Sitting in a Starbucks drinking my Americano while reading this. It’s not right to cry in a Starbucks, but I did it anyway. Resurrects memories and pain (too similar to yours) that I have for the most part “processed”. Seems like these types of emotional wounds never fully heal.
Such a sad song and haunting video. I had forgotten it. Madonna really was an artist in her prime, my first exposure to the strange affecting power of Catholic imagery. Thanks for another brave and honest essay.
Thanks for another thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, Josh. I hope someday you'll write a full memoir, a book. My parents have been dead for two decades, but I still haven't settled on how I feel about them. I think they, especially my dad, made some grave mistakes when I was a child, some of which crossed the line into cruelty. But they also seemed, sometimes, to love me. I put it behind me as an adult and we had a good relationship. In retrospect, I vacillate between feelings of longing and feelings of resentment, and I sometimes wonder if they might actually have disliked me all along, until they died. I'll never know or be at peace with it.
I think that even the best, most loving parents dislike their own children, from time to time. I'd say that if you sometimes *felt* loved by yours, you probably were, and could trust that. Also the fact that as an adult, you had a good relationship with them.
Our daughter's upbringing was deeply loving and supportive, yet, opposite to you, we have almost no relationship with her as an adult, now in her mid '30s. Everything went south from the age of 14, when I unwittingly didn't monitor her TV influences (Friends, and Beverly Hills 90210 which modelled rejection of family, for the peer group).
You're probably right about my parents. I hope your daughter eventually realizes the value of her relationship with you. There's still time. I've noticed, since at least the 1990s, that teenage daughters are almost always depicted in movies and tv shows as sullen and resentful toward their parents. It can't be healthy for children to see this kind of distortion constantly.
Your mother was a messed up person. My own parents both had severe mental issues although not that extreme. When we're young we don't see our parents as individuals with good and bad traits, just our parents. We don't understand how they became to be what they are, good or bad. I suppose if we're lucky we don't repeat their mistakes particularly if we got unlucky in the parent gene pool. Some people should never be parents but it doesn't take but a couple horny heteros without proper birth control to be so.
Josh, I only know you from your online presence, and the material accomplishments - career, home ownership - which you've achieved. I can't speak with the voice of somebody who has intimate knowledge of you. But nonetheless - you have made a good man of yourself. I'm glad to be familiar with your work.
I never knew my sperm donor, though by my middle tweens I knew who he was. My adopted father was killed in a violent altercation when I was 17. We had never had a close relationship. From early adulthood through the next 4 decades I went through 3 marriages, looking for a father-daughter relationship with each successive husband. I fulfilled my adult responsibilities, but lurking underneath I needed my husbands to give me what I never received from a father. They couldn't do it, as mentally and emotionally healthy adults, nor should they have had to. What was missing was the father I never really had. What's there is an empty space no one will ever fill.
As to the beauty of tragedy—I’ve come to believe that the lessons that stuck with me the most are the ones that involved overcoming some kind of pain or suffering. For me, the beauty of tragedy as an art form is the attempt to impart the wisdom gained through pain by helping the viewer/listener experience some aspect of the suffering that helps teach the lesson.
Seems to me in Madonna's case her father was in deep pain at the loss of his wife and soulmate and didn't know how to deal with a child who was also suffering badly from losing her mother. In your case the damage was much worse.
There is nothing quite like having the shit kicked out of you by someone you love and admire to really fuck you up.
Sitting in a Starbucks drinking my Americano while reading this. It’s not right to cry in a Starbucks, but I did it anyway. Resurrects memories and pain (too similar to yours) that I have for the most part “processed”. Seems like these types of emotional wounds never fully heal.
Such a sad song and haunting video. I had forgotten it. Madonna really was an artist in her prime, my first exposure to the strange affecting power of Catholic imagery. Thanks for another brave and honest essay.
Thanks for another thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, Josh. I hope someday you'll write a full memoir, a book. My parents have been dead for two decades, but I still haven't settled on how I feel about them. I think they, especially my dad, made some grave mistakes when I was a child, some of which crossed the line into cruelty. But they also seemed, sometimes, to love me. I put it behind me as an adult and we had a good relationship. In retrospect, I vacillate between feelings of longing and feelings of resentment, and I sometimes wonder if they might actually have disliked me all along, until they died. I'll never know or be at peace with it.
I think that even the best, most loving parents dislike their own children, from time to time. I'd say that if you sometimes *felt* loved by yours, you probably were, and could trust that. Also the fact that as an adult, you had a good relationship with them.
Our daughter's upbringing was deeply loving and supportive, yet, opposite to you, we have almost no relationship with her as an adult, now in her mid '30s. Everything went south from the age of 14, when I unwittingly didn't monitor her TV influences (Friends, and Beverly Hills 90210 which modelled rejection of family, for the peer group).
You're probably right about my parents. I hope your daughter eventually realizes the value of her relationship with you. There's still time. I've noticed, since at least the 1990s, that teenage daughters are almost always depicted in movies and tv shows as sullen and resentful toward their parents. It can't be healthy for children to see this kind of distortion constantly.
You nailed it. And even before that, all the Disney movies had dispensed with mothers!
Makes me wonder who's pushing this nonsense, and why.
You put me in mind of Sinead O’Connor’s Troy” today:
https://open.spotify.com/track/0LCnj4umc756EVRVaagjlP?si=36jrUkOZTZ-gLA0x_M4Bbg
“Do you want me?
Should I leave?
I know you’re always telling me that you love me
But sometimes I wonder if I should believe
Oh, I love you
God, I love you
I’d kill a dragon for you; I’ll die
…And you should have left the light on
You should’ve left the light on”
Video is great, too: https://youtu.be/0c4v7fp5GC8?si=4IVRnNmcXFzjsNpk
Your mother was a messed up person. My own parents both had severe mental issues although not that extreme. When we're young we don't see our parents as individuals with good and bad traits, just our parents. We don't understand how they became to be what they are, good or bad. I suppose if we're lucky we don't repeat their mistakes particularly if we got unlucky in the parent gene pool. Some people should never be parents but it doesn't take but a couple horny heteros without proper birth control to be so.
Josh, I only know you from your online presence, and the material accomplishments - career, home ownership - which you've achieved. I can't speak with the voice of somebody who has intimate knowledge of you. But nonetheless - you have made a good man of yourself. I'm glad to be familiar with your work.
I never knew my sperm donor, though by my middle tweens I knew who he was. My adopted father was killed in a violent altercation when I was 17. We had never had a close relationship. From early adulthood through the next 4 decades I went through 3 marriages, looking for a father-daughter relationship with each successive husband. I fulfilled my adult responsibilities, but lurking underneath I needed my husbands to give me what I never received from a father. They couldn't do it, as mentally and emotionally healthy adults, nor should they have had to. What was missing was the father I never really had. What's there is an empty space no one will ever fill.
Thank you, Josh.
As to the beauty of tragedy—I’ve come to believe that the lessons that stuck with me the most are the ones that involved overcoming some kind of pain or suffering. For me, the beauty of tragedy as an art form is the attempt to impart the wisdom gained through pain by helping the viewer/listener experience some aspect of the suffering that helps teach the lesson.
If only fertility was dependent on mental/emotional health.
I wish I'd been aborted.
Wow. Very powerful. Thank you for sharing this.
Seems to me in Madonna's case her father was in deep pain at the loss of his wife and soulmate and didn't know how to deal with a child who was also suffering badly from losing her mother. In your case the damage was much worse.