doribug

most recent letter from bill

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:31:55 GMT

Dear Dori: I am glad that you are saying what you need to say. Very glad, and am impressed with your ability to state what must be difficult to say at the very the least. It takes a lot of guts to speak your mind and discuss your feelings that way. Please feel free to say anything you need to. I will listen and reflect on anything you say. I must say that I think you're right about my assumptions, etc. Actually, I am a liberal democrat who believes in a strong federal government. Regardless, I don't want to argue, rather to just talk, about current events, your interests, and anything else you want to discuss. I apologize deeply if I hurt you. All I can say it was never my intention to do that. There is one thing that must be said from my end, and I hope you will hear this: I loved the Carter family, and in one sense feel that I have lost the chance to have a real family to belong to; a functional family. Not sure if that's correct English, but don't care. What is in my heart is the desire for real peace, and for you to be happy and fulfilled. That is my fervent wish and prayer. I want real peace. And by the way, I have changed, and in some ways have stayed the same, but my intention is simple: to improve my life and to be your lifelong friend. I do not want to control or judge you. I just want to be able to play a positive role in your life. In fact, I think I'm a pretty nice person. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about something interesting I did a couple of weekends ago. There was a ceremony at Bruce Lee's grave (on north capitol hill in Seattle) marking the 35th anniversary of his death. His widow was there and gave a speech; she is very neat. He was a philosophy student at the UW and actually started teaching martial arts while in Seattle, before he made it real big. The world of martial arts is beautiful but also can be ugly; it all depends on the teacher. I had one of the best in the world. His name is Akio Minakami. If you google Minakami karate you can see a picture of him. He teaches the art, not just the skill; I saw him last week for the first time in 33 years and am going back to working out with him. Japanese karate is an amazingly beautiful thing, and it is so centered on peace and harmony. As I am attempting, once again, to focus on. Is there any kind of art form that you are passionate about? I know cooking is an art. Write to me any time you want to. Bill

Love poem.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:04:39 GMT

For My Parents
How shall I capture my love for you?
I will pull it from every corner of my being,
And I shall search endlessly for the words...

I will search for you in me,
And find you living in every cell.
Your unparalleled love pulses as goosebumps,
And your voice echoes in my every heartbeat.

I will search for you in me,
And find you dancing throughout.
Your endless patience is astounding,
And you bathe me in the glow of your faith.

I will search for you in me,
And find you stirring the flames of passion.
Your cravings for truth and justice impress me,
And you inspire me to love life.

I will search for you in me,
And find you rooted in my core.
Your strength is a constant,
And your devotion is astounding.

I will search for you in me,
And find you in my heart.

and so it begins...again

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:00:12 GMT

Letter from Bill:

Dear Dori: I am starting to get worried about you since you haven't returned anything lately. Are you ill? ***My first concern is that your concern is not real or is exaggerated. I feel that you may be concerned for my health, but are concerned more for your own needs for attention. This is understandable since you have been alone so much of your life. It seems to create an innate sense of self-interest.***

I've been thinking about you at work and while driving back and forth from work. It hurts to think that you may not want to correspond for some reason.   ***You are clearly a lonely man, but that is not my fault. I sent you an email saying I was sick and probably wouldn't be able to email you for a while. It is important to me to build a relationship, but not if you are going to feel lonely and ignored if I don't respond for a few weeks. Just because I'm not responding right away doesn't mean I never will.***

The loss of contact over the last ten years has been very hard for me, but at least I've managed to improve my physical health and start a career. What I can't know is how to go about trying to make you understand how much I care about you without being overbearing. Let's put it this way: If I hear from you it brightens my day. ***It is not your responsibility to "make" me understand anything. You merely have to be yourself, tell your part, and let the pieces fall where they may. Whether or not I understand something is up to me, not you. As for the "loss of contact" that was your decision. The last time we talked on the phone I repeatedly asked you to listen without interrupting me. I asked you multiple times, and you refused. At that point I was done. I no longer wanted to deal with your self-involved insanity. There is no way for you to understand the damaged caused by a parent who insists he loves you, but cannot or will not show that he loves you. I want you to know what effect you had on me not to cause you guilt but to help you understand how hard it is to be your daughter.

