So it's 11:30pm on a Saturday night. I've just woken up from an unintended nap and remembered that I need to re-twist the top of my head (I have my hair in passion twists and my hair keeps wanting to slide out the extensions). I get up. Go to the bathroom and get started, and then that's when it happens.
My mind began to drift to thoughts of my dad. It wasn't the first time in the past couple of months since we ended our relationship that I've thought of him. I've come to realize that in truth I miss him. Not the man he is now, but the man I adored growing up.
The man who taught me how to tie a tie every time I asked until I finally remembered. The man who would watch college football with me on Saturdays and the Lions play on Sundays. The man I had Barnes & Noble dates or movie dates with. The man who would bring me York peppermint patties and Andes mint chocolate candy. The man who I would wait until he would fall asleep looking at the mail after getting off work and I would poke his stomach (because his grunt for some reason reminded me of poking the Pillsbury dough boy) and then crawl into his lap while he went back to sleep. The man who taught me how to clean the fat from ribs, season my meats, make mashed potatoes, make my famous redskin potatoes, and cook broccoli the way I like. The man who I used to sing Always and Forever by Heatwave with as well as many jingles from commercials. The man who I wanted to be like so bad as a kid that I cut myself trying to shave like him.
And in thinking about the last few conversations I had with my dad, and the way he didn't fight for me...I just started crying. And my first thought was, "damn it TyRonda, you should have bought that Harry Potter journal you saw at Walmart (I didn't buy it because I tend to buy journals, write in them a few times, then never again). And so I decided to write my feelings here.
Most people who are friends with me on FB know that a couple of years ago my dad's wife and I had a falling out. Most people know of the tension that has developed with my dad's marriage to her, but many are not aware of how my dad and I got to where we are. Well, this separation was a long time coming. For 12 years I tried to put up with him and his wife's antics. I forgave him for the time he didn't tell me he was engaged until the night I just so happened to meet her for the first time, only because my cousin who was in town for my sweet 16th birthday party wanted to meet her and I went along for the ride. I forgave him for the time he didn't tell me he was trying to have an expedited wedding just 4 months later and I found out by chance. I forgave him for the time he allowed my cousins and I to be stranded on the side of the freeway in scorching heat when my cousin's car overheated because they needed to go look at China for the wedding. I forgave him for my senior year where he showed up late to my pinning ceremony, left early from my graduation, only saw me for 5 minutes before I went to prom, left early from my graduation party, dropped me off at college without making sure I had food to get by on, and for all the times I desperately needed money my first couple of years in college and he always didn't have it.
Through all of those experiences, I still tried to be a good daughter. It was definitely hard and we had our spats. But I would continuously think back on how much this man meant to me, that I would continue to endure his neglect.
I don't know how to explain how terrible he made me feel over the years. There were many days where I felt like I was an outsider. Like I didn't belong to my own family. I would find out about events that he never discussed with me. For instance, his mother-in-law called me one day to ask if I was going to the grandmother's birthday party. They had rented out a hall and wanted to know if I would be in attendance because she hadn't been notified. It felt odd to tell her I had no clue about any of it. I wasn't surprised though because it wasn't the first time that had happened. Even within the past year I've had to experience that. The grandmother wanted to do something nice for me, so she sent me a check for $1,000. I was so shocked and excited I called her to thank her. While chatting with her, she mentions that they are all going on a trip and she's packing. And I remember how my stomach jumped into my throat when she said "but I know you know all about that," thinking my dad had told me, and he had said not a word.
