The Old Man's Approval

A few years shy away from forty, there is a part of me that still wants my father's approval. Well, not my biological father. I love my father, maybe too much. In terms of our actual relationship, we are strangers to one another.

Though we are "father and son," we don't know each other as men. I am not sure with what, if any, regret I have about it. It ceased being a sore spot in my life a long time ago. It may be more accurate to write, there is a part of that wants a "father figure's" approval.

Much of my life has been spent attempting to fill that need for approval through a variety of other means. A number of years of therapy has helped me to realize how I previously transferred that need for a father figure's approval into relationships with women.

In my younger years, I was unfair to the women with whom I couldn't commit. I blamed them for what was missing in the relationship. I didn't realize it was my unwillingness to be honest about my baggage. I think I am doing it now.

Outside of my personal relationships with women, I sought to transfer my need for approval into a need to achieve. The need to succeed can become compulsive like a drug that never meets the underlying emotional void. Over the years through a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and sheer determination, I like the man that I have become. I am a stand up guy.

This morning I had a conversation with my primary male mentor. He has been as important in my life as my biological father, if not more so. Despite some tensions between us over the years exacerbated by my previous anger at my biological father, I have always appreciated him. Even when I wasn't speaking to him, I thought about him constantly. I think he was surprised by how much of what he taught me, I remembered.

Today, I received from him the greatest gift that one man can give to another: his respect. He told me he was proud of me. That meant probably more to me than anything he has ever said. I guess no matter what age a man becomes, he needs another man to tell him he's done well. I got the old man's approval. It feels damn good!

Trying To Love Again (But Not Sure How)

I am starting to wonder if anyone really understands how to make a relationship work. Perhaps, that is too broad a statement. I am not sure that I personally know many people who know how to make their relationships work. Instead, they seem like they are in relationships that are not good to them or for them. It is rather disheartening.

Against the backdrop of the most recent Memorial Day Weekend, I watched the relationships of some of my friends and their significant others seemingly implode. If not implode, struggle to gasp for breath. I have no clue why they were unable to restrain their need to fight publicly. It doesn't really matter what the arguments where about, I suppose. Rather than acknowledge the obvious that maybe they should not be together, they choose fight each other for relationships that are not salvageable.

I am not a pessimist. I am an optimist border on a romantic. I am just honest enough with myself to know that sex , marriage and/or children are not reasons to stay in harmful relationships. Some commitments need to be broken. The fear of loneliness does not abate merely because there is another person in the room.

A few years ago, I was engaged to a woman I kind of liked. I'm not really sure she liked me. I cannot remember either one of saying that we loved each other. I can only imagine her reasons for agreeing to my marriage proposal. I think she was more excited by the idea of marriage than marrying me. I was at a place in my life where I thought I needed a wife, even though I did not necessarily want the woman with whom I was engaged.

Fortunately, we had the sense not to go through with the marriage. It wasn't a matter of fault. I think we were angry with each other towards the end, because neither one of could maintain the facade of being what the other needed.

I think many relationships are failing, because the people in them are not honest with each other. Another word for honesty may be intimacy. It's easy to mistake sexual intercourse for intimacy. Often, sex is genital parts rubbing against each other.

Real intimacy happens in and out of the bedroom. Sex might be enough of a distraction between people who have little to say to each another with their clothes on. When sex isn't enough, the arguments may be another form of distraction.

The next woman I enter into a relationship with I will tell her the truth. I am afraid of intimacy, scared of being hurt. Also, I am unwilling to use my body as a buffer against my anxiety. Depending on what she says back, it maybe the difference between trying to love again or choosing to leave before someone gets hurt again.

Cog in the Machine

I enjoy the sound of rain late at night. It has a rather calming effect on me. I appreciate sitting outside my apartment watching it fall. Part of the appeal it has for me that it feels like the rain is cleansing the environment, i.e. the land, the atmosphere, life itself. An eco-friendly baptism of sorts, perhaps? If not baptism, it becomes the water to absolutin for those of us that feel unclean.

