Lessons in bad parenting

When I decided to start a blog a few days ago, I wasn't sure how I would use it. I was sure how I SHOULD use it, since I consider myself an aspiring writer, but not how - or whether - I actually would exercise and hone my skills. Being the internalizing, I'll-deal-with-that-later type, it's no wonder that I have actually created a profile on about 5 different blog sites over the past year or so, never to create an entry on any of them.


But that was before my father called a couple days ago, and I suddenly took sanctuary in the idea of getting these thoughts out of mind mind before they poison me. Having just turned 26 and making the monumental decision to move from my Mom's house in Michigan to my own apartment in Florida, the call from a parent would otherwise be routine, expected even. In my case, the call from a father with whom I hadn't spoken for 8 or so years - despite living in the same small town our whole lives - caused a whirlwind of long-supressed thoughts and regrets and yearnings and bitterness and hope... The latter being my greatest mistake, again.


My parents, like too many others, were divorced when I was 5. My father had become an abusive alcoholic, a shameless liar, and an all-around waste of space. To make a long story short, my 3 siblings and I would continue to sit in the car outside the bar every other weekend and for 1/2 of every school vacation for the next ten years or so; in turn, we reached 16 years of age, and the self-appointed master of good judgment at the county courthouse decided that we suddenly had minds of our own. That would be the last I would see of my father, unless by some accident I didn't scour the gas station in our small town good enough before pulling in, and had the misfortune of running into him.


But my problem is this: as much hostility as I have for that man, there are times when I feel a yearning for him so deep in my soul that it makes me throw up, sob uncontrollably, and altogether retreat into myself. I dealt with the dichotomy of emotions as long as I needed to, in order to maintain a positive attitude long enough to grow and accomplish my immediate goals. The year that I graduated from college, I grabbed a box of tissues and went to see my dad. My father, who had stopped paying child support $30,000 prior to my visit, who hadn't called once while I was killing myself to get through school, so generously told me that he was glad I had come, and that he was going to find a way to pay for my next year's tuition since it would be my last year (his only source of income, for the sake of silliness I add, was an ambitious 7-day paper route). My heart broke, and I left without telling him that three weeks prior I had become the first member of my family to graduate from college.


Fast forward four years, otherwise I'll have inadvertently written my first novel, and the man that I had again been longing for, again broke my heart. Under the guise of needing my brother's phone number (he could have at least feigned a sudden interest in my life), my father called my cell phone while I was at work...crying... Against my better judgement I took the call, and thus began my trek back inward, unable to breathe let alone be myself for the next two days, at which time I reinstated the supression technique. From our conversation I learned that he was being evicted from his home, was preparing to be homeless, and that there was a whole line of SOBs who were responsible for this awful fate. He was broken and, against my will, my soul wept, my chest ached with pressure, and I felt a sincere hatred of myself for not having money to send to my dad, not being in Michigan when he was alone, and basically not being everything he needed the moment he needed it. He wanted money, but more than I could give; he wanted a place to stay, but closer that my new home... He wanted everything that I longed to give him but could not. And maybe I likewise wanted things that he sincerely wished he could provide - love, attention, praise, memories - but he simply could not.