When I was a kid, my parents were never "together."
My Dad wasn't really around much, mainly because my Mom and I had moved out of our home town and went 4 hours away.. I wish my parents were together. I get jealous of other people sometimes when they talk about going to see their parents, or when they talk about growing up with both parents. I feel like I missed out on a lot.
I lived with my mother most of the time, and I would go spend every summer with my Dad, which was great for a while.
I remember we used to go out on the three-wheeler and go up the hill behind Grammies house and get to this big field with this one GIANT oak tree. It was beautiful. There was no other tree's around that one. It was completely isolated in the field. I remember it being amazing to me. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Sometimes when I get upset, I think back to that field, that tree.. the warm breeze. I remember the smell. So fresh. The birds singing and the sun. It was magical, really. It's my happy place. I remember the summer that the oak tree was struck by lightning. I was really upset. The tree was completely ruined. Split almost perfectly down the middle. I remember Macky (my Dad's dad, technically my grandfather, but I'm not getting into why I call him by his name instead of grampy) took me up on his four-wheeler to see it, and he would sing to me "The old oak tree, she ain't what she used to be.." Broke my heart to see the most perfect thing I'd ever seen, destroyed over night.
As I got older, the trips to my Dad's in the summer seemed to get awkward. My Dad would go out with his friends and I would be alone with my grandparents, or with my cousin at my Uncle Clinton's house next door. I wanted to stay home and play with my friends, not be in Perth. I found it got boring after a few weeks, because I was getting used to being in the city and having so many things to do so close to home rather than being in the country. I think my Dad resented that.
My Dad and Mom started in a custody battle when I was 7. It went on for years. I remember the mean and hurtful things that they would say about each other. My Dad's mother was the worst for it. I understand that she doesn't like my mother, but some of the things she would say, would hurt me too. The way I looked at it was that I came from my mother, I am part of her, and she is part of me. When they would say mean and hateful things about my mother, they would hurt me too, because in a way it would reflect on me as well. Over time, after hearing the lawyers talk, and my parents talk and what everyone had to say, I wanted it to end. I was so tired of it.
I wrote my Dad a letter. I told him that I wanted him to stop, I told him that I wanted to live with my Mom and stay where I was and stay at the school I was at because I actually had friends there. I told him that what he was saying about my Mom was wrong, and hurtful to me.
I told him that he was dead to me... I was only 8..
I can't believe I said that to him.
At the time, my head had been filled with lies by "The Angry Giant" (If you read my last blog you understand that) He told me that my dad was saying things that he actually wasn't..
I went 10 years without talking to my Dad. It actually really bothered me. I would think about him often, I would wonder if he ever thought about me, if he ever wondered what I was like now, if he ever thought to try to contact me.. It used to eat at me.
When I started dating my then boyfriend, I remember talking to him about my dad, and about how I wanted to talk to him again. He helped me write a letter. We went and parked in the middle of winter, by the beach and watched the water and I had my laptop and I just wrote down everything that I felt. I added my dad on Facebook, and got his email. I sent him the email, with every thought and feeling I had ever had in it. It was so scary waiting to see if he would respond.
I had asked him if he remembered me, if he ever thought about me.
He finally responded and we started talking more. It was great. He came down to visit me, and it was a little awkward. I didn't know if he would even like who I had become. It had been 10 years. A lot happens to a person in 10 years. By that point I had already thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I talked to him about my life, about my goals, I told him about my boyfriend..
I over heard him talking to my mom the next morning. They didn't know I was awake yet. He asked my mom if I was pregnant. That hurt. He said that I was overweight. He started trying to tell me what I should do with my life.
"You should study psychiatry"
"You should study philosophy"
etc. Thats not what I wanted to do. I understand that he probably just wanted to best for me, but at the time I looked at it like, you've been out of my life for 10 years, didn't try to contact me, and now you are trying to direct my life? I didn't like it.
Things are a little better now, I think he has realized that I am going to go down my own path, that I am a grown woman now. Sometimes I wish we talked more. However life doesn't always allow time for it. Sometimes it's hard to get ahold of him because he doesn't stay home often, and I try to stay busy. I try to tell him about my goals and my aspirations, and sometimes I feel like he doesn't care. He doesn't really have much to say about it, and I don't understand. I think I over think a lot of things.. I just really wished that my dad was in my life growing up. I have a lot of regret. Telling my dad I wanted nothing to do with him is one of the things I regret. I love my dad, he's the only one I have. I can never make up for the 10 years lost, but I can build a new relationship with him. I probably don't really try as hard as I could to keep in contact with him.. I should change that. I just always get caught up in my own stuff that I forget that I haven't emailed or called him in a while. It makes me feel bad. I need to remind myself that I need to keep him in the loop because that's the only way I am going to start to rebuild what I lost. I wish he came to visit more, or that I went to see him more.. but losing 10 years... it changes a relationship. It's like trying to get to know a stranger that you only see once in a while. It's hard. I wish he tried harder too. I wish he accepted me for who I am.
There's a lot of things I wish I could tell him that I am too afraid to.
I miss him.
I'm sorry for everything. I'm trying to fix it, I just don't know how. I feel like I've let too much time go by. I don't know what to do anymore.. It's so frustrating and confusing.
*sigh*
I love you Dad. I always have. <3
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