Back in 'Nam

"Fathers are weird creatures you know" -Dawson's Creek
Now i know what your thinking...how can this kid be intelligent and still watch that stupid show. Well, I do. It's what they call guilty pleasures. Enjoying something that you know you shouldn't and are ashamed to tell your friends. A lot like Kelly Clarkson's song "Since You've Been Gone". Admit it, you love that song.
But back to the original topic...Fathers. They are weird creatures. You grow up with them as these mystical figures, larger than life. When you're in grade school, they are everything you want to be, even if they aren't all that great. And then those wonderful puberty years start, and you begin to question everything they are. I remember thinking my Dad was this awful person. He never seemed to care for my mother the way I thought he did, and he never seemed to care about me the way other Dads did. And this is partially true of those days. My Dad wasn't exactly "father of the year" for most of my life. But even the things he did well, I questioned. I hated him for not letting me go to McDonalds, or for being hard on me with grades. I used to lie awake at night, concocting ways to "overthrow" him. The truth was, I knew that they cared about me more than I them. I was 12 years old, and when you're 12...parents aren't seen as a neccesity. So I'd have hunger strikes and talk about how I'd kill myself, it'd worry my parents to death and they'd do whatever I wanted. This is what I did. And as horrible as it sounds, it made sense in my head. Parents were the inherent evil, and I was waging war on that evil. As I grew older, I noticed that my Mom had this infinent wisdom that I didn't like admitting to, but needed to learn from. She had none of the opportunities that I was to be given, yet she worked so hard to make my life better. She wasn't bitter, she took her lot in life and did the best she could. My Father, meanwhile, hated the fact that I was so spoiled. When I was about 19 years old, he told me that I needed to grow up. I was shocked by this because I always thought of myself as "mature beyond my years". He then told me that when he was my age, he was in Vietnam. This sent a shockwave of guilt through me that I haven't quite shook. It's not his fault by any means, but it made me think that maybe I did need to grow up. My Dad's youth had been blindsided by this horrible war, that unwillingly took him away from his carefree innocence. War changed him, he was a wreck after the war. He didn't fully recover for a long time. I'm reminded of this scene from a Vietnam movie with Charlie Sheen (anyone know it? I'm lost). Charlie gets to Vietnam and some guys ask him how long he's been there, he says only 2 weeks and the other guys say they've been there for 10 and 11 months. It's this horrible feeling, like he has a life sentence for doing nothing but being 18 years old. For some reason, everytime I see that part, I'm reminded of my Dad and how horrible it must have been to be there. Now as I am very near my 22nd b-day, I suddenly find me and my Dad very similiar. I am starting to become more like him. His charm and personality rub off on me. And I think it's partially him becoming more like me too, as weird as that sounds. In an effort to bond with me, he began to understand me. I'll be the first to admit, we're not your picture perfect son-father duo by any means, but it's really nice to see that we can relate to each other now. It's something that I never thought I'd find, and it's really nice to have.

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