The Particular Sadness of Everything

My birth father has been occupying a peripheral role in my life for the last 2 and half months. As with all long lost people, I've held him out at a distance, admiringly, but not really convinced of his ability to achieve permanence. I have negotiated my life without him up to this point, and we both agree that his not being in my life was better for me. In the least defensive way possible, I don't require much. I have always believed that this is the most advantageous position in a relationship, that if a relationship is going to take, neither person can come to it with needs that overburden the fledgling phase. at the outset I decided that if he ever stopped calling. . .