science of this and why I truly believe this is the case, but I'll save that for another time. However, it is important for me to say that my view of my father changed once I realized that addiction is a disease like cancer or diabetes. Yes, his actions led to his disease (as does smoking to lung cancer and unhealthy eating can lead to diabetes), but it is a disease nonetheless. I wouldn't stop loving my dad if he was diagnosed with cancer, so why should I stop loving him if he is diagnosed with addiction? And while addiction may not have a specific prognosis attached to it, addiction can  kill the addict.

Fast forward to my junior year in college. I didn't hide my dad's addiction from my new friends in the new state I called home. I didn't drink at all in college (nor have I ever had a drink, actually), and my friends who knew that about me knew it was because my dad is an alcoholic. Dad floated in and out of different jobs my last year of high school and first three years of college. He worked at Target and Kroger after he was let go from Wal-Mart. He entered an outpatient treatment program, and he managed to drink his way through it, fooling all of us for at least a short period of time. But it didn't take long for my mom to recognize that he was drinking again.

One day my mom came home from the grocery, after she had gotten off of work from her second job. My dad was unemployed at the time. She brought all the groceries inside, she and Dad had one of their typical arguments that happened every time my dad drank (i.e. daily). She told him to leave. He told her she should leave. And to my dad's great surprise, she did. She packed her bags, took all the groceries back out to the car, and was gone. (side note: I love that my mom took the groceries with her.)

My dad didn't know this, but my mom had a plan in place. She knew she would eventually need to leave, and she made arrangements to do so. That night, the time was right.

Over the next few weeks, my dad's sister reached out to him, offered him help getting into a residential treatment program. At his entrance interview, he was asked 2 questions:

• Do you want to get sober?
• Are you willing to go to any lengths to get there?

Thankfully, my dad answered "yes" to both questions.

At that point, my dad moved into a halfway house, and he stayed in the program for 100 days. He invested himself in the Word of God. He attended AA meetings and got a job. He started to regulary attend Celebrate Recovery, a powerful and life-changing ministry at our church. My dad has been sober for more than 3 years now.

I am so proud of him.

{May 23, 2009. Back to being a Daddy's Girl}

Since he sobered up, my dad is a new man. He has a relationship with Christ (he went to church with us before, but never had any kind of personal relationship with Jesus). He's funny. He's fun to be around. He loves his family something fierce. (I know he always loved us, but it was a "daddy loves me because he's my daddy." Now I KNOW he loves me!) My mom moved back to our house after Dad entered treatment, and after he "graduated" from the halfway house, he moved home, too. Their marriage is stronger now than it ever has been!

 {Also at my wedding. Aren't they cute?}

He has a great relationship with both my husband and my sister's husband. They were the hardest to win back over after he stopped drinking. But now the three of them will run around town together and hang out in my parents' backyard smoking cigars when my sister and brother-in-law are in town. Dad has a new job, and while it's not glamorous (He's a custodian at our church), I know he is proud of the work he does, and I am proud of him for it. After all, his cleaning and stacking chairs is a ministry! He does it because he loves God, and he loves our church.

I could go on and on and on about the things that I love about my dad these days. He was always there, he was just trapped by his addiction. I am so thankful that my mom had the courage to leave. Her action that night paved the way for my dad to seek treatment. And until an addict wants to be clean for him or herself, healing has to wait in the wings. To continue the disease metaphor, my dad had to agree to chemo before he could kick the cancer. Thankfully, Dad made the decision to get clean. He made it for himself. And I love him even more for it.

{With his first grandbaby, Hannah Grace}

Father's Day hasn't always been an easy holiday for me. I've not always been appreciative of who my dad is. And while sometimes I wish we could have all those years back, I am so incredibly thankful for the time we have now. My dad is a hero to me. Just like daddies are supposed to be.

Welcome! And thank you!

I know it may not seem like many to some of you, but I'm up to 29 followers, and I know several of you have joined in the past week or so, so I wanted to reach out and say:

I am honored and flattered that you would want to join me here as babble on about life and silly things. It makes my heart smile to see when someone new has joined us, and when I get an email letting me know I've received a comment, I grin out loud. (and yes, that's a strange phrase, but it's true. try it sometime).

