Remember, You Are Only A Mortal

A fresh start to love.

“Remember, you are only a mortal.”

As of late, my outlook had become so fogged with this idea that nothing could penetrate the hard shell of my exterior that I didn’t know such a feeling could even exist on the inside. The mere concept of a soft side being improbable. For what I can remember of my twenty years, I do not recall my father ever saying that he loved me. And I guess that’s what bothers me the most. Seemingly my father has tried to be the iron man. Making considerable effort to make no sign that weather (both extremes) or pain bothered him – even to the point of cutting his leg with a utility knife and merely shrugging it off as if nothing happened.

The cliché is “like father, like son” and I’ve tried my hardest not to show a soft side. Stemming from the hits of the belt that I used to receive. The outline visible on my legs, but not the tears. Not in front of him at least – my pride not allowing him to see that he had defeated me. My simple vanity kept the tears from streaming down my face while my legs ached. I would wait. Until in the comforts of my room, where I would conceal my weakness by burying my face in the pillow. Maybe that’s why I’ve tried to pass my self off as an alpha-male. Maybe that’s why I’ve worked so hard not to get close to anybody.

A few nights ago, my father finally said that he loved me, that I was his baby boy and that I was his favorite – he caught himself after saying the “fay” syllable – and changed it to “first.” Even with his pitiful attempt at trying to make me feel better, I wasn’t impressed. There was a lack of emotion in his voice that wasn’t caused by the transmission through the phone. It seemed like a script in the hands of a bad actor. And just as quick as he had started it, he brushed it off with, “So as I was saying…” Was that it? His quota of love fulfilled?

But things changed with a single late night trip. A trip in which you made me feel human again. Cracking the hard shell as easily as one breaks open an egg. I’m tired of being known as the a*****e. Tired of all my hateful comments fueled by spite. Things change and I’m just getting “too old for this s**t.” This may be meaningless and not worth the trouble, but I’d hope that you’d at least understand. For if someone was to make sense of it all, it’d be you.

”It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.”