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Amy E 
I had a homework assignment from my counselor this week. I wasn't sure I could do it. I had been saying to him that I can't seem to be settled about my father and the way things are with him right now. He suggested that I write a letter, or something like a letter, expressing what I'm struggling with. I have done this before, and it's a good way for me to see things more clearly. I just wasn't sure I'd have time. Tonight while my family was at the neighbor's football party, I went home and had the house to myself. I wrote 8 pages of college lined paper. My hand is sore. In the end I realize that it doesn't really matter if I call my father back or not. I discovered while writing, that he doesn't really know me, and never has known me. He's never let me have my own feelings about what was happening in our house with my mom, and after she died. He has done some pretty awful things in his lifetime, and I think he's loaded with guilt. Under the guilit is a man who can be very kind. I'll not see that kindness, because he needs to work through the guilt to the kindness. The counselor has told me that he pushes the guilt onto me because he can't face it himself. While writing, I realize that he's right. He hold me to very hight standards, and is angry at me for the dumbest things. He never considers why I have distanced myself from him, just that I have and I'm a shit for it.
So, in the end, it doesn't really matter if I call him or not. If I do, it'll be more of the same. If he truly wanted to know me, he'd think about why I have stayed away from him. He knows deep down. It's too much for him to look at himself.
I'm sad, sad about the loss. Sad that my father is living his life in denial and anger. My mother loved him until the day she died. He couldn't or didn't return that love to her. I'm sad for he life that she had with him. And the life with her that he missed out on.
I hope one day before he dies, he'll at least be sorry that he's not sorry.