Lately, I have felt unclean, sort of tainted. I recently returned from a work related conference out of town around increasing performance productivity. I went as part of my obligation to amass a certain amount of continuing education hours. At the conference, I learned ways to increase my effectiveness as an administrator and motivate others. That was helpful, to some degree.

My concern is not around what I learned related to work performance. It was the culture of expectation permeating the conference that made me uncomfortable. For the sake of increasing effectiveness, I, as an individual, am reduced to being a cog in the machine, an automated robot scripted to say the "right" words, "do" the right things, and think the "right" thoughts. Resistance is futile.

This conference was about coaching the attendees into following a particular paradigm. Underneath the rhetoric of success is a corporate push to achieve at all costs. Of course, the program materials was not written in that way. Otherwise, it would sound rather dehumanizing. Yet, in a post-9/11 area, conformity is the norm; individuality is held suspect.

It was disturbing to be cajoled into parroting back the conference rhetoric. We offered testimony of how our professional lives had been altered for the better, because of the paradigm of success. God have mercy on us, because we plotted ways to alienate our colleagues that did not give allegiance to the prescribed paradigm. It seemed like a virtual reality, almost matrix by design. It was not safe to "wake up" from this nightmare.

My self-administered antidote was to pray, as a means to keep my center. It was the way I could remember my truth. The recitation of prayer kept me focused and awake. I was crying our like a voice in the wilderness. My pleas were earnest, heart felt petitions to keep my sanity, as well as my compassion for others.

I am tainted, because I continue with the perks of the corporate, consumer culture. I have to pretend to be asleep to be a part of the system. I guess food, clothing and shelter are as paramount to personal integrity and autonomy. I am in a world that I hope I will not succumb to being off that world. I still can't believe I paid out of pocket for this trip.

My Wife and Kids (One Day, Maybe)?

I had a startling revelation a couple of weeks ago following my recent birthday. Not only am I getting older, but the women I date are getting older, too. I have been largely ambivalent about getting married and having children. Many women in my age range are married with children, some divorcing, and others are getting pass the age of having children. I may become the cliche older guy that has to date a younger woman to have a family. Even with my tendency towards rebellion, I don't see myself doing the whole "baby daddy" thing.

I recently met someone in the dating pool. It's way too early to make any decisions about whether we are going to have a relationship. She is a single mother with a 10-year-old. When talking about our aspirations, dreams and hopes, I have to mention the possibility of wanting to get married (someday), and having a biological child of my own. She's in her early 30s, and open to having another child. It seems like the days where I use to talk about finishing a graduate degree, looking for a position that pays well, and finding myself are well...over.

I'm still trying to find myself. My youthful angst is giving way to an almost midlife crisis. The intruding gray hairs into my dreadlocks and beard is proof enough that I'm closer to forty than thirty. Incidentally, I can handle that I am getting older. What I can't handle is that I still can't grow a full length beard.

How come no one ever told me guys have a ticking biological clock? I don't know how I can imagine having a wife and kids when I have not come to terms with my fear of commitment. Maybe I should buy a dog, as practice for learning to take care of someone other than myself.

Whine Flu?

I don't get the paranoia about swine flu. I understand it is serious. Still, more people will die from a bad reaction to aspirin than swine flu. That fact doesn't lessen the reality of those infected, but I am wondering why the media is contributing to the fear and paranoia? If I could offer one word to the media, STOP SCARING PEOPLE! The media is shouting "boo," and many of us are yelling "help!"

Sometimes I think the media is in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies and whoever else might profit from promising over the counter miracles that will camouflage the symptoms without curing the illness. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I admit it I am clueless. I don't know what the solution is from a medical perspective.

What I know from a spiritual perspective is that fear creates fear. Anxiety breads further anxiety. Folks, calm down. Whatever label that we use to identify the Divine and/or the Sacred is the calming assurance we need to minimize whatever our fears. The Divine blessings must be invoked to combat our limited thinking which is undermining our intellect and shrinking our emotional ability to stay calm and centered. Rather than becoming our fear, let's remember to be courageous.

My unsolicited counsel is to speak peace to the storm of fear. Breathe in calmness, breathe out anxiety. Trust the Divine Presence has healed whatever the calamities of the present moment appears to be.