TWENTIES- Walks With My Father (Part 2)

“You have allowed your mind to be in control simply by believing what it tells you. The energy you put into supporting your mind’s programs strengthens them, creating an abundance of fear that has you hooked. Open your eyes and create an abundance of freedom. It's so simple that it sounds trite."

    
     After choosing the carpet, tile, paint, and trimmings for my new home, Jay and I moved in. For whatever his reasons, which seemed strange to me at the time, my father didn’t contest us living together prior to marriage. Jay and I had an agreement that he would pay $300 a month. My parents paid for it outright with my name on the title, and I was to write a check to them, monthly (interest only). They were my bank, and being an independent young adult was not manifesting like I had once intended. Putting my doubts aside, I created a false sense of security. My addiction to my dad’s approval and security became even more embedded into my psyche.

     Then there were the walks with my father...

     Along my old stomping grounds of Hillcrest Drive, my father said it...

     “Kathleen, I want to talk to you about something.”

      Gulp. My heart would always start beating faster when those words prefaced what he was about to say. I knew that he would demand that I follow. A conditional hook that is often placed in this world when we receive money.

    He continued, “This house is to never be given to your future husband. You need to keep it in your name.”

    Pause.  

     “Do you hear me?”

     I squeaked out a “yes.”

     “It is your ‘FU house.’ Promise me that you will never give it to your husband because if you die, his new wife may get it all!”

     F*** You House? Three words that were branded in my memory and influenced my behavior for many years.

    I felt like I was suffocating. I didn’t want to go into a marriage already thinking about a divorce. I wanted to share my heart and belongings, not covet them. Calling my new home an “FU house” felt so icky inside, and yet, I was beginning to relate to my dad’s fearful lack of abundance programming, hooking into it as my own. I needed to protect myself from my future husband and be secure. No man (including Jay) was ever going to take advantage of me, and I believed that I was being proactive and smart.
     I put energy into this illusion for most of my adult years, but by the grace of God, Love’s whisper never left me. Although we may abandon our heart, it never leaves us. Our nudging roommate of truth.



   

    

TWENTIES-The House With A Hook

“We’re taught from childhood to stay in ‘your right mind,’ which usually refers to the intellectual mind. Yet what we ‘think’ is so often in conflict with what we ‘know’ in our hearts. I would rather ‘know’ from my heart than to ‘think’ that I know.” 

      I “thought” I knew what was best for me, even if I needed to sell my soul to get it. The house. After one year of renting, my father threw himself into one huge tailspin. 

     “You are wasting money, Kathleen! We need to buy you a house,” he said.

     “But, Dad...I pleaded. “I want to do that with my future husband and on my own,” All the while, feeling stupid for not taking him up on what seemed to be a generous offer. What am I, crazy? I have cancer and need to make sure that I will be secure. My mind banter was relentless, continually pleading to my parents that I wanted to do these adult things without their help. I no longer wanted to live under their dictatorship, and I thought that the only way out was to not accept a penny. I know that for many people this may be difficult to comprehend. You could be thinking, Who wouldn't want their parents to buy them a home? Under many conditions, I would agree. And under mine, I knew that there was a hook. I knew that I would hear about this home, what he did for me, and how I would be nothing without it or him for the rest of his life-even from his grave. 

     My father wouldn’t have it. His rationale was that he was going to die soon and that he didn't want the government to take his money. He wanted to make sure that I was taken care of. A screaming match would ensue at the kitchen table while my mother served us food and cleaned the kitchen. Besides our private walks, that’s where most of our arguments took place. Meanwhile, Jay was continually on his own surf trip, telling me that I was selfish in asking him to commit one full day to “us” on the weekends. After all, the surf may be good on that particular day. One can only imagine what my big wave rider created when I told him that I had relented to my father’s persuasive tactics and that my mother had just found a new house under construction twenty ADDITIONAL miles south from his favorite surf spot (already fifteen miles away). He didn’t seem to care that he would be living in a private community, multi-leveled, four bedroom home. I experienced him as obsessed with the local surf spot, the hierarchy of who owns the ocean, and his thirst for a “good shot” in Surfer Magazine. Despite it all, I knew that I was to move into this home overlooking an old, majestic oak tree. One of the many reasons, I knew it was to be mine. At the same time, “thinking” that I was beholden to my dad for buying it. I was twenty-five years old.