“Let Me Know When I Do Something Right…”
I really wanted to say that many times in my life, but didn’t.
Okay, it’s been years. Can you just leave it go? Can you just realize that I may know what I’m doing?
I think this lack of confidence in myself started when I was a kid. I was bright but I was fat. What good would come of that? Not much, my father thought and my mother didn’t argue. For years I felt like I did nothing right.
I finally was able to tell him to back off the day of my sister’s college graduation. Our mother was dead and Pop lived more than 200 miles away. I’d driven to his home in West Virginia to pick him up and bring him to Pennsylvania so he could see his daughter graduate from college. We were sitting outside when he told me he needed a rest room. So I walked with him to the Student Center. After he finished in the rest room we sat at one of the tables. I’d gotten him some coffee and a package of cupcakes. The cupcakes sat on the table between us.
“Do you really think you need them?” he said, pointing to the cupcakes.
I took a deep breath. “Pop, I’m almost fifty years old. When are you going to let that go?”
He didn’t answer me and because it was supposed to be a happy occasion, I let it drop.