I've lived alone for 27 years, and am fairly isolated. I work, and I run, swim and practice yoga, go to the library, etc. Real exciting life, I know. I have no family here in Seattle, only memories. I don't have much money, it's all gone, but my core value system has nothing to do with money, so I can't provide a lot of material things. *** I realized a long time ago that I shouldn't expect anything, especially money from you. It was always clear to me that you didn't have a lot of money, and it has never been that important to me. I do believe that you had and still do have a responsibility as a father to care for a child you created. I also believe that you failed to do that in any clear way. You made a great show of seeming interested and loving, but it always fell through. Your facade of fatherly love crumbled rather quickly as soon as you would make a hurtful comment about my family, run off on a tirade about the government, or ranted about how the whole world was against you. Most of the time I was too young to really understand what you were saying and was mostly scared and embarrassed by it.

One thing I don't understand i s why the animosity from people like your aunt, I don't know what I ever did to make her hostile toward me, I always tried to show her hospitality when she came to Seattle. ***I don't believe that Janet holds any animosity towards you. You called to get in contact with me and that is exactly what happened. She has never said a cruel word against you and has always left the door open to me to make my own decisions regarding your messages. She has no reason to contact you and that is why she won't return your phone calls.

Any way, one thing you should know, in the event you don't want to correspond any more, is that there is a life insurance policy I have through work with you listed as the beneficiary. If I kick the bucket you should get in touch with the Office of Personnel Management for the Federal government. *** I don't know what has made you think that I am giving up this soon. If I decide not to have contact anymore, I will tell you clearly. I would like to try to build a relationship, but you need to know that I am very busy and I don't email often. I have a lot of things going on in my life including a budding romance. You need to know that I won;t be able to contact you as often as you may want, but I dealt with that my whole childhood, so you should be able to handle it ok.

But I do miss you.  I have no idea where you are, whether you live in a safe neighborhood, if you have everything you need, if you have health insurance, etc. *** I don't feel comfortable telling you what city I live in, but I do live in a safe neighborhood, I live paycheck-to-paycheck as do most people my age, but I live comfortably. I am going through a minimalist phase and don't need many materialistic items to get me through the day. I don't have television or internet access in my apartment. I have health insurance which covers most of my bills, I pay a small copay for most things. I am pretty healthy, I go to the gym regularly, practice yoga and meditate, and I eat well.

I myself had two sinus infections and a very serious staff infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, all in the last five months.
All I want to know is if you are ok.        Bill *** I am ok.

Here is the letter I sent back:

Bill,

I am feeling much better. Thanks for your concern. I don't feel comfortable telling you what city I live in, but I do live in a safe neighborhood, I live paycheck-to-paycheck as do most people my age, but I live comfortably. I am going through a minimalist phase and don't need many material items to get me through the day. I don't have television or internet access in my apartment. I have health insurance which covers most of my bills, I pay a small copay for most things. I am pretty healthy, I go to the gym regularly, practice yoga and meditate, and I eat well.

I would like to preface the rest of the email with this disclaimer. I am a much stronger, smarter, and emotionally healthier person than I was the last time we talked. I have some things I need to say to you that might be uncomfortable. I hope that you are able to read this email with an open mind. I hope that you do not feel attacked; I am merely opening up a line of communication concerning your actions and my feelings. Some of these feelings are still very raw which will hopefully explain the coarseness. Please don’t get defensive and please listen to what I am saying without making excuses or laying blame. You don’t even have to respond if you don’t want to. I just need you to listen.

It was frustrating to read your last email. You have a tendency to project your emotions and assumptions onto people without good reson. A couple of examples: assuming Janet is being hostile towards you because she won’t return your calls, and assuming that I no longer want to talk to you because I didn’t email you for a while. I don't believe that Janet holds any animosity towards you. You called to get in contact with me and that is exactly what happened. She has never said a cruel word against you and has always left the door open to me to make my own decisions regarding your messages. She has no reason to contact you and that is why she won't return your phone calls. Also I need to reiterate to you that I am a very busy woman and I rarely have time to check my email. Even less time to sit down and write out a long letter. I do want to continue having contact with you. I hope that in the future you don’t assume that I have cut contact with you if you don’t hear from me in a couple of weeks.

