Solitary

I don't resent Father's Day as much as I resent Mother's Day.  This does make some sense as Mother's Day I do take a bit personally.  But I do find myself concentrating on not eye-rolling during both holidays. Some of my annoyance is the not having kids thing and some of it is the cynicism that not all families are Hallmark Channel families.

Conversely, I do enjoy seeing friends posts on the social media celebrating their parents. I know, it makes little sense. Welcome to my brain.  I decided to participate and posted a picture of Kevin's dad, wishing him a happy Father's Day.

Next I posted a picture of my dad on Facebook for my brothers.  It taken by me it a very, very long time ago with my brothers camera. He is ice skating on the lake in front of our house.

I've been scanning pictures into the laptop whenever I can.  I have three photo albums from my parents house that I brought home.  I've looked at it numerous times, even helped put some of them into the albums. Sometimes I notice photographs like I've never seen them before.

There's something about perspective.  I was disappointed with the photo when I took it but now some many years later, it is the perfect representation of my dad. Solitary.  Independent.

As I thought more about it: Me.

Like you do, as you age you realize that you are more like your parents than perhaps you're willing to admit. Specific to me, I was raised by alcoholics so the need to be different from them and/or put a distance between me and them is natural.  So it was with more than a little startling realization that I understood that I've become like my dad.

I'm perfectly content doing things by myself.  I'm content to not see people for days on end.  (other than Kevin, obviously)  I know that I've absolutely gotten the "I'll do it myself!" attitude from my dad.  My family says I've always been that way.

As much distance a person may try to create, sometimes genetics just overcome everything else.