The weekend...

Well, it was a long weekend. I was out sick for two and a half days last week. So, I guess it is sort of like taking a long weekend. I still feel pretty tired, but the medicine is starting to be able to get some control over the pain in my head. That has to be a good sign, right?

I still get tired out VERY quickly, though. I just took a shower and had to sit down for a bit afterwards. Franz was kind enough to take me out to go see a movie today. We saw "Sideways". A small independent film about two friends who go on a road trip before one is set to be married. It was a "real life" movie. The bad guy doesn't get his comeuppance, the good guy probably gets the girl (it isn't actually spelled out), and people get hurt with no consequences for the one who did the hurting. In short, the same thing that happens in real life everyday. All in all it was a pretty good film. Gave me a lot to think about, anyway.

I have been meaning to tell you all about something else that happened the other day that I thought was sad. I called my Dad to tell him that we would be moving to NZ and that I would probably be getting married next September or so. I asked him if he wanted to walk me down the aisle. He said he wasn't sure if he would be able to make the trip. Just so we are all on the same page, my Dad had a heart transplant a few years ago. He has been in and out of the hospital ever since. But he travels ALL THE TIME. Everytime I talk with him he is just getting back from some other state. But, ask him to walk me down the aisle, and he's not sure if he can make it. I would have thought that he would have said something all Hallmark, like "Just name the time and the place, and I'll be there my darling girl." Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I can't believe that I am 31 and I still get blindsided by how callous he can be. I can't believe I even had the shortsighted stupidity to actually ask him to walk me down the aisle. Why do I open myself up for people to hurt me? I will never understand that about myself.

Franz summed it up nicely when he met my father for the first time. After taking everything he knew about him into account (several days worth of data), he said, "Well, I think he's a putz." And that was it. His honest assessment. He didn't say it to be hurtful. I asked what he thought and he flat out told me. Honestly. The thing that I love the most about Franz is that he is pretty much always honest and always himself.

Franz is the first of my boyfriends not to like my father. And to be open about it. None of that "I think he's a great man" crap. All he saw was that my Dad said and did things that hurt my feelings and made me feel small. And, in his eyes, my Dad was a putz. It was that simple. It made me realize that Franz is someone who, amazingly enough, is just in my corner. I think I love Franz all the more for telling it to me like it is. For not coddling me and telling me that my father is a great guy. People who always tried to tell me how great my Dad was always made me feel worse, because if he was such a great guy and the things that he was saying were hurting me, then it means he must be telling the truth, right? If he is a wonderful man, with such great insight on the world, and he doesn't love me, or he thinks I am fat, or whatever... then it must be true. Franz has been the only man in my life to say that it just isn't that way. That my Dad is wrong. That I am worth more than that.

And that's why I love Franz. He makes me feel like I really am the person I always thought I was, without my father's interference and put downs. He makes me feel like I am worthy of being loved without having to perform within a certain set of narrow parameters. He makes me feel like I don't have to get straight A's, or be thinner, or smarter, or prettier, or more mannerly, or more sophisticated than I am. He says that he loves me the way that I am.

And I believe him.

That's all for now. I have to get some more sleep. I am going to go back to work tomorrow if it kills me.

Love to all,

Sherry