My father, sister, and I went to see Beautiful Boy last night at the Uptown Theater. Once again, gratitude took hold when noticing the ability to experience extremely divergent emotions without being all-consumed by any of them; laughter before and after the movie mixed with the general pleasantness of belonging, and grief and sadness of the movie subject matter mixed with painful personal memories certain scenes brought up.

While I can’t say that my father and I ever enjoyed the closeness that Nic and David displayed both in print (I read the book too), and on the screen, there is a tenderness that my father has always had which is incredibly endearing. He showed up in my life, both as a child and adult, in the best way he could. In seeing David’s anguish and desperation trying to save his son, it reminded me of tears my father shed and commitments he made personally. One 1988 stint in a halfway house cost more than $20,000 (equivalent to $42,000 today at an average 2.5% inflation rate) and he was there for all family groups and events.

It’s just that I was so damn angry at him for the divorce and the way my feelings were shoved aside. After reviewing old posts to see if one of the most, if not thee most traumatic life events has ever been described in this blog, it wasn’t found in the posts I thought it might be. It may still be back there somewhere but nevertheless it’s good to write it down again. While it used to be something I couldn’t speak about due to the pain experienced, it was worked through enough during psychoanalysis sessions to allow for current free expression.

One day at age 11, I came home from school and saw dad’s car in the driveway, which was unusual for 3 pm on a weekday. I walked inside to find mom having a meltdown and dad standing there with the guiltiest of looks you could ever see: he had told her he was leaving her for another woman. Obviously the plan was to break the news to her that day and at that time. It just now occurred to me how incredibly stupid it was for him to not think how it would be for me to walk into that situation. But I digress, for the actual event which caused so much pain took place 6 months later while meeting his new girlfriend for the first time.

Dad moved out the day he told mom he was leaving and every other weekend he would come and stay at the house and mom would then leave. I knew ahead of time that he was going to be bringing P over to stay with us during one of his visits. Anxiety and fear set in for the entire week prior to her impending arrival. By the time she showed up Saturday morning, I was PISSED. Anger was the only emotion expressed freely around our house and the rageful exhibit always arrived without notice. Thus I had no idea what to do with this most intense anger, having not been felt at this level for all of my 11 years.

She came over Saturday morning and after a few intolerant hours I went into my room. Finding all the things I could which were associated with my father, they were broken, torn, and otherwise destroyed. One year, Dairy Queen had a promotion where an ice cream sundae would be served in a different miniature football helmet with the correct NFL team color and corresponding decals. It took several weeks to accumulate all of them but we did that together, and the memory of the excitement of going there with him is still etched in my mind. Those helmets were prominently displayed on my shelf and I broke all twenty-eight of them.

The Empire Strikes Back was popular around that time and he had given me a toy fighter aircraft from the movie. It had its specific place reserved on the top and to the left side of my dresser. It was broken into 3 pieces. There was a baseball from an MLB game we attended together that had signatures from all the players. It came in a clear plastic display case which sat on my nightstand. I broke the case, took the baseball out and cut the cover off of it. Over the years dad and I put together several model airplanes and cars, all placed in their respective locations around my room. I was very proud of them, but in my anger broke every one.

I don’t remember all the specific individual things besides those but there were several more. The point is that these were all things I adored, were displayed prominently in my room, and which were chosen because in my young mind they represented my father in some way. I assembled all the broken pieces on top of my bed and said, “hey dad, can you come here?” He walked into the doorway of my room, looked at the debris on my bed and called to his girlfriend to come take a look. I will never forget what he said:

“Look what a great son I have…” He walked out and shut the door.

As the anger subsided I thought to myself, what have I done?? These were things I loved and which represented time my father had spent with me. What kind of monster would do something like that? I crumpled into the fetal position at the foot of my bed and sobbed for what seemed like hours. I remember trying to get up several times but whenever I did, I would be confronted with the destruction I created in the center of my bed. With no emotional fortitude to deal with that reality, I would again fall to a sobbing heap on the floor.

In those first hours after The Destruction, the greatest pain came from the belief that I caused irreparable harm to the relationship with my father. Things already weren’t the same with him being out of the house. What would happen now that his feelings had been so hurt by his only son? Had I pushed him even further away? Once again I wondered what kind of monster could do something like this?

It was the first time I definitively remember thinking that something was fundamentally wrong with me.

I stayed in my room the rest of the weekend until P left, along with all the destroyed items. No one came in to help me process what happened, not even mom when she returned home. I next had to go about the business of deciding what to do with this debris and couldn’t bear the thought of just throwing it in a garbage can. Some of it was beyond repair, like the baseball and some of the football helmets, and had to be thrown. Doing so just pushed the incredible shame I was experiencing deeper into my soul. Some items I tried to repair, like the model airplanes and cars.

So Stage 1 of this first identity crisis was the actual destroying of things and the response of my father. Stage 2 was the anguish of deciding what to do with broken and symbolic pieces of my father’s love. Then came Stage 3: the new normal. Belongings that were not thrown away and put back on my shelves had repairs that were made by an 11 year old. The cracks and the super glue were glaring highlights of the emotional crime committed. The things that used to be on my shelves represented dad’s affection and the interest he took in me; empty shelves and fractured symbols were ominous reminders of what had been lost.

Trying to place myself back in my 11 year old mind is impossible to the extent of remembering what I was hoping for. Whatever it was, I don’t think it was a conscious thought. Having gone over this event in great detail during psychoanalysis, the belief is that after calling him over to see my anger at the invasion of this new woman in our space, I wanted him to come into my room, sit down on the bed, put his arm around me, and tenderly ask what was wrong.

(Movie Spoiler Alert) The last scene of Beautiful Boy is Nic back in treatment sobbing in a chair while David sits stoically and distrustfully in a chair next to him. Nic continues to cry and David eventually places a hand on his shoulder. At the touch of his hand Nic’s catharsis increases and he turns sheepishly towards his dad. At that point David leans into Nic for a full embrace and the movie closes with that: a father and son both scared and bewildered by what life has thrown at them but not willing to give up.

My eyes welled up in the dark theater and then the lights came on. Had I been there watching it alone, in no way could the flow of emotion been stopped. Even now as I write this post at home, alone, tears have come several times.

My father is a great man and I love him more than he will ever know. We have both changed greatly over the past several years and now enjoy a relationship that is closer than ever. I was glad to be there with him last night. I was glad to experience the confluence of feelings and memories while being able to objectively observe how wondrous a multi-faceted emotional life really is. In the course of three hours I felt anxiety, love, belonging, calm, hilarity, sadness, shame, guilt, empathy, longing, jealousy, regret, and loneliness. By paying attention to what naturally flows through my mind during these periods of reality, I in turn feel alive in a way nothing else can simulate.

When we parted ways at the end of the night I really didn’t want to. I wish we could have gone into my sister’s condo and all spent the night so we could still be together in the morning.

I love you dad and I’m grateful to be your son.