No shower today, so a little rough-looking.
Apologies for such a long time between posts. I’m still figuring out what I want to do with this blog in general, and while thinking about it I’ve been sort of keeping away. But I just got a really nice compliment from a reader that made me want to make a post so you guys know the blog isn’t dead. Anyway, on to the actual post.
A while back, when I first started this blog, I made a couple posts about my parents. At the time I was mildly worried about posting too much personal info because it was the first time I’d had a blog I shared with most of my family (I sent the link to all of them when I started, and everything is cross-posted to Facebook). I sort of stifled myself a little in regards to my real feelings, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or share too much. But as time has gone on, I’ve learned a lot from this project, and I now feel pretty safe saying this, so here goes.
I won’t be calling my father tomorrow. I won’t email him, or send him a card. And I’m going to tell you guys why.
When I was a small child, I adored my father. Not only did he play with me as much as he was able, he seemed to know everything and was always willing to answer any question I had. I thought he was just about the coolest person in the world. I actually went through a period of time where I was afraid of men who didn’t have beards because my dad had one the entire time I was growing up (and still does). In short, I thought he could do no wrong.
As I grew, though, he started becoming distant. At first I just thought it was his job. He is a doctor, and was still in medical school when I was very young, and working on his residency when I was in elementary school. He was always tired and never seemed to have time for us, which made me sad, but I tried to understand (as a kid it’s hard, but my mom did a good job explaining why Papa couldn’t come play with us when he got home). I spent more time bugging my older brothers and mom as a result, no big deal. As I grew up, though, it just got worse. I couldn’t understand why the father I adored couldn’t come to my choir concerts, or spend time with me after school when he was home. We kept moving around to different houses, to different states, because of his jobs, and I began to resent that.
Right after my freshman year of high school, my father decided the job he’d had for only a year wasn’t what he wanted, so he found another one a few hours away. However, my mother didn’t want to move us so soon after the last one (especially because my older brother would then have gone to high school in three different places), so my dad moved away and we stayed. And that’s when things really started getting bad for all of us.
I was desperate for my father’s love and attention. And it seemed like the more I tried to get close to him, the less I was able. My mother struggled to help us connect more, suggesting joint guitar lessons, trying to get us to have a shared interest, but nothing seemed to work.
Finally, after a year of living apart, my mom and I (my brother having graduated and gone to college) sold the house and moved to live with my dad. That summer was one of the longest of my life. I hated the new house we had, and my parents just fought all the time. Finally, after a vacation to visit family, the other shoe dropped. My father wanted a divorce. My mother was absolutely blindsided and crushed. He refused to go to counseling, refused to do anything but insist on a divorce. So my mother and I left.
There was no custody fight. There was fighting about money, fighting about assets, a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. At one point my dad’s lawyer was going to try to negotiate for ending child support for me (the only minor kid at that point) when I entered college as opposed to when I turned eighteen, which would cheat my mom out of two months of money that we both knew she needed. I solved that by telling her that I’d be happy to take a year off before college. My father kept breaking his promises to her, changing his mind about what he would provide, and meanwhile my mother was heartbroken that the man she loved so much was leaving her. I watched my mother cry every day for several months. I tried not to be angry with my father, but it seemed like he kept doing things to hurt her, over and over again, and it made me furious. And part of me was angry there was no custody fight. Despite the fact that everyone knew I was better off with my mother, I still felt like he didn’t want me. They agreed that two weekends out of the month I would spend with him, but that just meant I spent hours on the train each way, since he was rarely willing to meet my mother halfway to pick me up or even (goodness forbid) come all the way to see me. And when I arrived? We would go out to dinner. Go back to his house, the house I had hated since I first set foot in it and now hated even more because of the bad memories in it, and watch TV. We’d go see a movie, we’d go shopping. I would prattle on nervously about inane things because I had no idea what to say to him, and he hardly ever talked to me. He would sometimes seem to resent spending money on me, but if I said we didn’t have to go shopping or something then he’d act mad that I vetoed something to do. I know he spent money because he felt guilty. And I liked being able to get things my mom could no longer afford. But it was empty.
My mom and I grew closer and closer and my dad and I grew further and further apart. And when my dad decided to remarry, mere months after the divorce was finalized, that made me and my brothers furious. His wife wasn’t a bad person, although she seemed to resent me and my brothers and go out of her way to not spend time with us. But he was so wrapped up in his feelings for her that he had no interest in what we wanted, and it only got worse from there.
When I finally went off to college, I was relieved I would no longer be forced to see him, but hurt because I never saw him. He never came to visit me. He never came to my concerts unless I was a lead in an opera, or if it was my recital, which meant he only came to maybe five of my performances the entire time I was in college (it could’ve been more than that, but either way it was less than ten). He never came to my performances in high school either. And at my senior recital, the culmination of all the work I had done in college up to that point, he arrived halfway through. I was about to start “Stride la vampa”, an aria about the character’s mother being burned at the stake, and full of vitriol and anger. I had no trouble being angry right then, and you may be able to guess why.
When I did visit him, he was never without his wife. I never got to spend any time with him alone, always with her as well. I always felt unwelcome in her house, uncomfortable, so it was never a long visit either.
I can’t really relate any specific stories about my relationship with my father, other than what I’ve already shared. There have been dozens of things he’s done and said that have hurt me deeply and made me wish I could cut off contact with him. Some days he will seem to act normal and I’ll almost feel like he’s my dad again. Other times he’ll act like someone I don’t even know and say something awful. He complains that I only call him to ask for money, but if I call to say hi and chat about stuff he says he’s busy and doesn’t have time.
All in all, I know my father isn’t a bad person. He’s a good doctor, and a good husband. He just isn’t a good father. He’s good with children, but after a certain age he doesn’t know what to do with them if he doesn’t have stuff in common with them. He doesn’t seem to understand that a relationship is a two-way street. And it hurts me every time he says or does something thoughtless, because he IS my father.
So that’s why I won’t be calling him tomorrow. Or emailing, or texting, or sending a card. Truth be told I’m a little scared of him actually reading this blog entry and calling me up to ream me about it. But I know that’s only because I wish he actually read this blog. I sent him the link, you see, back when I started it. I sent him the link to the post I made forever ago about him. But I know he didn’t read it. And I know he won’t read this one either.
And that’s why I don’t celebrate Father’s Day.
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