But it wasn't just the lack of being informed that made me feel like an outsider. It was all the times when my dad and I made plans to hang out but yet we couldn't go to his house. We always had to go somewhere out the house like to eat or to the movies, because his wife wasn't up for company. It was also finding out while working for his wife that there were people in their lives who had no clue I existed. I remember one client of hers I just adored asking me if I had siblings. I mentioned my sister then remembered my little adopted brother, and when I mentioned him, I saw the look of shock on her face realizing I was her massage therapist's stepdaughter who she never mentioned in all the years of knowing her. I had to experience that again when a couple came in for a couple's massage and the husband asked where did they find me (realizing I was a new face), and the look of shock on his and his wife's face when I said that I was her (my dad's wife) husband's daughter from his first marriage. It seemed that they didn't even know my dad had been previously married, yet at that time they had supposedly knew my dad and his wife for 6 years and had been to their home a few times for dinner. And speaking of their home, it's very peculiar to walk around and see tons of pics of your little brother but the only picture of you in the house is a small, wallet size picture of you and your sister from one Christmas when you were a toddler. But I also felt left out because even when it came to holidays like Father's Day, we couldn't just hang out with our dad. If she had things planned for the day then we couldn't see him. We usually either got to see him Father's Day or his birthday which was a week after, but never both. And sometimes we didn't see him at all on those days. There were even Christmases when we didn't get to see him. And all of that compounded just made me feel like a non-factor in my dad's life
And I couldn't believe that I could feel this way when it came to the man who raised me. The man I adored, and just desperately wanted to be loved by. So much so I put up with the bare minimum from him. For instance, in high school the year he was engaged, I decided to run track. I knew I could run and I would be good at it, but honestly I hated sports because I hated staying after school for practice. But I did it because I knew my dad loved track and ran when he was in high school. I thought if I did this then I wouldn't lose him, because I could feel myself losing him. And now I can't even remember if my dad even came to any of my track meets. But yet I can remember the time he showed up over an hour late on a hot day to pick me up from practice, just laughing and giggling with his wife as if I hadn't been sitting out in the sun waiting for them. And yet I accepted that neglect because I didn't want to lose him.
I tried so hard to look past these things. I even tried to look past the fact that at their wedding no one on her side knew my dad had children (my sister was a bridesmaid by the way of which I refused to do). But I tried to look past these things because I wanted to stay connected to him. And there was actually a time when we were good. I was even cool with his wife kind of. For a brief period of time, I actually felt like I belonged to their family. But I quickly was made aware that I wasn't.
When my dad's wife and I fell out, I sat down with him at a restaurant a week later and told him I would no longer have a relationship with her, but would maintain one with him, and he agreed. But after that (February), I had only seen my dad one time before I moved to Arizona at the end of that September. That one time, I had just started working at the Sam's Club he sometimes frequented so that I could save up money for the move, when he ran in to get something. Other than that, my dad knew I would be moving across the country, and never once during that time said that we should hang out. In fact, the month of September, I had to keep reaching out to him to see if we could set up a time to see each other before I left. And I was disappointed when we finally did because at the end of the night, he wanted to tell me that I was wrong for making a FB status about his wife insulting my work ethic, claiming that I was the worst employee that she ever had when the places I worked before and after her told me I was one of their best. I felt cheated. Like your wife disrespects me, lies on me and my mother, cheats me out of money, accuse me of stealing money from her, basically calls me incompetent, and made me cry after going off on me for 45 minutes, and yet I'm wrong for noting that she lied about my work ethic because other jobs I had worked for commended me. It was then that I knew our relationship was over.
I called my dad up a couple of days and later and told him, but he convinced me to maintain the bond. I moved to Arizona, I heard from my dad all of 11 days before I stopped hearing from him again. I came home for Christmas and again told him we should end the relationship. But again, he convinced me to maintain the bond. And we were good for a while, until I came home in September. See I hadn't been home in 9 months, and my dad was well aware of me coming home months in advance. And yet, trying to a schedule a time to see him was unnecessarily difficult. Mainly because his wife kept having stuff come up where he then had to watch my little brother. I did actually get to see him twice. The first time at a Potbelly where my sister and I stopped to get cookies after leaving the cider mill. And the second time was when he stopped by my house after he got off work before I went to a hotel with my boyfriend and help him plan his 30th birthday party (my dad was saying bye then because even though he was invited to my boyfriend's party he wasn't coming for reasons unknown). But him seeing him, it kind of felt like he came over after work so that if he needed to lie about his whereabouts to his wife he could say he was running errands, but I could be wrong about that. Either way, I was once again left feeling like my dad's mistress. It didn't sit well with me at all, but I tried to look past it. That is until November.
