Writing for myself

As folks may notice I write a lot here and the other five blogs and the many Web pages on my Website. Sometimes it's the old adage about verbal diarrhea, just a lot of stuff with no substance. Ok, I know that and live with it, because you can always just skip it or ignore it. You have the choice of reading it.

But it's why I write that's important to me. It's less to inform, but often is, and more to release. To release what I want to say. I had a father who rarely said more than a few words to his three children and even less to me, his third. He was a very private man who took a lot of experience to his deathbed and grave.

To his friends, however, his never stopped talking. But they were almost always his friends from the service. You see, he loved the 23 years he spent in the service. He loved the friends he made. And he loved meeting other veterans his age. In retirement, he spend every morning at a coffee shop with them.

You've seen those groups of older men. I see them around where I life. Commonality. They live in that and nothing else besides their families and other friends. It's also sad to me. They miss so much of the world and people, and complain so wrongly about generations. It's the world they're comfortable in, and my Dad was no exception.

It was also after he passed away Mom found a drawer full of iou's people had written Dad for money. Not a small drawer either. And not one of those did they repay my Dad. He simply gave the money to friends, all servicemen who worked with or for him. And not one marked paid.

The truth is he never expected to be repaid, and it's likely Dad told them, "Don't worry, pay when you can." And the never did. She didn't bother to add it up, because she feared how much he had given away during their marriage, which all be a few were from, the rest the 3 years between his enlistment and their marriage.

She also found stocks he had bought, none of which were worth much anymore, and papers about money she wasn't told, let alone knew about. Dad never said anything to her. At best he never told her the truth and at worst lied to her all those years. He kept his checkboork and account locked in the desk with all the papers and iou's.

I'm not him. Nor do I want to be. But, I'm also so much like him. it's what my Mom saw and told me once, "Whatever you do in life, don't be your Dad." She knew him better than anyone. And she knew what he did to us children, but she had little power to change it, only advise us to get away and change.

Sadly, my brother tried didn't succeed, and didn't have a happy life., And my sister didn't but was eventually rewarded for her loyalty with the estate. I left and tried never to look back, but family is family. I wasn't understood and barely rewarded, something I accepted, but not without some regret. But I was and am better and happier for it.

When I retired I worked toward building my photography business and projects and buidling my Website. The latter included blogs I had planned to finally release what I knew, thought, felt or whatever. As noted on one blog, often just opnions and ramblings. In short, I didn't want to leave here without at least being vocal.

It's not that my life, work, experience, ideas, etc. are out of the ordinary. Far from it, quite ordinary. But it is my life and it's what I am and what is. It's why I decided to talk about my Dysthymia. Why I decided to talk about my long study, albeit infrequent and mostly superficial, of Taoism. Why I decided to write about my life.

Simply put, I'm not my father. Or trying not to be.