Tempers run in my family. Since the dawning of our clan, tantrums have often reached historical proportions, spanning oceans, continents and generations, pissing off no one more than we piss off ourselves. Throw enough of us together in the same room, add a few drinks, and my family gives the term 'nuclear family' a whole new definition.
My father fuse's is by far the shortest. Leaving lights on, taking long showers, being indecisive in front of the refrigerator, my dad is as temperamental as a cigarette in a gasoline fight. He's been this way for at least 40 years and these decades of pissy practice have left his face is a little redder, his eyes a little bulgier, and his voice at a constant volume of BOOMING. Growing up as one of his six children, it was so easy to set my father off that we made a game of it to avoid the emotional trauma. We'd invite people over, bait Pops into a touchy situation, whisper in our friend's ears, "Watch this," and proceeded to jump on the couch, leave a dirty dish in the sink, turn on too many lights, etc, and watch Old Faithful erupt right on cue. This is a time honored tradition and still widely practiced today.
I'd like to make it very clear that I love my father. He's a lobbyist now but was once a decorated legislator in the state house of representatives by the time he was thirty. Given time, his talent and ambition could have very well propelled him to politics on a national level and possibly even beyond. However, the paycheck of a public servant proves cruelly insufficient when you have six kids to feed and support through their own ambitions, so he chose stability and abandoned his unpredictable climb up the political ladder. My father is an incredibly caring, moral, and generous man who has sacrificed no less than biggest dreams of his life all for the sake of his family. Unfortunately, this does not excuse his temper.
While I've come to appreciate my father with age (though I still struggle daily), as an adolescent I no less than hated this man. He was impatient, relentless, loud, hurtful, and stubborn. In the most heated arguments, things easily got physical but we learned these limits very quickly. Our personal relationship was so volatile (there's that word again) that I developed a habit of locking doors, yelling, and running away from home at least three times a week for 30-45 minutes or as long as it took for my mother to come to collect me (my poor mother, this usually happen right before dinner. She'd slave over a hot stove for hours then, right before we eat, this crap happens). All the while, in typical teenage style, I vowed to never turn out like explosive old pops, promising I'd grow up to be his antithesis. for my kids I'd be the cool dad, the laid back dad, the unintrusive, understanding dad I never had. Better was the word. I'm gonna be better than him.
How naive I was.
It's cruel how emotions blind us from seeing ourselves. As soon I was old enough to be upset by my father's temper, the very second I decided that I would be different, I STORMED OUT OF THE HOUSE IN A FLAMING RAGE. Man, kids are stupid. Did I not realize I was doing the exact thing I was in the process of vowing not to do? Blame it on the narrow gaze of youth, but very often people fight so hard for patience and kindness that they become short-fused and harsh themselves. It's said that parents bestow their worst qualities upon their children but the truth is children take them willingly. We become the people who raised us for absolutely no other reason than that we don't want it to happen.
For those who missed it before the word again is better (as in, "I'm better than you") and I believe that this word is the root of the problem. The word 'better' carries with it a broad connotation of superiority, i.e. to say Object A is 'better' than Object B is to declare that Object A kicks Object B's ass in any and all arenas. Object A is stronger, faster, smarter, has prettier hair, has a perfect record and a bigger dick and is way more fun than Object B will ever fucking be. To simply say 'better' is to simply say something unspecific. This is a flaw in the English language I would now like to rectify.
When I was a tempestuous teen saying I wanted to be better than my father, what exactly did I mean? Did I mean funnier? Wittier? More flexible? Perhaps I wanted to get a higher GPA or go places he's never been. Maybe I wanted to legally change my last name and then procreate more than he did, that'd make me better in some cultures.
To say that I wanted to be better than my father completely undervalued all the ways in which he was already great. In all the ways he's smart and disciplined and loving beyond measure, I'd be lucky to be half the man my father is. When applied to people, the word 'better' discounts the value of the whole and broadly disregards the rest (and often, the best). If only there were a word better than 'better' that could let an upset teenager be upset while remembering the good stuff all at the same time.
Tempers run in my family, but my family is very good. In all the ways I hope to learn from their mistakes and take conscious, diligent steps toward positive changes, I want to be gooder. 'Gooder' is a word that remembers the good stuff. 'Gooder' recognizes the room for improvement while still believing in those you love. If only it were grammatically correct.
Great workout today. Hit the lats, hit the shoulders, hit the bis and tris. The boys and the dogs kept me company. Happy lucky number 13.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
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