My father is an asshole. A pathological liar and a sad little no where man. When I was growing up I was really close to him, but when he made the choices he did, it seems he could not face the ones he had already made. In the past 15 years, the man has called me probably called me about 15 times, that would make it about once per year. If there was an emergency I would hear from him maybe twice in a year and yes, being that I just turned 30, that means there were years where he would not call at all. Before my granny passed away, she had written me letter, telling me that I needed to go see my father more often. She told me that my father informed her that I did not want anything to do with him and that he would call me once a week and that I would just ignore him. This is one of the many lies my father has told in his lifetime, for he never called and never asked to see me. On several occasions when he, his poodle of a wife and his step daughter went up north for family get togethers, he told my grandmother that he had asked my brother and I if we wanted to go and that we declined. Now that is just another lie. We would not find out about said trip until months later, even if we found out. I found out on more than one occasion from my grandparents that the event had even occurred. Now, I am an adult. I understand that marriages are difficult and sometimes end, I am not angry anymore for what my father did when he cheated on my mother numerous times. I get it. However, I was 14 years old when my parents divorced, I was an angsty teenager, I was angry, confused and scared…2 weeks after the divorce was finalized my father found another woman to support him. Then he became a victim. Personally, I feel he is so emotionally cold and arrogant that he could not see beyond anything to reach out to my brother and I. I remember when my brother would tell my dad he loved him, my dad would merely respond “oh ok” “thanks”…We became what he was afraid of feeling, we became the bad guys. Instead of trying to cultivate relationships with us he formed new ones with his wife and step daughter. It saddens me at 30 years old my father has no clue as to I even am. I gave up a long time ago trying to call or invite him for dinner and I no longer dwell in my own sadness because my uncle Ryan stepped in as fiercely paternal. For that I am lucky and couldn’t ask for anything more. I am sad for my father. The lies that became walls that shut him in merely make him nothing more than a fool on the hill.
Exhale.
