I turned 40 on November 2, 2017. There is an old saying that ‘life begins at 40.’ I used to think that was just something middle-aged people said to make them feel younger. Maybe that is a part of it. I do believe that the wisdom behind that saying is that you spend those first 39 years accumulating all kinds of knowledge that you then can start to put into practice when you hit the Big 4-0.
For me, as I stare down 47, I can honestly say that my 40s so far have been the most difficult and also rewarding decade of my life. I never thought I’d find a time where I’d feel more unsure, insecure, lost, and yet filled with optimism. My teens used to be the benchmark until my 40s.
I’ve learned a lot in my life. Some of it has been useful as I’ve aged. A lot has been pointless. No amount of studying prepares you for coming to grips with your own aging, your own mortality, or your own demons. No amount of preparation can soften the blow of loss and grief. My 40s have been a trial by fire. They have seen me dropped in hostile environments mentally with no survival gear and having to learn on the fly.
So what have I learned in my 40s so far? A lot.
2. I’ve learned that it
is sometimes necessary to let go of toxic people in one's life, even if those people are immediate family.
I
tend to push my feelings to the side for the sake of
others. I am an empath through and through which is a good trait to
have. Being able to feel what someone else is going through can help
you understand and be supportive of them. It can also cause people to
look past you and take you for granted.
Too
many times in my life I have heard some form of the phrase ‘you
have to deal with so-and-so because they’re family.’ That’s a
lie. If someone’s presence in your life is actively hurting you
then you don’t ‘have’ to allow them in your life.
I
gave my father 40 years to show me something. Anything. He was given
a long leash, and a thousand ‘second chances’ because he was my
father. My parents divorced when I was 4. My father had been out of
the house since probably a year before then. When I would see him as
a kid he was more of a guy trying to be a cool older friend rather
than a male role model to help shape who I would become. Notice I
said when I would see him.
I
had wanted to have a father like so many of my other friends had.
Someone who taught them things. Someone who supported their goals.
Someone who was actually in their lives. My father didn’t want any
of those things. He wanted as little responsibility as possible.
This
manifested itself in devastating ways. It was there when he would
no-show picking me up for a visit when he said he would when I was a small child. It was there
when he quit multiple jobs rather than pay below the minimum for
child support. You know the money that would go to supporting your
child? This meant for all intents and purposes he didn’t care if I
had food, medical care, clothing, you name it.
I
mentioned in the previous section that he would stop at the liquor store on drives home
from work. He helped get me that job as a dishwasher/food prep. This
meant that he also knew I was making money. This allowed him to ask for money constantly. Not to help with living
expenses. No, he’d ask his 15-year-old son for money to buy alcohol
and cigarettes. At one point he cleaned out my entire savings, well
over $1,200, with the promise of payback in full. He might have paid
back 75% and then never brought it up again.
The
older I got the more I began to see with my own eyes who my father
was. The more I was able to make the choice for myself the more I
chose not to associate with him. I wanted a father but what I had was
a lazy, selfish drunk who prioritized buying beer over his kids
having their basic needs met.
After
my Nana died in 2009 I stuck my neck out and got him a job at the
same restaurant as me. This was me doing right by my Nana. He repaid
me by no-call, no-showing 5 straight days about a month or so after
starting the job. Can you imagine the embarrassment of knowing that
your father cared so little that he just bailed on a job his son got
him? My coworkers promised that didn’t make them see me any
differently, but come on, it was humiliating.
From
2010 until I turned 40 in 2017 I saw my father very rarely. As I
started having events for my books that I released, or road races, he
was never there. I had loads of family at these events, not my
father. There was always an excuse. He should have just been honest
and said ‘you’re not important enough to me for me to try.’
My
final straw came not too long before I turned 40. My father had a
medical event that landed him in the ER. Despite being relatively
estranged I was there with him like a good son. I was there as the
doctors checked him out.
The
doctor told my father he would make a full recovery but he needed to
cut down and eventually cut out alcohol and cigarettes. By this point, I had switched careers and was a personal trainer. I promised the
doctor and my father that I could help him with exercise and some
nutrition advice. This was the last-second miracle I had wanted. I
would finally have the father I had wanted. Better late than never.
He
tapered down booze and cigarettes but only temporarily. Within a few
weeks of getting out of the hospital, he was chugging beer and smoking
like a chimney as if the medical issue had never happened.
That
was it. I told him flat out that since he obviously didn’t care
then I didn’t care either. I gave him until I turned 40 but I was
done trying to force myself to have a father who only cared about
himself. Only one person in the family, an aunt, tried to push the
‘but he’s family’ line on me. Everyone else understood why I
was cutting my father out.
Flash
forward to the present time and my father resides in a nursing and
rehabilitation facility. His brazen ignoring of doctor’s
recommendations in 2017 caught up with him. He had both of his legs
amputated at the knees due to his incessant smoking and drinking. It would have
been gut-wrenching if he had been even a subpar father.
In
my eyes, he is living his karma. When I needed a father growing up he
couldn’t have cared less. He only saw me when I visited my Nana’s
house and that’s because he was living there. In fact, when I was
still very young he had told my mother he was willing to waive all
parental rights to me and my sister so that he wouldn’t have to pay
child support.
It
was only when my mother said that my Nana would lose all visitation
rights as well that my father relented. Finding out that info as an
adult should have been traumatizing. To me, it was par for the course.
Why would I give one inch of space inside my mind to a man who
prioritized beer and cigarettes over his children? And also why would
I give one second of my time to visit such a reprehensible human? As
far as I am concerned my father does not exist and as far as I am
concerned it can stay that way for the rest of his miserable life.
Do not feel as though you have to keep a toxic, painful relationship going because someone is family. Sometimes the pain of having them in your life is greater than the pain of removing them from it.
Next: Part 3 - Learning there is no textbook for
dealing with grief and loss
Previous: Part 1 - Being A Slave to a Demon, and Also Slaying That Demon
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