I also want to say to each of you, including the ones who have been here from the start:

...for being here and reading along. I've started blogs once or twice in the past, always to give them up within a few weeks...months at the most. But I know how excited I get to see when one of you has posted something new, and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you get excited to see something I've posted...well, it makes me want to keep going with this little blog 'o mine. So...thank you.

And...tomorrow's Friday(!)
 
{photos from weheartit}

A Follow-Up

I'm relatively new to blogging as true social interaction, so I'm not quite sure the best way to respond to your comments so you can read my follow-up thoughts. I stalk my followers, so I know that the lovely people who commented on my last post should get my updates, so I figured another post might be the best way to respond/continue the conversation. Plus, Meredith brought up an excellent point that I definitely think is worth discussing! (If there is a better way, beyond commenting on each of your blogs, please let me know.)

First, thank you so much for your comments on my Great Expectations post. It truly warms my heart to hear from you!

Second, I wanted to acknowledge Meredith's comments about expectations that are simultaneously high and realistic. As I was composing that post, both in my head and on my keyboard, the distinction between great expectations and high standards kept coming back to me. I didn't address this in my original post because, let's face it, it was a bit wordy already!

But, Meredith makes an excellent point: Settling is no good either. It isn't healthy to have low expectations simply out of fear of disappointment. If I walk through life expecting everyone around me to behave like a jerk, sure, I may not be disappointed when someone acts like a jerk, but chances are, I won't be very happy either. Similarly, as I said in my original post, no one should ever expect to be cheated on. We should not expect our friends to stab us in the back out of fear that maybe one day they will. If we harbor any of these expectations, we run the distinct risk of ending up bitter, untrusting, and incredibly unhappy. Such expectations destroy our self-esteem because we come to deem ourselves unworthy of better treatment. 

We should have high standards for the way those closest to us treat us. We should have high standards for ourselves in terms of our work and our commitment to our health and our friends and family.

But I have recently come to believe that we should always be examining our expectations. We should uncover those hidden expectations that can end up poisonous--to ourselves and to our relationships. We should abandon those.

And when our expectations are realistic and healthy, we should stick to them.


PS Again, I can't thank you enough for commenting. It absolutely made my day!

Great Expectations

Over the past few months, I've come to a realization about myself and my close friends, and I think it's as close to a universal truth as you can get. (and forgive me, as I know I'm not the first to come to this realization. however, it's a big one to me, so I'm going to explain how I got here, why I think it's universal, and what I'm going to do about it. also, this post is super-long.)

 

{source}

So, what is this revelation? 

The single-most detrimental element to any relationship is unmet expectations.

When you boil down every relationship that has ever encountered a rift--whether a break-up with a boyfriend, a blow-out fight with a friend, or a tears-and-screaming-fest with your mother or sister, it all comes down to the simple fact that somewhere along the line, one of you failed to meet the other's expectations.

Let's start with the biggie: Your significant other cheats on you. You have an expectation that he will be faithful to you. He's not. Your expectation is unmet. Sure, he's a skeezeball for cheating on you, but on the most basic level, there is an unmet expectation here*.

Now, onto your BFF. You make plans for the weekend, and in your mind, it's just the two of you, even though you never really verbalized that. Next thing you know, she's invited everyone she knows to go see the movie, and suddenly your BFF date is crashed by a ton of people, many of whom you don't know or aren't comfortable around. You had an expectation that it would just be the two of you. That expectation goes unmet, and it results in a fight, even though neither one of you may realize why you're fighting at all.

Then there's your mom. She supports you endlessly and values your independence. But when you've got that big project that you said you'd tackle yourself, you secretly expect her to offer help. Maybe you never tell her about your expectation...see, that's part of the expectation, too. She should know you'll need/want her help. She should know to offer help. And when she doesn't, your feelings are hurt; you feel unloved and unsupported.

Think back to your last big fight with someone--anyone. What expectations were in place in that situation? What expectations went unmet?

It all comes back to our great--even enormous--expectations.

