Monday, June 20, 2005
Happy Effing Father's Day
I am not a fan of Father's Day. Why? Because there's a great big empty void inside of me where a father's love should be. My father left when I was 3. Walked out on us all. It's my first memory. When I was 5 he married a woman that told him on their wedding night that she hated us 4 kids. He stayed married to her until I was 18. She made our lives miserable. During our obligatory summer visits she tortured us into cowering submission. My father stood idly by, allowing it all to happen. We watched as our stepsisters reaped all the benefits of my father's money: clothes, cars, etc, etc and while my still-single mother gave us the best she could with her teacher salary.
When I was 18, he went through some life crisis, divorced the Wicked Witch and turned into a good dad for a while. Weekly phone calls! Money for college tuition! I bought it! I believed it. It was everything I had ever wanted. It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! It ended almost as quickly as it began, when wife #3 entered the picture. She's a wonderful woman, nothing like The Antichrist. But her presence in my father's life, means us kids get the boot again. Oh sure, I got a guilt trip to Italy somewhere along the line- that should be enough, shouldn't it? The phone calls come about once every 3-4 months now. I've been banished again to red-headed stepchild status by my own father.
I keep thinking that I'll come to terms with it, that I'll stop hoping for a dad that would do anything for me and loves me more than anyone else. But it won't ever come. I need to accept that I have a father who likes me and will do things for me that are within reason and just be happy with it. I remember as a little girl, riding my bike to the top of our street and waiting and watching for my dad when he would come and pick us up. Nothing made my heart soar more than seeing him coming down the road. Most of the time I still feel like that little girl, waiting and watching, ready to beg for just some scraps of his affection.
When I was 18, he went through some life crisis, divorced the Wicked Witch and turned into a good dad for a while. Weekly phone calls! Money for college tuition! I bought it! I believed it. It was everything I had ever wanted. It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! It ended almost as quickly as it began, when wife #3 entered the picture. She's a wonderful woman, nothing like The Antichrist. But her presence in my father's life, means us kids get the boot again. Oh sure, I got a guilt trip to Italy somewhere along the line- that should be enough, shouldn't it? The phone calls come about once every 3-4 months now. I've been banished again to red-headed stepchild status by my own father.
I keep thinking that I'll come to terms with it, that I'll stop hoping for a dad that would do anything for me and loves me more than anyone else. But it won't ever come. I need to accept that I have a father who likes me and will do things for me that are within reason and just be happy with it. I remember as a little girl, riding my bike to the top of our street and waiting and watching for my dad when he would come and pick us up. Nothing made my heart soar more than seeing him coming down the road. Most of the time I still feel like that little girl, waiting and watching, ready to beg for just some scraps of his affection.
