Confrontation and the Empowerment that Comes from Being Willing to do Battle.

Was he sulking! Or was it anger?

I was never sure with my father’s moods. He was like a volcano. At moments, I would look up to him as he was what I wanted to become and what I wanted to look up too.

Comparing my mother’s … over the top, constant states of emotional distress and anxiety … to my father’s powerful composure and obvious charisma, it was not a difficult choice as to who I wanted to emulate.
My father was a powerful force when he entered a room. Any room! Whether it be a Boardroom or a party, he was the “Man!”
Everyone loved my father. He was always smiling, and he always had a quick comeback or joke.
The room lit up when he entered.
There was no one that did not admire and love my father. Not only was he smart but he was a very good guy. He had a level of commitment and follow through that I hoped to also emulate and show in this world.
His word counted for a lot.
Unbeknownst to me, he was actually understated for all of the influence and power that he managed to carry on his very broad shoulders. Most of what he did and who was is still a mystery and will remain a mystery forever. Very few people would ever really know who my father was deep inside.
My father was one of those major players during the Cold War. He and his cohorts had a level of security and kept the top secrets of the United States in such high regard that they all died with those secrets.
I respected my father. I always respected him.
Even when I did not know what he actually did until I lived in Berlin, there was always an air of mystery the surrounded him. Having him as a father honed my intuitive skills because I lived in a house of secrets with uncomfortable dramas that were forever pulling at the tenuous threads that kept our family together.
I am pretty sure that my father kept much from my mother as well.
That was because she was always on the edges of a nervous breakdown. Most of the wives of the men my father worked with were all raging alcoholics. My mother fortunately never really went in that direction. Probably because she was too much of a control freak.
And that probably saved us all if I really look at it.
I had lived with a father who was constantly gone, or at least 6 plus months out of the year he was unavailable to be reached by phone or letter.
And my mother held the fort together in the most obvious ways that allowed for our reality to look (from the outside) fairly normal.
But there was no way that so many secrets could be hidden and kept without them creating in me, a type of intuitive curiosity and a desire to get to the bottom of things.
Like I said, my father was like a volcano. You look up to the power and magnitude of a volcano. It has a perfect cone shape. It has a white and startlingly brilliant top that draws your attention. But we admire a volcano more than regular mountains because it is alive! It shakes and rattles the ground under your feet, and it will occasionally blow its top!
My father’s moods were just like that volcano. You knew something was up because there was this rumbling that we could feel under the surface. And that tension would build up and continue to build up until it would eventually explode in a very dramatic way.
My going to New York City for that last year, caused quite a rumble. He was adamantly against me going. He did not know that to get the money, my mother (who worked for the bank that held our mortgage) took out the money from our escrow account.
I also did not know this was what she had done. But when she gave me that money for that last summer, she said, “You need to be very careful with this money! This is all I could come up with without alarming your father. So be very careful and do not squander it while you are in New York.”
And I had not! I even came back with a few hundred dollars from that last adventure at SAB.
But now, I get this job in Berlin and my father cannot seem to decide if he wants to be proud of me or pissed that I was not going to go to college.
School was the most important thing to him.
Ballet was some frivolous hobby that would really not go anywhere, nor pay me what I needed to survive.
Once I got back from New York, my mother and I were a flurry of motion. There was so much to do and many layers to address just to get myself organized enough to get to Berlin. So much was an unknown and answers were not very forthcoming. It was difficult to get answers to basic questions from the Berlin Ballet, about cost of living in Berlin and what the salary was going to be for me there.
I did not have a signed contract from the Berlin Ballet, and this made my father very nervous. We finally got a signed letter of intent. Meaning that once I got there, they promised I would have a position.
This did not exactly satisfy my exacting father, but it was enough for him to back off of trying to dissuade me from going.
He had been skulking about for weeks and in quite a sullen mood, when he finally came up to me after dinner, he did so with a serious look on his face and a tone that could cut steel. He said, “I am giving you a Gold American Express card. This is not a plaything. This is only to be used in an emergency! Do you understand? Let me define an emergency. If I call you and tell you to get out of Berlin immediately, I want you to drop everything, leave all your possessions, grab the basics, your purse, your passport, and this card and go to the airport and buy the first plane ticket out of Berlin. I do not care about the cost of that ticket. Get the first ticket you can and go anywhere in Europe. Just get out of Berlin. Do you understand? Are you clear about what I am asking of you?”
Stunned, I stand there with my mouth open and nod my head in agreement.
But that was not good enough for him in that current mood.