I've been in similar situations as the last two (or watched friends go through these situations) since the beginning of the year. I am quite blessed to say that I've never had to deal with a cheating significant other. However, I have friends who have, and this truth has hit me like a ton of bricks lately. When we have high expectations, and especially when we don't communicate those expectations, we will be let down. And that letting down has the potential to destroy relationships.

I also mentioned that I believe this to be a universal truth. Why? Because one of the most well-known stories from this book is really all about it.

Chances are you know the story. The man has two sons. The younger son decides he wants his inheritance now, before his father dies. The father, a generous man, gives it to him.

The younger son runs away, wasting the money his father has given him on food, drink and prostitutes.

Then the famine comes. The younger son realizes his terrible mistake, and decides to go home to his father and beg to become a servant. Before the younger son has time to offer himself as a slave to his father, though, the father, in his grace, compassion, mercy and unfailing love for his son, puts a ring on his finger, a robe on his shoulders, and kills the fattened calf in celebration of his return.

The father's love for his son hasn't changed, even though the son has made a terrible mistake.

Many times, we end the story here, with warm fuzzy feelings that we can never stray too far from the Father's love. And this is true. All to often I have been the younger son, squandering my inheritance with things I know my Father doesn't want for me. But he lets me do it, because he loves me, and he knows I will come home running.

There is more to the story though. After the warm welcome of the younger son, the party to celebrate his return starts up. The older son--the one who has stayed on his father's farm, working his fingers to the bone--hears the celebration, and wonders what's up.

When he gets back to the house, the last thing he expects to see is his father throwing a huge, and presumably expensive, party for his wayward little brother. See, all this time, while the older son has been working, he's had the expectation that his father will love and value him above his brother always and forever now that his brother has been so irresponsible.

The older son experiences a rift in his relationship with his dad because his expectations that he is the "good son," and that he should be rewarded for his good behavior, are not met. In fact, his father's actions fly all over his expectations. If the older brother ever thought his little bro would return, he surely expected that his father would berate his younger sibling for being so stupid in the first place. The last thing he would have expected would for his brother to have been, seemingly, rewarded for being wayward!

What the older son doesn't understand though, is that the father wanted to celebrate the return of his lost son, not berate him for his mistakes. The father fails to meet the older brother's expectations, and the older brother ends up angry. The older brother doesn't understand the father is ready and willing to share his wealth with his eldest child--all the older boy has to do is ask. But the older son doesn't ask--his expectation is that his father would offer these gifts if he were willing to give them.

The expectations of the older brother prevent him from sharing in the joy of his returned sibling, and they prevent him from living a life of joy and celebration with his father. (see Luke 15:11-32)


So, starting today, I am going to take a serious look at my expectations. I am going to try and identify the things I expect of my husband, my family, my best friends, my coworkers and even strangers. And yes, I will try to identify the expectations I have of myself. And when I recognize an expectation, I will do everything I can to establish whether or not it realistic, and if it is, to express my expectation to that person.

If I expect my husband to unload the dishwasher, I will ask him to do it, instead of pouting when he doesn't. 

If I expect my mother to call me on her way into work tomorrow, I will call her instead.

If I expect my coworkers to pitch in and help with a big project, I will ask them to do so, instead of grumbling under my breath that no one supports me. 

If I expect the guy in front of me to step on the gas because he's not driving fast enough, I will stop and ask myself why I'm in such a hurry anyway, and is that his fault? 

If I expect myself to get something done at home, I will ask myself if it is worth staying up a little later to do. And if it's not, I'll tell myself that I need sleep right now, and that chore will still be there tomorrow, when I have more time to devote to it. 

Today, I challenge you to identify your expectations. And when you name them, that you then identify if they are realistic. And if they are realistic, that you then verbalize them to the appropriate person/people.

Today, my expectation of myself is that I will not hold my expectations against those I love. 

What's your expectation today?



* I am in no way saying that the reason a relationship involving a cheating significant other fails because you expected him not to cheat. I also do not mean, on any level, that anyone can make a relationship with a cheater "work" just because you come to expect the cheating. No one deserves to be cheated on, and if you come to expect that from your SO, I would venture to say it's time to really examine how healthy the relationship is for you, and it may be time to make the hard decision to put your best interest, health and well-being first.