Missing Each Other

Abstract

In “Seeking Father” ( Adams, 2006 ), I used a relational perspective to understand the relationship I have with my father—a perspective that conceived of our relationship as a co-constitutive endeavor in which we each affected the other, and a perspective that showed how our conflict emerged as a product of joint interaction, of us being, working, and relating—together. In this project, I continue a similar trajectory. I use a relational perspective to describe moments when my father and I miss each other—moments when I long for him and when I perceive him to long for me, moments when we fail to connect, moments when we hurt and are hurt by each other but neither one of us ever deciding to quit, moments in which we practice stifling communicative patterns and moments in which we both seek love. May be we’re both in love, somehow.