My father. Attachment #2
My dad was 63 when I was born. When I was little I always thought he was going to die because he looked so old. People would think he was my grandfather instead of my dad.
Whether or not it was a conscious decision I don’t know, but I did not get close to my father. I was afraid he was going to die, so why bother getting to know someone if they were going to die and be taken away. Stupid of me I know, but as a kid that’s what I thought. I always thought I would find him dead in bed or out in the farm laying on the ground.
To prevent myself from getting hurt I didn’t go out of my way to get to know him or value my time spent with him. I did not attach myself to him because I thought, why should I? He’s just going to leave me soon, he doesn’t play with me and just gives me the belt when I’m in trouble…. maybe it was because he belted me so often that I stopped attaching myself to him.
I hated the belt. The belt always seemed the punishment of choice with my father. I would hide his belts in order to prevent the constant lashings. He would find them and I would get belted again next time I did something wrong. Soon I got better and better at hiding them. I would hide them behind the water tank or up in the attic. Unfortunately for me he would go to town and buy another belt… and so the game would go. I would hide the belt, he’d buy another one.
He’d be so exasperated because his belts kept missing, but I claimed innocence and would not tell him that I took them. I resented him and I resented the fact that he always hit me with his belt.