In your last email you said “What I can't know is how to go about trying to make you understand how much I care about you without being overbearing.” It’s important for you to know it is not your responsibility to "make" me understand anything. You merely have to be yourself, tell your part, and let the pieces fall where they may. Whether or not I understand something is up to me, not you.

As for the "loss of contact" that was your choice. The last time we talked on the phone I repeatedly asked you to listen without interrupting me. I asked you multiple times, and you refused. At that point I couldn’t handle the emotional toll that having a relationship with you was having on me. I had to let you go.

There is no way for you to understand the damaged caused by a parent who insists he loves you, but cannot or will not show that he loves you. There were times in my childhood that I was completely crushed by the love I felt for you. It hurt so much to not feel loved in return. I can’t deny that I still feel love for you. I always will. I want you to know what effect you had on me not to cause you guilt but to help you understand how hard it is to be your daughter. I tried so hard to be someone that you would be proud of, someone that you would love enough to spend time with, someone you wanted to be with but I never felt that you really loved me. It is really hard for me to hear you say things like “I miss you” and “I love you” because I have a hard time believing it.

You also said in your last email that you can’t provide me with material things. That is not what I want from you. I realized a long time ago that I shouldn't expect anything, especially money from you. It was always clear to me that you didn't have a lot of money, and it has never been that important to me. I do believe that you had and still do have a responsibility as a father to care for a child you created. I also believe that you failed to do that in any clear way. You made a great show of seeming interested and loving, but it always fell through. Your facade of fatherly love crumbled rather quickly as soon as you would make a hurtful comment about my family, run off on a tirade about the government, or ranted about how the whole world was against you. I was too young to really understand what you were saying and was mostly scared and embarrassed by it.

I realize now that you were probably in a situation emotionally and mentally that was not supportive to raising a child. All in all I wouldn’t change much of my childhood since I believe I would be a much different person. I am greatful for the lessons I’ve learned throughout my life and I hope we are able to continue sharing our lives with each other, but I feel I need to place some boundaries in order to feel safe in this relationship.

Discussion about my family is off limits. I also don’t want to talk about Jim. I need our relationship to be balanced. In the past I have never really felt that you were listening. I always felt you were more concerned with yourself and how people saw you than with me.

I am eager to hear your response if you want to write back.

Dori

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:49:23 GMT

bill called janet again. i've been having some serious issues with my phone and have also been sick, so i haven't called. i was surprised that he called again so soon. he said he really wanted to get in touch with me and that he missed me. he also left an email address. that was exactly what i needed. i needed some distance and needed that sense of anonymity to feel comfortable enough to contact him. i sent a brief, email telling him i thought email was the best way to communicate and that i was happy and healthy, and hoped he was the same. i think it was his work email address since i haven't heard from him yet. probably tomorrow. i'm really curious to see what he has to say.

thinking about bill again

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:34:55 GMT

the other day my horoscope said that the universe wouldn't give me anything i couldn't handle. i am choosing to take that on as a general motto. if there truly is a lesson in everything, then maybe the lesson i am to learn from all this is just how strong i really am.

being really honest with myself: i want so badly to fix/start over/save my relationship with bill. al i have ever wanted was to believe him when he says he loves me. he's said it a million times, but i have rarely ever believed it. it seems hard to believe (or do i mean trust?) that he loves me when he was gone so much. how can you love someone if you have no desire to take care of them. he never showed me that he desired anything other than a companion or a pet.

does he deserve another chance? is deserve the right word? and if it is, who am i to judge if he does or not?

what scares me the most is putting myself out there again. putting myself out to possibly be judged, manipulated, and accosted with conspiracy theories again. i'm afraid of letting myself fall into the trap of "maybe he really does love me" or "maybe he really does want to take care of me" only to be ditched again. as scary as that thought is, i still want to call him. weird. is this my self sabotaging coming into play? am i grasping at this opportunity because i know in some way that eventually i will be hurt again. maybe he'll hurt me, maybe i'll hurt myself by raising my expectations too high. i am really good at hurting myself.

i think it's really important that i tell him how scared i am of him hurting me again. i think that will be really hard to say. the last few days i have been reminded of a meeting my mom, myself, and kim (my old therapist in seattle) had with bill. it was too much for me and i shut most of it out. i don't remember a lot of what was said, because as soon as bill became defensive (which was right away) and started blaming the world i shut down. i focused on a fan on top of the building across the street and shut out the rest of the world. i guess i am afraid of having that experience again, and feeling just as out of control, and feeling just as small and insignificant as i did in that moment.

