Adult relationships are complicated and tough to understand as a child, and Black Ink admits at PostBourgie that he misjudged his father for most of his life, until now.
By the time I had moved on to college, I fooled myself into believing I didn't really need a father figure anymore. I was tired of hearing his incessant reminders to check the car's tire pressure, schedule dentist appointments, and try whatever vitamins that he was taking himself. I thought I needed him to transition into more of a friend than a father.
This all flipped for me when I lost my first job. I had never worked for another company. So much of my identity was wrapped up in my profession, and it was all I had ever wanted to do. I contemplated life without meaning. I even contemplated not having a life.
What I remember most about walking out of that office in northwest Houston for the last time in July 2005 was seeing my father waiting on me at the foot of the steps. I had tried to hold it together, to be a stoic, to not let people see the pain that was welling inside of me. Then my father opened his arms, I fell into them and basically lost my [s—t] in front of dozens of people.
It was around then that I realized this had been the tenor of our relationship for so long. He had always been there for me, even as he wasn't there very much at all for my mother. That's a hard thing to sort out as a kid — their relationship was theirs, and our relationship was ours.
Read Black Ink's entire article at PostBourgie.
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