Looking up my Past

 I remember How much I used to believe in my father, and, also, of course, that I changed my mind over time.  I realized gradually, as all kids do, that my dad was someone I found wonderful but also difficult.  He preached about democracy, but he ruled our lives with an iron fist.  I guess he was right to move us, but it turned out very badly in the end, what with my mother’s cancer, my isolation, and the slow disruption of our lives.  I left home, and really didn’t come home again in my old way.  My brother, after high school, did not go to college at all, and slowly fell into an alcoholic stupor.  My mother recovered but became an alcoholic.  

My father was my world, and when I could no longer look up to him, he was a fallen idol.  He worried about money, and that fact ruled his life.  He was a true person of the depression.  He might have gone to college, but there was no money, and he joined the army air coups instead.  When the war was over, he already had a kid.  My mother was locked into his world, because she had no education.  She should have gone back to school, but she had two kids, and it was the war.  Our lives depended on my father.  He meant well, but he so misunderstood us.  We were not above the fray = we were locked into it.  And everything I did for the years after college was around Sadiq and his needs.  I traded one boss for another, without ever being on my own.  I didn’t think I could be, in those days.  It was no one’s fault, but we were stuck in our time, and not above it.  I missed my chance by a couple of years.  I think I knew then that I had blown my chance to be my own person.  But I did nothing about it.  

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