The Dead-Sea Scrolls

I've unearthed some old digital diaries. It's so weird reading them - I don't remember half of what I'm writing about. I write about guys I went on dates with, and honestly cannot remember them at all. I also write about issues that I'm still dealing with - how disappointing is that? Here's one, from five years ago: (warning - it's pure crap)

"Dear Dad:
I never felt connected to you. Not emotionally, physically or spiritually. You were always distant and seemed to be doing things out of duty, not love and emotion. You were emotionally unavailable to me. I tried so hard as a child to connect with you, but your feelings and energy never reached me, into my inner core. I cannot remember you holding me and telling me how much you loved me and feeling it. I cannot remember you ever looking at me with admiration and appreciation. I remember you always saying kind and nice things. You said what was right, not what you felt. I remember you answering my questions. In order to get your approval I would push you, try triggering you, in order to get an honest emotive response from you. You would get angry, a huge intense anger. The energy would well up and fill up a room and make all of us scared. But I never felt any other emotion from you that had the same kind of intensity and power. Not love. Not joy. Not laughter. It was all kind of smoothed over, like you were on anti-depressants. You were always zoned out, not present. You existed in your mind, not in the world, not in your feelings. There was always a block, a wall that existed between your feelings and your expressions of them, and they never reached me.
I tried everything I could think of to win your approval. I became good at gymnastics, but it didn't impress you because it wasn't hockey. I never heard you say with true enthusiasm how proud you were of me. I was a very good gymnast. I tried to be good at music, singing, school, art. But I could never achieve your admiration. Love. You could always do things better. You were always right. Immovable, like a lead boulder. Whatever I had to say or offer was dismissed as being childish, emotional, uninteresting or stupid.

You were boringly consistent. Day in and day out. More a machine it seemed than a human being.

You were competitive with me. You were unable to love and appreciate who I am. A beautifully expressive, creative, artistic being with great wisdom.

How sad that I could not run to you, my dad, and tell him the abuse and pain I was going through as a child in school. From being gay. How much I hated myself for being gay because of the Christian church. I could not run to you, tell you how I felt, because you would have rejected me. I wish I could have run to you, to have you pick me up, put me on your lap and hug me. I wish I could feel your love. You could have said wonderful things to me like, "You were the son I always wanted. You are smart, talented and funny. You make me laugh. I love your enthusiasm, your feeling nature. I wish I could have been more like you." But instead you never thought these things about me. You believed I was very average. You believed I was too emotional. I felt that you didn't want a son like me. I was an embarrassment.

I feel like I never had a father. I had an authority figure who didn't approve of me. A father who inadvertently but powerfully blocked my creativity. My Godliness.

I tried to be a very good child at times. Behave like a good Christian boy. I felt more love from you then, but it was so subtle it wasn't worth denying myself. I memorized bible verses, listened to your sermons, went to Sunday school, sang in the choir, went to Luther league, taught Sunday school, went to catechism, tried to understand all the crap I read in Christianity. But this wasn't good enough for you. You approved of my attempts, but you also knew I was only faking it. There was something missing from it all for me. What was missing for me was Truth.

I kept trying to get at the truth as a child. I was very intuitive. To a degree you showed true interest in my talking about psychic abilities, magic, and ufos. Obviously there is a chord in you that responds to this magic in the universe. But your monster called "judgmental Christianity," controlled the exploration of these things. You couldn't meet me. It could have been a place that we connected, honestly, intimately and shared the beauty of the universe. Instead you offered bread and wine. Whatever that is, whatever that means. It had no meaning for me. For most of my life I have feared exploring this truth in the world.

Having tried so hard to win your love and approval, having tried so many ways and never getting it, I am exhausted, despairing and hopeless. I have given up on trying, I have given up on who I am. I don't feel safe around men now. I don't believe they could ever love and accept me for who I am. I play all the same games with men that I play with you, in order to win their approval. I even become romantically involved with men who mirror all your qualities for me, down to the last item. I have tried to win their love, gain their approval, have them love me for who I am. I have tried to get them to express their feelings truthfully. What I really wanted to hear from them is "Thank you for the great gift you have given me. You have made me realize the beauty and spirituality of feelings. You have made me understand how feelings allow me to connection in a deep level with others." I haven't heard this from them.

All the men whom I have loved have rejected me. None of them want to be with me for the rest of my life. None of them is able to offer me the love, support, encouragement, affection and authentic feelings that I crave from another man. None of them have offered me the truth and nurturing love of my beautiful mother, in whom you also denied her Godliness.

I realize this has been my main purpose in life. To seek the approval of another man, to achieve with a man what I couldn't achieve with you. Most of my energies have been directed in this manner. And I keep failing miserably."

Don't you think it's time for me to "give it up?" My dear old dad doesn't deserve such crap. Wait till I copy and paste the tirade called "Fuck you" for the Stone Angel...