{"id":1521,"date":"2012-11-04T10:42:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T17:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=1521"},"modified":"2021-08-26T18:39:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T01:39:41","slug":"letter-to-a-wayward-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2012\/11\/04\/letter-to-a-wayward-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to a wayward child"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t understand<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Images\"<\/p>\n

I treated you as an adult, I stayed out of your affairs, I offered advice sometimes unasked but only because I thought you could use a different point of view. Was I not fair? Didn’t I welcome you into my home? Didn’t I treat you well?<\/p>\n

You used my vehicle, you were an equal.<\/p>\n

You repaid our kindness by breaking the few rules we have in the house. You were always late with your part of the rent… and I said nothing.<\/p>\n

I even asked if you had enough cash to be able to cover your part, if you’d ever said no… It wouldn’t have been a problem. I’d have handed the rent check back. I was more interested in making sure that you had what you needed.<\/p>\n

I made myself available to you… all you ever had to do was call and I’d have been there. If you were too tired to drive, I’d have come to get you.<\/p>\n

In the end you weren’t even bothering to text anyone to say you were ok. Another rule broken… It’s not like you couldn’t, you & your girlfriend were texting each other 50 times an hour.<\/p>\n

You were never where you said you’d be, certainly not when you said you’d be there.<\/p>\n

I teased you about it but wasn’t upset by it, you’re young and sometimes being young means that you forget things. You’re easily distracted by the next new thing or experience.<\/p>\n

Then I realized you were lying…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The realization began when, one day you asked me what my mailing address was . I innocently gave it to you. Later when I asked what you needed the address for, you told me you were updating your address book. I took you at your word.<\/p>\n

A few days later, you asked me if I’d checked my mail… I said yes, thinking you were offering to make the post office run.<\/p>\n

A week or so later, when a certain piece of mail showed up. Everything was clear… You’d used me. You’d been sneaky, and you’d facilitated someone else’s sneakiness.<\/p>\n

In the bargain, you’d placed me in the middle of whatever was going on and you’d done it without any consideration for the position you’d put me in.<\/p>\n

I waited for you to ask about it, I wanted a few minutes to talk with you about it. Instead, you were like trying to capture lightening, I couldn’t get enough of your time to even find out what you were doing much less have a conversation. Then there’s the question… Did you really think I wasn’t going to notice what you’d done or question it? Really?<\/p>\n

From then on… I watched you more closely.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I listened very carefully to what little bits of information you let slip as you breezed through on your way to your next destination.<\/p>\n

More and more often your stories didn’t match up. What you said about where you were and with who changed with each telling.<\/p>\n

How many times when you said you were camping were you really camping? How about those times when you said you were staying at your Dads place?<\/p>\n

Given the nearly 10,000 miles (As a conservative estimate) you put on the truck… I’m inclined to believe you were doing a lot more than just driving around the local area.<\/p>\n

I came to the conclusion that I simply couldn’t trust you. I was going to ask for the keys to my truck. I wish now that I’d installed a tracking device on my truck because I suspect it would be very interesting to find out just where you’d been.<\/p>\n

Then you announced you were moving out immediately<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Again breaking the rules…<\/p>\n

The rental agreement said you were supposed to give 30 days notice. When you get into the real world and aren’t living with your girlfriends parents I expect you’re going to learn a lot of nasty lessons very quickly.<\/p>\n

Honestly though, it was a relief. I am glad to have nothing but the tail end of the drama to deal with. I’m glad to have my house back.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, you could have stayed here till the cows came home, I wouldn’t have asked you to leave. I’d made a commitment to you and I was going to honor it. I’d have simply made sure that everything was secure when we weren’t around.<\/p>\n

I would have continued patiently trying to show you that being an honest, honorable man, and doing the right thing is important and valuable.<\/p>\n

These are the same things your father taught you, but for some reason you don’t seem to have learned the lessons.<\/p>\n

I thought you were just lying to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you were moving out I found out that you’d brought the potential for trouble right to my door. I believe that you were going to leave without even warning me.<\/p>\n

I finally connected all the dots, when I spoke with your Dad this week.<\/p>\n

After you moved out, I discovered that you’d been lying to your Father, Me, and I can’t even imagine how many other people.<\/p>\n

Your Dad was pissed off at me, because he thought you were asking me for advice and I wasn’t letting him know you were making bad decisions. You knew this, yet you never said a word.<\/p>\n

UP to this point I was annoyed, and hurt. Because I thought it was just me<\/strong> you were lying to.<\/p>\n

After hearing your Dad, I was flat out pissed off!<\/p>\n

All the times I asked you if you’d talked with your dad, and you said “Yes”, you were lying.<\/p>\n

Those times when I gave you my opinion of a situation and suggested that you also get your Dads opinion, you just blew me off.<\/p>\n

You never once spoke with your Dad. When I asked, following up about your dads opinion, you lied to me again.<\/p>\n

You have no place here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your keys won’t work, you can’t even access the WiFi anymore. I can’t trust anything about you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you again.<\/p>\n

In time, I may be able to forgive you. But I’ll never be able to forget it.<\/p>\n

I hope that your Dad and I can put our friendship back together, I honestly don’t know at this point. What I do know is that it’s going to take a LOT of work, Thanks for that by the way…<\/p>\n

You need to consider the collateral damage you cause. I touched on this briefly several weeks ago when I told you you were jamming us up not by what you did… but by not<\/span> doing what you said you were going to do.<\/p>\n

Knowing what I know now… I would and perhaps should have let you leave your Dads house for some of the less savory options you were planning.<\/p>\n

God knows it would have been a lot easier, and my home wouldn’t have been disrupted by the constant drama.<\/p>\n

I was trying to be a decent person… You used that against me.<\/p>\n

I was acting to protect you and your Dad, I didn’t what to see him brokenhearted if you followed in the footsteps of your siblings.<\/p>\n

I hoped and prayed that you were different and for a time I believed you were. I actually believed that given some time you’d move back in with your Father and everything would work out, especially when it became obvious that you had no intention of trying the military again.<\/p>\n

I can’t believe that I was so very wrong in so many ways about you.<\/p>\n

You really should consider a career in acting. You’re good at it. Then again, so are sociopaths.<\/p>\n

Now A lot of people are broken hearted and I know none of us will ever know the whole truth about anything about you.<\/p>\n

Who are you really?<\/p>\n

Do I want to know?<\/p>\n

Probably not…<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t understand. I treated you as an adult, I stayed out of your affairs, I offered advice sometimes unasked but only because I thought you could use a different point of view. Was I not fair? Didn’t I welcome you into my home? Didn’t I treat you well? You used my vehicle, you were an … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Letter to a wayward child”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,13,8,36],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-1521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-friendship","category-men","category-stupid-people","tag-male"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1521"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}