See my sister is a part of a club his mother-in-law runs. The mother-in-law was my sister's 12th grade English teacher so they have their own relationship. But at one of the meetings, apparently my dad and his wife showed up, and the whole time, my dad's wife is like refusing to speak, make eye contact, or acknowledge my sister's presence. And this is all happening in front of my dad and yet he said nothing. When my sister relayed this information to me, that was the last straw for me. I wrote my dad a letter explaining why I felt it was past time to end our relationship.
I mailed that letter the week of Thanksgiving. He got it that Saturday. He met up with my sister for brunch Sunday so that he could give her her birthday present and talk to her about the letter, and yet, I did not hear from my dad for 25 days. And all he did was send me a text mentioning how he received my letter, he had gotten busy (he spent a week of that time in Costa Rica on vacation), apologized for taking so long to respond and said that he would be in contact to discuss soon. I'm not going to lie, I was pissed off and so I responded to him accordingly about how it didn't make any sense that it took 3.5 weeks to respond to my letter. My dad did not text me back, but yet 6 days later wished me a Merry Christmas. I didn't respond because not only was I pissed, I was hurt. I was hurt that he was just acting like this was a non-issue. That this was something he could possibly once again gloss over. And I should probably explain this part. See in the letter, I told my dad that the only way we could even begin to move forward in our relationship would be for him to get his wife to apologize to me for 4 specific things (making my cry, lying on my work ethic, lying on my mother of which she claimed my mom threatened her to stay away from me and that's why she didn't interact with me the first few years she was in the picture, and I wanted her to apologize for implying I stole money from her when she knew I didn't). I told him if he couldn't put his foot down and made sure that occurred then we needed to move on. And that's what hurt. My dad and I both knew he wasn't going to require his wife to respect his children, but yet he didn't necessarily want to lose me either. So in his mind he thought that if he gave me time to calm down, then bribe me with Christmas presents, all would be forgotten. And it was just not to be.
I had one last conversation with my dad over the phone the day after Christmas. I expressed to him that this time, if he wants me to be in his life then he actually has to do something about it instead of just praying and waiting on God. He has to show me it's worth it because I refuse to continue getting the bare minimum from him just so I can say we're family when we haven't felt like family in years. And my dad accepted that. I haven't heard from in these past couple of months.
And now here I am trying to pick up the pieces. It's not unfamiliar; I've been picking up these pieces he's broken from me for years. All those feelings of not being good enough. Of being unwanted. The neglect. And the fluctuating feelings between not allowing people close enough to hurt me and wondering if I'll ever truly be loved where the person will actually fight for me.
If I had a little less self-esteem, my father would have groomed me into some trash ass man's perfect mistress. Because that's how our relationship was able to last as long as it did. I wasn't his daughter he was devoted to. I was his mistress, but not a good one. One that he felt obligated to out of a duty to family.
And in retrospect, I do not regret my decision at all. I know some days will be hard. Like when I graduate from this program and he's not there. Or when I get married. Or in whichever fashion I'm notified of his untimely passing in the future. Those days, I will not lie, I know they will hurt immensely. But yet I still do not regret it. In truth I lost my father long ago and I had been holding on to a ghost all these years. And now it's time to sage my life and stop allowing that ghost to haunt me.
My father was a lesson in unrequited love, and I FINALLY was able to choose myself and my happiness over my love for him. And for that, I am completely at peace with living a life without him. Even though he could not fight for me, I rest easy knowing that I will fight for myself and have my own back not matter what.
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