My father is a good man. I mean, he’s got his flaws. He’s a solopsist, making every situation about him. The family goes to a party at my mother’s “best friend’s” house. I’m maybe nine. My parents automatically push my sisters and me toward the other children, but the children are closer to my sisters’ ages. I’m too little, I don’t know how to ride a bike, and I don’t want to learn. But I brought a book with me. So no worries. I go inside, sit on the couch next to a table lamp, and I disappear into myself, into the book. Then I feel my world slip from my hands, and I watch it fly across the room. In that moment, time stops and my mind’s eye watches each page flap and flutter before a loud thump ends it all; freedom, and then nothing. A book on the floor.

It’s only then that I begin to wonder what just happened. I look from the book, follow its trail back to my lap, and then suddenly, in the playback of my memory, I recall a hand, very much like my father’s. I look up, and he’s towering over me. He’s angry, I see. And already yelling. My mind catches up.

Did he just call me abnormal in Spanish? I can’t believe what I’m seeing, the rage and disgust in his smile and his voice and his wild motions. Like a gorilla to this little body I’m inside.

And he says I’m todo alrebe, all backwards. I embarrass him.

Good. I’m glad I embarrassed him. That was the only recourse for a little girl like me, to be me always. In those seconds, if at no other time, was born a writer. Writing became a middle finger at my father. I’m not saying he made me better for his abuse: that would be a level of self-denial I’ve long since risen above. I’m saying, these little moments of abuse define me, and I like me. So I can’t feel bad about that anymore. What good is there in holding all that spite against him? He’s just a little boy who was himself parentified. And when it was his turn to be a father, that’s all he knew to do. He mimicked his father in ways he isn’t even fully conscious of, ways he’ll never be conscious of. He’s sad. Not pathetic, but like so many lives, a disappointment to the one who lived it.

He’d mess up, and he’d learn from it. But that doesn’t mean the damage was undone because he learned his lesson. To make matters worse, some lessons never stuck. So he’s not off the hook completely. I blame only him for not addressing those faults more effectively.

But see how fair of a picture that is of him? Do you see the evenness of my perception now? He has his good parts, but he also has his bad. In short, he’s human. I finally accepted my father’s humanity. Is this a common thing to experience? I mean, plenty of movies portray the moment a kid finds out their father is an asshole, but are there an equal many movies that portray the moment where a kid understands Dad isn’t a prick; he’s just Willy Loman, doing all he can with the limitations set by his prejudices.

So now I suddenly have the skill to hold a conversation with him. We’ve been getting along a lot better since I stopped thinking he’s a prick. Last time we spoke, he talked to me as one adult does to another. He’s always been straight with his children, but I think I’m finally old enough to understand he’s not being a prick. He’s just fucked up

–like everyone else.