Content Warning: Verbal and emotional abuse.
“You have two options. You can be nice or you can fuck off. I will not sit here any longer and be abused by you,” I finally yelled.
I did my best, truly, not to let it get to this place. He, however, was determined to fight. After jabs and meanness too stupid to enumerate here, he used the fact that we’d lost our housing in California as a way to highlight what a loser he thinks I am. He’d saved it in his back pocket to use against me, as I had shared this with him one year ago in a moment of vulnerability.
“You’re the one who moved to the liberal land of fruits and nuts (intentional homophobia) and then had to come running back because you could not make it there.” (Confirming what I already knew to be true, he’d voted for 47, again.)
Disregarding the fact that we lived and thrived in California for twenty years, making his statement completely nonsensical, it’s that he would weaponize my recent loss against me in this way that was the last straw for me, this, and the absolute disdain in his voice.
This is my father I am talking about, and what was said during the three-way phone call he’d agreed to have with my sister and me.
“Why did you stay on the phone at that point?” Jon asked.
Good question. My sister and I had a list of questions we wanted answered, and I’ve played the hanging up the phone game with him in the past. I am no longer interested in playing.
He then changed tactics and tried to cozy up to my sister, asking her all sorts of questions about her business with specific details, crowing that she’s doing something with art.
After about 10 minutes of sitting silently, listening to this, I said to her, “This is that pitting us against each other thing,” knowing if I intended just for her to hear it, he would not, which was what happened.
She redirected him back to the matter at hand, which was us trying to get him to share honestly about his current situation, i.e., health, financial, the state of his home, etc. We knew it was likely that he would feel ganged up on by us and lash out at some point. No matter how prepared I thought I was in theory, in reality, I was not prepared to be on the receiving end of his hatred and spite, and I let him have it with the statement at the top after repeated requests that he stop being so mean.
It’s also my fault that he has not called me back for nine months. He no longer likes going to restaurants and does not want me or anyone to see the condition of his home. Instead of communicating either of these things to me, he’s just ghosted me. Somehow, this is all my fault.
Ninety minutes after the call started, my sister and I told him we needed to get back to work.
“Well! I feel alright now after this call. If you want to bring a couple of bags of groceries by, I wouldn’t refuse.” I did not respond to this, nor did my sister. He’s living in an alternate reality, one where he is not responsible for any of his words or deeds and is only a victim. That he thinks anyone would want to hang out with him after a barrage like the one I endured is a measure of his mental illness.
By the end of the call, he sounded energized as opposed to the sick old man voice that greeted us, who couldn't hear me at first and needed me to restart the call for us all. As for my sister and me, we were both exhausted and got little else done afterward. He’d sucked us dry.
I had forgotten how mean he could be.
I also could see for the first time why he and our mother chose each other. They are the same mental and emotional illnesses played out in their very own ways. They have continued to be the same, though divorced for almost fifty years, with little contact. They will probably leave this world close together, even though they are almost ten years apart in age.
Two days later, and I still have not recovered from the experience. I am sad and angry, and this all sends me into a well of loneliness where I feel as if I only have myself to depend on.
The out-of-nowhere pain along the hamstrings of my right leg that suddenly started as we were taking the dogs into nature on Sunday indicated how this all would go.
While better than it was on Monday night, the pain is still there, now a dull reminder of where I come from and the lack of love, nurturing, and support. In many healing traditions, the right side of the body is connected to yang energy and issues with the paternal line. Knees and lower back are about support.
“Why do you hate me? I’ve never really understood it,” I asked about an hour in, my voice steady and neutral as I stated it as a fact. This was what finally startled him out of some of his meanness and into a more regular flow, this and the support from my sister, who in this instance was not on the receiving end of his wretched behavior and called out his meanness in defense of me.
“Sometimes I wish I had never reconnected with either of them,” I said to her after we were done with him, and it was just she and I again. I was referring to the four years’ space away from the meanness, addiction, and dysfunction I had taken right before we moved to California. And while I was the first to disconnect, she followed suit. I was also the first to reconnect, and she’s been dragged along behind me in ways that I finally got clarity on this week. She and I were not a team back then as we are now. We were each too stuck in our survival and playing out the dynamic our parents had created - divide and conquer, pitting each of us against the other, making us fight each other, as a way to distract us away from their awfulness.
The next day, she said, “I was thinking about what you said, and I’m glad I reconnected because now I know I did everything I could.”
She’s right, and I know this is true for me as well, but revisiting it all with both of them over the last few years has been and continues to be painful and enraging. To be doing this on a personal level amid what is happening politically in the US right now is overwhelming. There is no escaping it, just seeing it, healing what I can, and stepping out into the world as a stronger and more joyful version of myself.
This is the process of Operate from Joy.
I am confronting all that exists exactly as it is, feeling all there is to feel exactly as I need to feel it, observing myself while doing it, accepting myself completely as I am, aching leg and all, which allows for more unconditional love to flow, facilitating the transmutation of trauma.
This run-up to and the beginning of my second Saturn Return is going just as I thought. I look forward to the gems on the path ahead as I embody all that I am working through. For now, I’ll have more boundaries in place where needed.
I do feel a sense of relief as I come to the end of this piece, relief at the realization that I no longer care what he thinks of me and no longer feel the need to get his attention or approval. The younger me craved all of this from him, and the me after my first Saturn Return continued to. This me recognizes the well is dry and always has been.
I have no need of love or anything from him.
I have abundant sources of love from within and many others around me. The pain in my leg has receded as well.
It’s Beltane/May Day!
Ursula had this to say about Beltane during our WTF????!!!! Redux event last week.
”The element of fire specifically on Beltane is an excellent element to play with when it comes to clearing, releasing, letting go, shedding, and also initiating. See fire not as only a destructive force, but as a force that underlies your actions, your creative expressions. It's what allows you to physically act on all that you desire. So, on Beltane, around midnight on the 30th or sometime on May 1st, light a fire. It can be a candle. It can be a bonfire. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be, but light a fire, sit with the energy of the flame, and appreciate the magic - the magnificence of it, the power of it in support of yourself and the collective in moving forward and bringing into your lives more of what you desire.”
If you missed it, the audio recording is available from “WTF????!!!! Redux”
Full description and link to get it are here on my site
https://www.noraherold.com/2025-transmissions-workshops-and-special-events
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Our upcoming Level I Channeling Class on Zoom starts a week from Saturday, on May 10th, and continues on May 11th and 17th. If you’ve been thinking about registering, we’d love to see you there.
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Thank you for sharing your journey. May Joy heal and support you always. 💕