i know that my feeling afraid is only a feeling, and only a reaction to the stress i am feeling. i don't have to feel afraid because i haven't called him yet. i can save my scared, angry, stressed feelings for the right moment if i need them. right now i am sitting in the library with sun streaming in the window and it's so pretty. right now i am not afraid. right now i am happy because i choose to be happy.

as mom said: what will happen will happen. i have no control over the outcome of this situation and i just need to relax and let the world revolve.

a new path

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:49:00 GMT

Bill called janet today. She left me a message asking me
what I wanted to do. My immediate
thought was that he is dying and needs me. For emotional and maybe even
physical help. the strangest thing is
that for the last year or so i’ve been toying with the idea of contacting him.
the last week or two i’ve been thinking about contacting him almost on a daily
basis.

it’s all still really surreal to me. i wasn’t too sure how to feel or what to think. i
called mom right away and we ended up having a really amazing talk about a lot
of different topics. bill, of course, sexuality, the sisters, and school. mom really helped me clear my head and i am
better able to understand what i am feeling.

i am very curious. i want to know if he is ok. i want to
know if he is different. i like the fact that he is interested in how i am
doing. i think that is something i am very attracted to in a lot of situations.
i like being the center of attention, and i like feeling necessary, needed,
wanted, missed, etc. there are multiple
problems with that though. first of all, he most likely is not interested in
contacting me to give me attention. more likely, he is calling because he needs
attention. also, he is the reason i have
this innate need to be loved. he is the one who didn’t love me enough or accept
me.

i wonder about this long distance between us. it’s been over
ten years since i saw him. more than 8 since we talked. who has changed more?
which of us for the better? is he happy? did i force this time away as a form
of punishment? you left me now i’m leaving you? i think without knowing it i
did exactly that. at the times that i
have said that no longer wanted contact, i’ve always thought of it as a form of
self defense. i was protecting myself from him and the trauma he caused. but i
think in a way it has become an exile of sorts. most likely one he is unaware
of.

before even dealing with the thought of telling him any of
the past ten years of my life, i have to consider just the thought of hearing
his voice again. just the thought of picking up a phone with the intention of
calling him. of hearing it ring and connect. what will he say? i’d like to
start by telling him that he should be aware that it is very hard for me and
that i may at some point just hang up and that he needs to be ok with that. i
also need to remember that i can totally do that if i need to.

i’m thinking to give myself a week to mull it over. i need
time to really process my feelings. i have an impulse to just call right away
because i am so curious. but i think that will be more hutful in the long run.

A Death In Three Parts

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:57:25 GMT

A tragedy took place the day she fell ill. Personalities clashed like lightning. Uncle J thundered to Mom that the girl may have menengitis. This created a difficult situation. Should Mom leave her dying mother to care for a daughter 3000 miles away? The best solution was for Papa B to come down. He arrived quickly. The girl was dreaming when he arrived. Grasping at moments as they floated by. She remembers sitting up and being violently ill. She remembers a woman cleaning her. Embarrassment and posture were quickly washed away on a warm tidal wave of morphine. The worst headache of the girl's life had blossomed into a massive affair. Cat scans, MRIs, and 13 tries with a spinal tap later it was determined not to be menengitis, but a severe migraine caused by a long bout with a horrible virus.

After being found unconcious by a roommate, the girl was rushed to the hospital. She was surrounded by voices. Questions were asked. Demands were made, and desicions were finally decided by Papa B, to the dismay of Uncle J. Power plays were carried out with prowess. Uncle J felt partially responsible but would never admit it. It was evidenced in his rage at being replaced by the stepfather. A man known to him so far only through the paranoid ramblings of my biological father, Uncle J's twin brother. It was never made clear to the girl what words were chosen. She can only imagine knowing all the key players. Papa B was concerned only with the well-being of his daughter. Uncle J with being in charge and feeding his ego.

In the end the girl is "disowned" by Uncle J after 3 years of trying to create some semblance of a family. The constant chaos and sense of upheaval the girl experienced as a child had prepared her. It was just another loss. She lost her job, lost her friends, and lost herself in drugs for the next 8 years insisting it didn't bother her.