Sins Of The Father

It's his father's face staring back at him from the fogged up mirror over the bathroom sink. Same high forehead, receding hairline, same soft chin, long ears. Hence the permanent three day growth. The bald spot on the back of the top of his skull is out of sight but every now and then he catches it peripherally in a window or in a candid shot or video. He's aging. Halfway through or thereabouts. This is who he's become, a mirror image of his younger father with an inkling of his mother around the edges. But it's his pop's demeanour- cool, calm, laid back- that he's spent a life time cultivating. A me-so-happy, why worry aloofness. Detachment to handle the anxiety. The insomnia. The busy, unquiet mind that keeps him humming and buzzing at all hours. The years of self abuse, of negative self talk, willful destructive habits and behaviours. Relationships are no fun so he just dabbles, always sits in reactive, playing willingly but disengaging at any sign of expectation or miscommunication. Got to stay positive, happy, emotionally available for himself first and foremost, on his own terms; not for anyone else. That's not his responsibility. If there's one thing he learned from Pop it's how to engage while not investing. A lifetime watching people flock to him, adore and revere him, enamoured with his words, his compassion, his seemingly endless capacity for understanding and illumination. A natural empath which translated into a second career as a motivational speaker. But try getting him to commit to anyone on anything other than his own terms and you were shit out of luck. So compelling, seeing him sit in the center of himself, never questioning his self worth but as a son to a father, desperate for admission to that private inner sanctum it was, it is, a battle. He wipes away the fog in the mirror, sees his own face take shape in front of him. Maybe a shave and a haircut today. A reinvention of himself. No, not reinvention. A reclamation. A renewal of self, his very own unique self.