When I say I am my father's child, I mean that in so much more than just the biological sense. I share many physical, mental, and behavioural traits with my dad. We have the same bone structure (fine, with especially small wrists), face shape (round, with chubby cheeks), nose (hooked), and mouth (small upper lip, full lower one). My hair is similarly coloured--we both started out with almost black, curly hair, lightened to a medium dark brown with lots of waves, and have/will have more white hair than not by the time we hit/will hit forty.
We both started out as cautious optimists and turned into full fledged cynical pessimists by our early thirties. We both get extreme muscular pain when stressed and our body literally clams up. We both had our first ulcer (but far from our last) before we hit twenty. Our family is our primary source of strength and insipration--we love no one and nothing, certainly not ourselves, more than family. Our family is also the primary source of our weakness and fear-- we dread the thought of seeing them hurt or losing them. When we say we'd die for our family, we mean that quite literally.
We're very careful of people's feelings, in general, and will tolerate a lot, especially if it means deflecting that lot from someone else. We're not easily provoked and turn the other cheek even if it was just slapped five minutes ago. But...we can both hold grudges long past anyone else even remembers there is a grudge to hold. We can have a vicious tongue that can shred a person's dignity to pieces and then delight in stomping around on those pieces. And when we reach our boiling point and see that little flash of red, we're your worst nightmare.
We've both got memories that can recall conversations and situations at the drop of a hat and can give you bit by bit playbacks. We're both very good at remembering people's names--he does it through voice association and I do it through face association. We both talk over other people all the time, and carry on a conversation and listen to another one without missing a beat. We both exercise selective hearing regularly.
We're both aware that our alikeness is the main reason we fight so much. We can call bullshit on each other better than anyone else.
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Our similarity is a great source of pride to my dad: here is a whole carving off the old block. It is also a great source of worry to him: he knows of the general problems that lie ahead of me, especially marital and/or career related, because they will be of my own doing, repeating history.
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My father has told me, not once but several times, that when he smoked, he did so because he truly enjoyed it. It may have started as cool thing to do around his friends (check) and then supposedly a crutch for dealing with stress (check), but the truth was, deep down he liked smoking (check! check!). He liked the taste, the first smell that hits your nostril when you light up, the warm whoosh down the throat and up back through the nose (check, except I never perfected that particular exhalation method). He quit cold turkey because he decided one day he just didn't want to do it any more (check). He never went back to it, despite 35 odd years of smoking and hasn't had a cigarette since the day after my 14th birthday (there was no significance attached to the event, it just happened to be the day after). I'm 34 now.
Sorry, Dad, I know you were happy to share counting the years with me (eight this November), but you're going to have to claim will power all by yourself.
