Vanity (Pride)

Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

All hell broke loose on 9/29/19. In my family growing up my dad was always the type of parent to demand respect. He even went as far as telling me “you may not love me, but you damn well going to respect me”. This went along with no talking back, under your breath, and even raising your voice was out of the question. Still till this day we still hold a level of respect that stops us from cussing in front of him. Only on this day it was different.

My dad had called me and my boyfriend over to help on a business case. He is not TEC savvy so every once in a while I help him out. For a while now we were going over my dad’s house around 6 pm and leaving at 1-2 am. When we leave my dad’s house we go to my boyfriend’s mother house. Can you imagine your kid showing up to your house at 2 am in the morning waking you out of bed because they don’t live there and don’t have a key?

His mother and husband, Husband more than anything asked us nicely to stop showing up to their house so late. To try to show his parents respect I would try to get my boyfriend to leave my dad’s house at 11pm each night. This never happened! Ugh!

My boyfriend was perfectly OK with annoying his own parents just to hang out with my dad and drink. It would be a dragged out process of my begging my boyfriend to leave for a hour straight if not longer before we actually made it out the door. Not to mention that by time we did leave I was left looking like the party pooper, who did not want to spend any time with my dad. Normally the fight would stay between my boyfriend and I, only this day my dad jumped in.

Instead of getting to my dad’s house at 6pm like normal we showed up at 4pm and he wasn’t home. We sat listening to his fiance talk about her week while my dad was off cutting a tree down. For the next couple of hours he was running in and out the house going to the neighbor’s house. It was probably around 6pm before he sat still and started telling me about the case he wanted my help with. By this time he had a beer open and not paying any attrition to the case I was working on so I packed my laptop up.

Like if you call me over to work on something I expect you to tell me what you need of me and to make sure I’m doing what you ask, to your liking. Whatever fine. So we sit there while they guys drink and play dominoes. I had not eaten that day and got nothing done with the case.

So when the clock struck 11 I started my normal, “Are you ready to go yet?” This like most nights turns into a fight, my dad jumps in and basically takes over the fight between my boyfriend and I. So here my dad is yelling at me and calling me a child, while mocking me in a baby voice when I asked “why do I have to stay here”. Keep in mind that I got there at 4pm for a case and now its 12am. I’m grown, I drove us here.

The fact I could not leave or that my boyfriend didn’t care to respect his own parents like always was just blowing my mind. My bestie was like “just leave him there”. That is just not in me to take off in my boyfriend’s car and leave him at my dad’s house. I was soooo tempted that day but I didn’t. He was drunk and it just felt wrong to leave him drunk. Which, you can imagine that that was making me even angrier to be trapped.

Anyway so me and my dad stood there yelling at the top of our lungs while my boyfriend sat there watching. I’m sorry but if your Spouse/partner/significant other wants to leave their OWN parents house to the point its causing a fight between everyone than its time to get up and leave. My dad’s thing is in trying to respect one household I end up disrespecting another. To me if we got up and left at a respectful hour then we could leave and respect both households. Here is one better for ya, we could go home at 2am instead of to his mother house. Another story for another time tho.

With Pride being my second biggest sin it took me two months before speaking to him. It stopped me from even wanting to admit that I was in the wrong for cussing and yelling at him. I knew that my dad would not call to check on me and that made me not want to check on him. My brothers came down for thanksgiving and begged that we showed up for dinner. So for them I showed up and my dad walked over and gave me a hug. I play the day over in my head and get disappointed all over again.