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something my therapist said about my dad that I can't shake
— Marcus Webb (men's emotional wellness, contributor)
Quick one. I'm not going to write this up properly, I just need to put it somewhere.
Two weeks ago my therapist asked me what I miss about my dad and I gave her the obvious answers. Working on stuff together. The way he'd whistle when he was concentrating. Etc.
She let me finish and then she said, "I notice you keep listing things he did. What did he know about you?"
I genuinely could not answer.
Like — for a full minute I was scrolling through my own head trying to find one specific thing my dad knew about me, the actual interior of me, and I came up with nothing concrete. He knew I'd been a teacher. He knew I'd run a marathon in 2018. He knew the surface stuff anyone who got my Christmas card would know.
I don't think this means he was a bad dad. He came up rough, did better than his own father did, learned to be present in his way. The whistling thing is real and I do miss it.
But two weeks later I'm still sitting with the question. What did he know about me. And underneath it, the harder one — what do I let anyone know about me. My ex used to say I was a closed door with a friendly knocker on it and I thought she was being mean. Maybe she was just being accurate.
Not looking for advice or fixes. Just — if anyone else has had a session that broke something open weeks after the fact, I'd like to read about it. The slow-detonation kind. Not the cathartic-cry-in-session kind everyone talks about.