Understanding

I’ve written about my relationship with my dad here a few times. It’s not a great relationship. We aren’t estranged or anything like that, I was just never able to develope the same kind of relationship with him as my younger sister was. I can’t relate to him so it’s hard for me to really be ‘the good daughter.’ I spent a lot of my childhood wondering why my sister could always get dad to do things for her, yet when I wanted to needed something there were always stipulations involved.

I don’t begrudge him the lessons I’ve learned today, but when I was a kid I was very jealous of my sister because she could really get anything out of him, expecially when she started going out on her own and trying to grow up. This particularly rankled with me for a while because he spent thousands of dollars on her so she could pay for bills and get herself out of holes. She was seventeen when she first ran away from home and tried to live on her own. My dad was perfectly okay with helping her out.

There was once point where I was having financial trouble, when Scott and I were living in Brookings, Oregon. It was the first inkling I had that Scott was supremely irresponsible with money. He ended up overdrawing my account by something like four hundred dollars. I asked my dad for help only to be told no, you have to deal with it on your own. In the end my mom had to convince him to lend me the money on the strict agreement that I would pay it back within the month.

I was eighteen at the time and it was so unfair to me that my sister could ask for the same kinds of help without a problem.

Now though, I understand that this particular situation has a lot to do with why I HATE owing money to people. I don’t like being in debt to people I know, I try my darndest to pay them back as soon as I am capable. It’s like a giant cloud that hangs over my conscience if I don’t pay someone back when they’ve given me something, whether it be money, or something else like dinner or buying me drinks. It then because my personal responsibility to reimburse them somehow, whether or not they tell me not to worry about it.

I very strongly believe that people should not help me with anything, and if they do, they should fully expect me to pay them back. I’ve talked to my aunt, whose house I will be moving in to soon, and was able to negotiate rent with her because she wasn’t going to charge me at all. It’s going to be a lot less than what I’m paying now, but I don’t feel okay with living in the house without paying rent any more. If I weren’t moving in they would be renting out that room, so I can’t justify skimping them on any potential income. I simply can’t do that. It would make me feel horrible.

Anyway, the reasoning for my reflection on this particular subject is that I got a text from my dad early this morning (his day starts at about four in the morning) saying that he was excited for me to start flight training and was willing to help me out however he can.

It was shock, to say the least. The only other time my dad has ever offered to help me financially was when I bought my first car, which he also did for my sister. There has never been another instance where he’s just offered me money for the sake of my personal interests. Ever.

"Course…he is very gung ho about my learning to fly. He’s almost as gung ho about it as he was when I took up track and cross country in high school.

But I can’t accept his help. The moment I saw the message I thought, ‘thank you, but I’ll be alright.’

I’ll also be taking archery lessons starting sometime in September as well. I’ve decided that I really want to learn how to shoot a bow. It would be a lot of fun and I might someday become good enough to teach or compete or something. I don’t know. I seems like a good idea.