Talking about father and son relationships on a blog is a sensitive issue when the people one is talking about are alive. I am talking about my dad (who I know is reading this) so choosing my words is a careful endeavor. Not that I have much of anything negative to say in this self observation, just the process itself feels a bit overexposed when ones father is reading along.
I just found the whole multifamily vacation experience to be a surprise. I am not sure why but it was strikingly under the microscope to me. There is so much that I could write that explains all the good found in such revelations, but sometimes the shadows just stand out quicker, I think.
Life seems to be such a constant judgment to me. One cannot stand next to someone without comparisons, observations, critiques and conclusions being made. It's maddening really, especially when one is placed up next to their parents. If ones parents were dead it would I think be quite different. For when they are alive, they are given the ability to examine you in the present and all along the process. It's like continually having to take a test because the teacher is always there. I imagine there will come a sense of finality when a parent dies.
Not that I want that at all, but I am intrigued by the power such forces seem to have on my personal orbit. So much of my life has been internally and externally polarized by my parents and their choices, values and way of living. The impact of family is immense and has far deeper reaching roots than I think I have really realized. parents and home are a strong handed shaper that heavily presses their imprint into the forming clay of ones psyche in childhood and beyond.