He repeated, “I need your verbal consent that you understand what I just told you. Please repeat what I just told you, so I know that you completely understand.”
I repeat his statement and I say everything he said with the same determination and tone that he exercised in that moment.
Fortunately, I have a sort of photographic recall for things spoken and music.
Satisfied he nodded in agreement that I had done a satisfactory rendition of his statement.
Then with equal solemnity, he pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. Then says, “Inside is a thousand dollars in cash. You are going to need some money once you get there to get things set up. Just know that I do not approve of your choice nor to a think this is a wise move for you. But I know I can’t stop you. But know this! Until you come to your senses and let go of this childish ballerina dream, this will be the last money you ever get from me! Ever! Also, inside is a round trip ticket for you to come back home when you realize how foolish and selfish you are being. This is also the last plane ticket I will buy for you. This choice is yours and yours alone. You will have to live with the consequences of your actions. You will have to learn the hard way for this grownup lesson to make any sense. Life is not a ballet. Life is not a stage. Life is work and effort and life requires you to put childish dreams aside. You clearly have not yet figured that out. But I believe that you will eventually come to your senses and come home and go back to school.”
He hands me the envelope with the ticket and the money and in that moment, I know that I will never ask my father for money ever again. I recognize that I would rather starve than ask him for money and get this type of tongue lashing every time.
Besides I knew deep inside that I could and would survive.
I even arrogantly believed that I could thrive and fly.
But I knew that I would not share my failures with him. I knew I could only share my successes with him. And I understood that those successes might not feel like a win in his book.
In that moment, I reflected on an argument that I had had with my father when I was about 13 years old.
He was again screaming at me because he did not want me to do ballet. He was saying, “Do you know how many little girls want to be famous ballerinas and how many really make it? This is a huge waste of money and time. And for what? For you to perpetuate some illusion that is fleeting and will never generate financial security?”
But deep inside, there was a fire that burned bright … even back then. I knew that my father did not respect weakness and I knew that I had to stand up to my father.
Because what I wanted the most from him … was his respect.
He did not respect my mother, nor did he really respect women in general. He lumped us all together in sort of a category of either, “stupid kids” or “crazy women.”
I stood my ground and looked him right in the eyes, my hands on my hips, my feet spread hip width apart and with a fire in my eyes and a force stronger than my body, I said, “Dad! I don’t want to become an old woman, saying, “I could have been a famous ballerina if my father had just let me. You know why I don’t want to be that old woman? Because that would mean that I would have hated you for my whole life and I do not want to hate you for the rest of my life. Ballet is a young person’s profession. We all know that we cannot dance forever. We know that eventually our body will fall apart, and we will have to change professions. But I want to have that be my choice … NOT YOURS! This is my life … Not yours! If it is my mistake to make, it will be mine and mine alone. It is a terrible thing you do to try to tear down a person’s dream. I would never do that to you because I love you. If you continue to do this, it tells me that you do not love me and that you never did love me. And that is a terrible thought that I do not want to believe!”
I remember, his tirade stopped suddenly with the shock registering in his face. He heard me! He got it! He was stunned at my clarity and that he could not further bully me without me coming to a conclusion that was not true. And that conclusion was that to me, his actions meant that he actually did not love me. And I saw in his face that me believing that he did not love me was a thought that would torture him, and he was not quite ready to risk that.
The conversation ended then and there. We both walked away.
His volcano had blown its top, but he did not know that standing next to him was another volcano. He had just met his match and while I felt in that moment vindicated and right. I also knew that deep inside my father was a very sensitive and caring dad. I knew that he saw that spark and light inside me. I knew he just wanted to direct its course.
But I have always been a light that was guided not by the hands and minds of others. I have been a light that was guided by impulse, inspiration, passion, determination, and truth.
Even as a young person I knew that I could never give up my own truth. I could never sell myself out for some sort of fame and fortune. And I would never be able to not stand up to those that wanted to use their power to gain an unfortunate advantage over others.
I was going to Berlin! I was going to claim my dream. I was going to find where I belonged. I was going to become some manifestation of the light and love that I carried inside.
I would not let my father’s projections stop me.
Little did I know that my father resistance was setting the stage for something that would become the rudder on my ship. I was learning to believe in myself regardless of how much resistance I encountered. I was learning to believe in something inside that was greater than my body and more powerful than my own ego.
There was a truth inside me that was awake and would guide me through many more challenges and adventures. She was fearless in the face of fear. She was powerful in the face of those with fame and fortune. She was ancient and understood the nature of humanity and how this world grows and evolves. And she now knew that she was ready for whatever Berlin was going to offer up.
Life was going to carry me off many cliffs and it already had. And I was not afraid of what was in front of me, because I knew that somehow, I could and would endure.
~Suzanne Wagner~