Wrestling with MY Father.

In class this week we had to read "Arm Wrestling with My Father", a piece by Brad Manning. While I went into the reading with little hope of any deeper takeaway, (I mean the piece is titled "Arm Wresting with My Father"), I came out of it in tears. As I read I found myself sinking deeper and deeper, until Manning's words could have been my own.

When I was young I used to play a game with my father, he's a wrestling coach so it was much to his strength, where he would lock his arms around me, and intertwine his fingers as tight as he could. My goal was to break this hold, and free myself from his grasp. I would giggle and smile as I tried, sometimes fruitlessly, to escape. At the beginning he would always let me win, after some struggle and squirming to be sure. But later, when I grew older, my efforts would grow meaner; it was no longer simple fun that made me strive to break his grip. I would win, but there would be no giggling, no smiles. Eventually the game stopped all together, and our relationship withered with it. I began to see his flaws, his misgivings, more than his virtues, and some part of me resented him.

I did not plan a falling out with my father. I do not consciously try to snap at him. But like our game, once fun and silly, where I would run back into his arms laughing, "Again! Again!" our relationship is no longer the same.

I wish there was some way for me to close this gap between us, to play the game again in that same childish manner, but I don't think there is a way. Surely we can mend our wounds, but I am grown now, neither of us are the same.

While reading the piece in class, the words could have been my own. And I cried because of it.