An Edge I Can Not Hold Onto
When my dad was about my age, in his twenties, he regularly worked night shifts at a pizza place to make ends meet while he finished college. Sometimes, I picture him walking back to his dorm room after one of his midnight shifts, counting his tips and dreaming of how they would provide a future for his first child. I wonder if he would have still wished for me had he known I would put the flaws of his parenting on display.
My name is River, and I am an adult child, meaning I grew up in a dysfunctional household and moved out with a suitcase of emotional damage. Growing up, I became deeply attached to my emotionally absent father. I love all of my dad; even if there are parts of me he will never have the capacity to learn how to love. My father is an oblivious expert at making false promises to my mother and me. He promised love, security, and honesty, to which he delivered the bare minimum. I wholeheartedly believe that this was not his intention, and rather, he merely doesn’t have the ability to live up to his word. Over the years, due to his inability to be available, I began keeping my dad at arm’s length. But when a tangible version of him enters the room, the boundaries I've trained myself to hold up evaporate.
I experienced this recently when I accepted a position last summer as a swim instructor at a local gym. A former manager of mine, who has become a close friend to me over the years, sent a glowing recommendation about me to the hiring manager. A week or so after she sent the email, the hiring manager reached out to me with a welcoming interview request. I still remember his warm smile when I shook his hand before walking into the conference room. During the interview, he asked me expected questions about my experience and threw some possible swim instructor scenarios at me to get an idea of how I teach. I immediately noticed a strong pull towards him. It was so much so that I knew if I got his offer, that I would decline the few other opportunities awaiting my response, and that was exactly what happened.
It wasn’t long until I found myself becoming attached to his warm and humorous disposition, an echo of the man who brought me into this world. Within a couple of months, the unwavering work ethic I inherited from my father shined through in my job performance, garnering flattering praise from my manager. I began overextending myself with ease and grabbing any opportunity to gain his approval.
During the time that I was working at his gym, I was going through some personal difficulties. Like a primal instinct, I found myself confiding in my manager, to which he responded by sharing some of his related life experiences with me. We grew closer with each conversation, and I found myself unable to hold back from looking forward to those anticipated encounters. I still recall when he surprised me with a cake for my birthday and would sweetly check in on me every time I was having a bad day. I remember the encouragement and positive feedback he gave me after I went as far as sharing a poetry collection with him, which was themed around my fraught relationship with my father. My emotional attachment to him made it easy for me to rationalize tense and even inappropriate situations I would hear about or witness between him and some other staff members. I still remember demanding the twist in my stomach to relax when my boss said, “You’re a great person and a great swim instructor. I care more about the second part.” I must’ve had a look on my face because he nervously laughed it off and said he was joking. At that time, I forced a smile but never forgot his comment.
A couple of months into my time at this gym, an opportunity for a higher-level position opened up, and my boss encouraged me to apply. Although he made it obvious that he wanted to select me, others in the upper management weighed their differing opinions, and the position was given to another candidate. I was disappointed but took this development in stride, keeping in mind that we can’t win everything, and was genuinely happy for the candidate who had received and accepted the position. The next day, I felt hope again when my manager promised that when the next leadership opportunity would arise, it would go to me. He also told me that he would give me a raise after two months.
However, a couple of weeks later, when another experienced instructor was onboarded, my manager created a new leadership role and gave it to her. His decision felt like a slap in the face. I tried again to rationalize his actions as I had done on several other occasions but found my efforts unsuccessful this time. A few weeks after the missed due date of my pay raise passed, one of the coordinators on the management team resigned. When my manager told me about this personally, I waited for him to ask me if I was interested in the role. Several moments of silence passed, and I felt my heart fall to the floor like a penny sinking to the bottom of a wishing well. When he didn’t speak up, I left his office and eased the hurt I felt by saying he would reach out soon.
After a couple of days went by, and I didn’t hear from him, I pulled out my phone in the evening and began scrolling through coordinator positions online, as I had been doing on and off for a couple of months. It was then that I came across his post about the job opening. I immediately put my phone down and forced back tears. Before going to bed, I drafted and sent an email to him with a professional explanation describing my concerns about feeling undervalued, unsupported, and overlooked. That night, I had a dream about my father. He was at a pizza place tossing a spinning circle of dough in the air. I was outside of the restaurant, watching him through the glass door. When I looked at the area behind him, I saw that part of his apron was stuck in the oven and had caught fire. I immediately yanked on the door, but I couldn’t open it. Panic rose into my throat, and I slammed my hands onto the glass, screaming all the air out of my lungs. My father continued to dress the pizza, unaware of the flames rising behind him. I raised my fist and punched the door so hard it cracked, and that’s when I woke up.
In the morning, on the drive to an interview for a leadership position at another organization, my manager texted me, saying he was considering me for the coordinator position and hinted at some of the other points I had brought up in my email. I swiped the message away and kept driving. After the interview, I received an email from him saying that his text was not a response to my email, along with excuses about the delay in providing me the pay raise. My manager finished his message by reiterating that he would like me to apply for the position.
When I didn’t reply with my regular promptness, he tried calling me and approached me during my following shift, both of which I gently pushed aside and said that I needed more time before I could discuss the issue further. A day later, I replied to my manager politely, informing him that I felt like an afterthought when I read his text and that I had a hard time believing his email. I concluded by expressing my deep fondness for him and saying I would like to resign with three weeks of notice. He replied right away with another series of excuses, some of which were written in an accusatory tone. He ended the email by saying he would like me to reconsider my resignation. Not once did he apologize. The part of my manager’s message that brought tears to my eyes was a poem he attached about swimming and mental health. He’d written it when he was about my age.
When I again didn’t respond with my usual turnaround time, he texted me asking if I had received his email. I said yes, and he told me to consider extending my last day should I choose to resign. That was the last straw for me.
The next morning, I received an email update from the manager of the other organization. She said she would like to move forward with the hiring process and asked that I keep an eye out for the offer letter. Because I had already negotiated a start date with her that accounted for the three weeks of notice I had given to my other boss, I sent him a formal resignation letter without extending my last day.
That night, after my swim lessons, I copied and pasted the poem he sent me onto another document. I coated the stanzas in a nicer font and decorated the page with a water-themed border before sending the design to him. It was my way of saying that I still care about him. He never replied, and I immediately grew anxious about the possibility of losing him forever. I felt like I was fumbling in the dark, desperately hoping my hand would find the handle of the door he had slammed in my face.
I reached out to my friend, who had recommended me to my manager. I’d been keeping her posted about the conflicts that had been unfolding. “Do you think he will keep in touch with me?” I texted her. She replied by sharing her experience working at a pizza place, where she had become emotionally attached to a boss who filled a void that her absent father had left behind. My friend ended her message by saying, “His decision to keep in touch or not is not a reflection on you or your worth.” It was at that moment when I realized the title of my manager’s poem, The Water's Edge, reminded me that I had once again found myself gripping the cusp of something I could not hold onto.
