Unpacking Baggage - Pilots and Fathers

A month ago, I wrote a post questioning how to let go of anger. I got several suggestions, both on Steemit and off. Thank you very much to those of you who left comments. Sorry @disc-jitsu87, I have not taken that lesson yet. I compromised and went for a few nice jogs, which helped. But the physical activity is like taking an ibuprofen when you have cancer. I need to dig deeper.

My wife told me that "angry" is "sad"s mask. So maybe I'm actually just sad? I guess. But she and others encouraged me to look at the root of my anger - specifically what causes it and why. Sometimes I think I know what triggers it, but the triggers alone shouldn't warrant such rage. Why should I fly off the handle at the thought of my brother taking the last name of his future wife? How does that impact me? It's such a stupid thing to get upset about, and yet I did, for days. And managed to do some collateral damage to those who love me the most in the meantime, per my usual M.O.

I think I finally made it a little farther into "root cause" territory, though. I came to the realization that I care very much about what people think about me, despite my best efforts to the contrary. I perceive that my brother's future wife does not like me. I am projecting that feeling on my brother as well, and feeling like he is starting to dislike me too. Or that at the very least she is going to poison him against me. So I choose to cope with these feelings by getting angry and deciding that I might as well be someone who deserves to be disliked. That if they're going to hate me anyway, let's really give them a reason to hate me. Then it'll at least make sense why they don't like me.

So I'm working through that at the moment. Fun times.

But what does that have to do with pilots and fathers? Well, I'll go back to one of the very first people whose approval and admiration I craved but never felt I had. Surprise surprise, we're going back to Middle School.

In 7th grade, after a year of absolute misery and turmoil, Carl transferred to my school. He was a full year older than most of us: consequence of a late summer birthday. He was an only child. He had an air of confidence about him that was rare at that age. He didn't care what anybody thought about him. He didn't want to be "cool". He wasn't a nerd or particularly brilliant. He was just a good guy. I gravitated towards him immediately and we became friends. A social group formed around him that year, and he effortlessly assumed the mantle of de facto leader.

His dad had been a pilot in the Air Force and then again as a civilian before he went on to a very well paid executive position for a defense contractor. Maybe because of this, Carl loved aviation. He could look up into the sky at a plane flying by and tell us exactly what model it was, military or otherwise. He had a flight simulator computer game with the full setup in his basement: joystick, throttle, and pedals. He would fly real time long haul routes on the weekends just for fun, going upstairs for lunch while the virtual 737 was on autopilot over the North Atlantic. Carl was going to be a pilot one day, just like his dad.

As we got older, we spent more time at Carl's house. Being the oldest, he was the first of us to get a licence. One particularly stormy weekend, a few of us were over at his house and bored out of our minds. We decided we wanted to go out, and so he grabbed the keys to "his" car (as much as a 16 year old "owns" their father's hand-me-down Volvo sedan), and headed to the garage. His dad caught him on the way out.

I had gotten to know Carl's dad a little over the years in spite of the long hours he worked and his frequent international travel. The times I did see him, he was polite and kind enough, but he spoke with the indifference of a wealthy man and the authority of the donor class. You did not joke with him. You always feigned interest in what he had to say. And in return, you could hang out in the basement of his million dollar home and eat his food and use his pool table. I thought it was a great bargain, and I have to say, I rather liked the guy. Oh, he also may have had a drinking problem.

Carl and his father, on the other hand, did not have a good relationship. I only picked up on bits and pieces of the dynamic between them over the years. But that night on the way out the door, as his father sipped another gin and tonic, I got to see firsthand what bubbled just beneath the surface.

"Where do you think you're going?" Carl's dad demanded.

"We're headed out, probably just to the mall or something," he replied.

"Not in this weather you're not!" his dad fumed.

"It's not that bad out, I'll be fine," he countered.

"Not that bad!? Driving in this rain would be like..." he paused, searching for words. "... like flying a plane into the side of a mountain!" His dad was dead serious. There was no humor whatsoever in his words.

"I wouldn't know, I'm not a pilot," Carl muttered under his breath.

"And you never will be!" shouted his dad.

An awkward silence hung in the room for several seconds. I stared at my feet. His dad walked back to the kitchen. The group of us retreated back to the basement. No one ever said a word about what happened. We just continued on with our lives.

Sure enough, Carl went on to be a pilot. And for the Marine Corps, no less. In hindsight, I can clearly see that Carl never had his dad's approval. He probably didn't even think his dad liked him all that much. I imagine there was a lot of pain below the surface that Carl keeps buried and hidden to this day. I can't imagine what it would do to a person to have the man who served as your inspiration, if not outright role model, tell you to your face that you will never achieve your dreams.

Fifteen years later, I no longer speak to Carl. Not from any falling out, just from natural drift. That and the fact that I initiated every single contact we've had over the past 5 years -- I guess I can take a hint. Truth is, I don't think Carl ever cared very much for me. I think he was just a good-hearted person who saw a hurting and insecure kid who needed a friend and decided that he would fill that role.

If anyone had a right to be angry, it was Carl. Instead, he closed himself off. He never talked about himself or his feelings. He was never emotional. We never had a "deep" friendship like the kind I'm now aware exist. And for several years, before I made the connection between his baggage and our own relationship, I took this personally. I felt inferior, unworthy, and rejected because I never felt like he cared as much about me as I cared about him.

I'm starting to let go of some of that hurt and some of that sadness. Truth is, I don't know if Carl even has the capacity or ability to make the kind of connection I wanted. But even if he does and he just never cared for me all that much, at least he did me the kindness of pretending to like me for years so I could have a place I "fit in" and friends to hang out with. Any negative feelings towards me make sense in context. While he was busy working his tail off to be excellent at everything he did, presumably for his father's approval, I was slacking off and screwing around and being mediocre. Yet somehow I was the one that had a father who loved me and was proud of me.

So I suppose there are two lessons I can try to apply from my revelation about Carl to my current situation with my brother. The first is that you never know what kind of pain and inner struggle someone is going through. The second is that even if someone doesn't like you very much, maybe it's more because of their own struggles than anything you did or didn't do. Because come on, who isn't a fan of a goofy slacker?

Join us @steemitbloggers
_{Animation By @zord189, Dividers By @jaynie}
Unless otherwise noted, all text and pictures in this post are my own and may not be reused without my permission.