The Family that Guilt Built.
My Dad works ridiculously hard. Even though he’s in an office job, he wakes up at 5 am every day, is away from home at least 4 days a week (we currently live in scotland, and he is based 4 hours away in Leeds), supports his wife and two daughters; one of whom has major issues with depression and the like (myself), and my sister. He’s done this without complaint for at least a year, and has put me and sis through private education, done without so we could have over the years and supported our musical endeavours over the years without question.
The past weekend has been pretty ridiculous. My sister’s car was involved in a serious accident (thankfully she’s ok), and my boyfriend had to come and get me from a gig I was doing in Edinburgh after he’d been at work for 8 hours, as my mum and dad were in Yorkshire looking for a house. Due to some fiscal problems my sisters had which I’m not going to go into, lets just say an issue with the insurance has appeared, and as a result my dad’s ending up paying for the repairs.
All of a sudden, Dad is feeling incredibly selfish that him and mum are moving a few hours away because of our family’s history of things going tits up, especially with sis doing daft things with money and my history of depressive episodes. Factor in my lack of driving skills, a job, and our nearest family being 30 miles away (I’m Glasgow based, family is near edinburgh based), poor man is freaking out in case something happens and thinks he’s being selfish.
Of course I’ll be sad that my family is far away from me, but I’d rather my dad didn’t work himself to death driving for more hours in a week than he does sleep because of “what if…..”. The guilt if he did feel the need to stay for my benefit would compound my guilt and inferiority complex so badly, I doubt I’d be able to cope.
Very few times have I seen my Dad cry; and every time it breaks my heart.
