Yesterday - sticking with Beatles' tunes due to speechlessness

YESTERDAY: (click the word yesterday here to read the background story)

I got an email from Dad.  We have been planning a trip to Yellowstone for 2 years.  I cancelled it last year  because we decided it made sense to take the whole family to Vancouver and sleep in an airbnb like sardines.  The dates Curly was scheduled to dance would not have allowed us to do both.  Remember how I struggled with this decision?  (some of you weighed in on my big decision- see link above.  Trying not to regret NOT going last year)

I CANNOT tell you how many phone calls and emails and such have surrounded this Yellowstone trip. 

Dad will only go to Yellowstone if he stays in the best part to view wildlife:  Roosevelt.  We were able to land an ADA cabin with a bathroom at Roosevelt because he is going to be 80 AND he was thrown from a horse in Yellowstone about 5 years ago and almost died (I do not know if I have ever shared this traumatic story where sibling's true colors shone through as if right from the pages of a psychology text book).  The other two cabins do not have a bathroom- similar to camping.  Walk down a path and use communal bathroom. 

Dad decided not to go.  He is instead going to London with Marie when her daughter Lil-Marie' is done with a Notre Dame London summer program.  The three of them will then go to Paris for a few days. 

EMAIL FROM DAD:

Wed, Feb 26 at 11:02 AM

I have decided not to go to Yellowstone.  I have to much going on this summer.

I am going to London with Marie to meet Lil Marie after she finishes her 

studies in London,

then we are going to Paris for a few days.  Marie is the only

 one who hasn't taken a trip with me.

Hopefully, you can use my cabin instead of trying to get another one.

So there are layers here, of course:

1. Is this really how you communicate this message?  In an email?  Dad has never been the best at communicating and as he approaches his 80th birthday, he is sucking at it more and more.  

2.  Dad shared in the email that he is doing this trip with Marie because she is the only kid he has not done a trip with yet.  Um.  WTF?  I was not aware that Dad and I had taken a trip.

     *Dad and Mike went on an African safari right before Mike got married almost 20 years ago. 

      *Ann wanted to go to Paris (insert entitled voice here) for her 25th wedding anniversary but since she was divorced Dad took her to Paris 6 years ago. 

     *Dad wanted to see the holy land, so one-who-walks-on-water aka Pat went with him on a Notre Dame sponsored trip to Israel.   This may not have been on Pat's bucket list (or maybe it was) - so maybe he went just because Dad asked him to go with him.

     *Now Dad is doing London and Paris with Marie and her college kid, Lil Maire.  

I called Coach sobbing at work yesterday (2/26).  We tried to think of what trip I went on with Dad.

Me:  You don't think he is counting the God awful Gettysburg trips, do you?  (where I was dragged silently kicking and screaming, but went because he needed my car.  While I was there the first time, my mom and my sisters planned a girls' weekend.  I had all of their kids with me and did not know about their covert agenda.  Ouch.  Big time).

Coach:  Maybe Glacier?

Me:  No.  That was with our whole family and he went to Yellowstone multiple times with other families. 

Coach:  Oh, maybe Scotland.

Me:  Ha.  Maybe that is it then. 

When Curly competed in her first World Championships for Irish dancing, it was in Glasgow.  Dad nosed his way into the trip.  It was an IRISH DANCING TRIP.  Focused, oddly enough, 90% on Irish dancing.  I had my two little girls with me.  They were 12 and 9.  While we were there, Dad dragged us to look at Hadrian's Wall.  Totally could have lived my life without seeing that.  It was a crumbling pile of rocks.  I had no idea that he counted Scotland as my 'trip.'  I honestly did not know that he planned to go on a trip with each of us.  Not surprising, as I am often out of the loop.

I fear that I sound spoiled, but in reality I feel slighted.  In all honesty, a trip with my Dad doesn't interest me.  I WISH we had the kind of relationship that would lead to a trip that I WOULD get excited about.  

Dad doesn't really converse with me unless he is trying to beg me to tell him my kids' ACT scores.  I should preface that with the ACT scores of my kids who he deems intelligent.  The others don't interest him.  You follow?  

He is very tight with my brothers and enjoys talking sports and career moves with them.  He is closely tied to my sister, Marie, because she shares his love of the stock market.  I am unsure if he bothers much with Ann, my oldest sister.  She went thru a divorce, so several years ago he read countless books trying to understand narcissism because of her ex-husband and how the court system fails to recognize it and then sent his findings to my siblings and I.

Ann demands my parents attention and is a constant presence in their lives.  They feel sorry for her, and she gets frustrated with them when they decide to opt out of events she wants them to attend like dinner out or movies, etc.

Dad wouldn't know where I would like to go, if he were to invite me on a trip.  He doesn't know much about me.  I keep as much of my life under raps as possible with my family because I have learned that it doesn't serve me well to share things with them.

I grew up a happy kid knee deep in family crap that stunk to high heavens of  favoritism.  Have fought for years for someone to notice me.  Lived most of my childhood in the shadow of Pat - my YOUNGER but practically-perfect-in-every-way brother.  

I spoke to my therapist, Chip, a few days after Dad's email.  He and I have chatted about many issues over the yeas, but he had never heard me list off so many hurtful family-related episodes one right after the other.  He said the whole thing was very sad.  He asked me why I felt that they so consistently discounted me.  I don't know.  My lack of a career?   My lack of genius?  My lack of drinking the cool aid?  Both Chip and I agree, that even if I don't drink the cook-aid, I still believe want a sip of it because buying in would mean acceptance.  

Yellowstone:  first trip. A few of
the kids did a guided horse ride.

In the past we (Chip and I) have operated with the mindset that my parents are not going to change, so no use pointing all of this out to them.  Now I feel like I need to let them know how I feel.  I have had enough.  I need serious distance and I think they should know why.  I have drafted some notes and plan to visit them to share my glossed over, discounted feelings with them.  Waiting for Coach to come back in town, so he can join me for support.  

Oh, and this is so NOT about Yellowstone.  That trip becomes so much easier without Dad along to slow us down.  Bigger than Yellowstone.  

Baby moose that we
 saw on a trip to Glacier.

(Not sure if I will need to cancel the ADA cabin since I am no longer traveling with an elderly man with a massive limp, which would suck because I was hoping that at least some of us - namely ME could avoid the communal showers by using Dad's cabin's shower).  

One question I have for Dad.  If he is comfortable traveling to Europe, then why on earth did he not bother to go to the east coast to see a single water polo game of Lad's?  Of Dad's 22 grand-kids:  Lad will most likely be the only division 1 athlete.

Coach gracefully/cautiously tried to ask me if I felt the need to go to Yellowstone at all anymore.  (Coach feels like one and done.  I feel like it was our favorite National Park and Curly was only 2.5 yrs old, so let's go back).  

My response:  We are going to Yellowstone.  We are going to have an amazing trip and see a record number of grizzlies and moose.  Shit, we might come home with a baby moose in our fucking car.  (OK, so I was still pretty emotional at that point - please know I will not touch the wildlife).  

Bring it, Yellowstone.