Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 63. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did at first, it has been almost 7 years since he died. But it hurts today. It really hurts. I have tried to stay busy and not have anyone have to deal with me being an emotional mess. But cried in the car running errands.
He wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t always there when I wanted him, but he was there when I needed him. He was always so proud of me and how “smart” I am. He did the best he could for a child that wasn’t actually his and being an addict.
I know there are so many aspects of me that a hot mess and a good chunk of them started with my childhood. Some of emotional scars, some actual physical ones. But my mom would always say just because someone is dry doesn’t mean they are sober. It was incredibly hard to see through the pain to the person he wanted to be and love him for that. So many of my skills and passions, my ability to see things very clearly for what they are while also seeing what people want them to be, my work ethic, my love over the top action movies, I get from him.
When he died, I felt that was it. He was the last man in my life that chose to love me and he had abadoned me too. My natural father did, my grandfather who was a questionable father figure, died when I was in 3rd grade, and there there was Joe. My 3 dads, lol. All 3 left me. One because he didn’t want to grow up, one due to smoking and drinking even though I kept asking him to stop, and the last due to heroin. Though I am an adult and I know better, the little girl in me still wants to scream why was I not enough. Why was I not number one in their lives? Why didn’t I matter more.
Though I was in a relationship at the time, I knew that was ending. We were good on paper but I couldn’t be who he wanted me to be and I was so tired of trying and getting resentful. With Joe’s death it became clear I couldn’t be in a marriage where I wasn’t going to be enough. I think I had at that moment accepted that I would be alone. Though another relationship came along later that felt like kismet but he wanted me to be someone else and that just completely reinforced the fact that I wasn’t ever going to be enough for any man to actually want be there for me or be with me.
It’s funny. I have a scar on my foot from where Joe through a dish at me while I was outside practicing the trumpet in the garage (I wasn’t allowed to practice inside, lol). I had chosen to practice before doing the dishes after dinner. The bowl crashed by my foot and shattered. Part of the bowl went into the top of my foot. I can still remember the sting of the tears at the fear and anger of what had just happened. I gingerly stepped over the glass as best I could and got a broom and swept it up. I then packed up my trumpet and went inside and did the dishes. That was the night my mom offered for me to go move in with my aunt because I didn’t seem to get along with Joe. It’s funny how you can pinpoint moments in your life that make you who you are. That was the day I knew I would never really be chosen, be anyone’s priority, anyone’s favorite. I have fought against that feeling ever since but when Joe died, it whispered in my ear again. And by the end of the year with a failed relationship and a failed start of one, it just settled in residence all over again. I think that is why I love rom-coms, fast and furious, gentlemen prefer took blondes, etc. though. It for a short time I can feel what’s it like.
Joe loved me. I know that. And though the story doesn’t put him in the best light, there were many times he was a good father. But as I try to work through how to be more open, I do have to acknowledge the things that have happened that have made me so scared to be.
He did teach me to trust myself, to be strong, to be a fighter. He taught me if I can walk I can work, that it was more important to be kind than nice, and that no matter what shit happens in your life, if someone you love, or even once loved, needs you, you do it. Because selfishness, bitterness and entitlement are the true sins and we have to be better than that. That people are just evil, that is a way to other. No, there are people who should “go behind the shed and take one for the team” but often you have to see the humanity in those who hurt you or else you will miss the lessons of their failings.
I have my faults, some that he helped nurture. But I am a strong independent woman in part because of his nurturing.
And fuck oxy and fuck heroin.