To The First Man Who Broke My Heart

I know I may receive hateful comments for this post, but this needs to be said. Not everyone is happy it’s Father’s Day.

Today I see so many posts on social media from people celebrating their dads and being so thankful for their relationships with their dad, and it gives me mixed emotions. I am happy for them, but sad for me. Maybe even jealous. I think I actually hate Father’s Day more than Mother’s Day. I am a fatherless daughter, and it was HIS choice to make me that. I did happen to have a very special man in my life who helped me, but not everyone is so lucky.

My parents (which I hate calling him my parent, or my father) divorced when I was 13, so I have been fatherless for most of my life. He would pick me up every Tuesday night and we would go for ice cream and it was the most awkward 45 minutes of my life. It must have been for him too because he never offered to do something else or stay longer to talk.

Then one day as I was getting out of the car he said, “Kathleen, I was never a teenage girl, so I don’t know how to relate to you. I won’t be taking you for ice cream or anything else anymore.”

Tears streamed down my face as he drove off, and that was the last time he spoke to me. I didn’t understand what he meant. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I didn’t understand why he didn’t love me.

And just like that, he changed everything. I found an article that talks about how being fatherless affects women, and almost ALL of it applies to me, and linked it here. I struggle with trusting people and fear they will eventually leave me and in turn that makes relationships very hard. I have self esteem issues. I guard my heart almost obsessively.

My mom wanted me to go to court and help her request child support and I couldn’t. I was afraid of what he would say or do. Maybe I was protecting him. I feel bad for worrying about his feelings now.

I tried throughout my life to reach out to him and have him in my life. I invited him to my high school graduation. My college graduation. I told him when I was getting married the first time. He never responded. It hurt so much to keep trying without any response, but I felt I had to. Why did I care? I don’t know, even now.

Then my grandmother, (his mother) died. The obituary said she was survived by one granddaughter. I was the oldest of two. My brain said Fuck him while my heart asked what is wrong with me? Why don’t I exist to him?

Then my mom passed away. He did nothing. NOTHING!!!! I don’t think I expected him to come to the viewing. I couldn’t have handled that then. But I needed him to send a card, or flowers, or something. It was if neither of us had ever existed in his life, that he had never loved us or wanted us at all. How could that be true?

That day I began calling myself an orphan of both circumstance (mom) and choice (him.) I told my heart he was now dead too. It was far less painful to think he was dead too than to keep hoping he would respond to me.

Then I got divorced, and remarried, and had two beautiful children, his only grandchildren that would be biological since I am an only child, but I did not reach out to him. “Funny” thing was I saw him out and about, but he never acted like he knew me. I look just like him so….

I so wanted to go up to him and say, “hey, these are your grandchildren, and they are amazing, but unfortunately for you, you won’t have the chance to know them.” But I couldn’t bear the thought of him saying he didn’t know me, or didn’t have any children, and abandoning me, and them. I couldn’t bear that pain for them.

I still think of him every Father’s Day, and wonder if he thinks of me too, and hate that I have to be reminded that he chose to walk away and chose to stop loving me.

For all the fathers that choose to leave, try to be careful what you say because your words will last and hurt forever. If you don’t care, I feel sorry for you that your heart is so cold.

And for all the other fatherless daughters by choice or circumstance out there, you aren’t alone. You are strong. You are loved. You do matter.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57bad520e4b07d22cc38fc08?guccounter=1

I Went Red

I went red for my mom and grandmother, both lost too young. Who are you wearing red for? 

Two Teen Years Down…

Peanut turned 15 last month. I have no idea how that happened.  

I was talking to a guy at work and I said it was her 15th birthday and I have no idea what happened but I just brought her home from the hospital yesterday! 

He gasped and asked what happened???? I didn’t understand what he meant. He asked why was she in the hospital???  I laughed and said “Oh, I meant because I am not old enough to have a 15 year old and it seemed like I just brought her home yesterday and I blinked and now she is 15.”

Then he said oh yes, his wife says that too, and then tells me he would have had ten boys if he would never have had to go through his daughter’s teenage years and he is from the south so added a Lord have mercy.  

Great. I don’t know if that was encouraging or not. At least I have topic security.  

A Promise Letter to My Kids

Dear Peanut and Bird,  

I imagine you may not remember I write this blog, so maybe I will have to show you one day. It is important to me that you know how I feel, and I worry you don’t “hear” me when I tell you.  

It has been a difficult year, but you have both surprised me with how you have come to terms with everything. I am still waiting for the other shoe to fall if you will. But I am relieved too that it hasn’t. 

Please know that you are the most important people in my life. I love you both so much and I fear that you don’t or won’t love me back as much. But all I can do is what I think is best and hope that one day you will be ok with me and my decisions.  

I have agonized every step about how you will feel and how my decisions will affect you, please believe that. I have put you first though people will not believe me. 

But, they are not living my life so they do not matter to me. You matter to me. I do not feel I have been a good mother to you, so I need to do what is best to make me happy, so then I can be the happy, loving mother you both deserve. Nanny always put me first and didn’t take care of herself and I remember her as mostly sad or angry, and I do not want you to remember me like that.  

Please know that no matter what, I love you more than anything else in the world. I will do anything for you. 

I am trying to do my best. I promise. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don’t, but I do try. There is no manual for parenting or life, and sometimes things change in not so good ways. All you can do is keep on and try to find a positive, there is always something to be thankful for. I am thankful that I was the one you were sent to, that I get to be mom to two special people! 

I will always be your mother, and will always love you and like you too. That will not ever change. I can promise you that. 

I’m Afraid

There are now two days that I have been afraid for my children and the world they are growing up in.  

September 11, 2001 and November 8, 2016.

The first was a horrible act of terrorism against the United States that I could do nothing about.  The second is a day I tried to do something about but I wasn’t enough to keep an obnoxious, disrespectful,  unprofessional,  racist chauvinist out of the White House.  

I worry for the example he will set for my children and the things he will enforce that will affect their futures. 

Let’s make America great again. . . . Yeah right.  

Remember

15 years ago.  One of those events that it seems like it just happened no matter how much time has passed. One of those events you wish you could forget but never can. 

I was almost 6 months pregnant with Peanut. I couldn’t bear to watch the coverage after a while. What kind of world was I bringing this baby into? Would she be safe?  I had no answers and couldn’t do anything but hope and pray it would be ok.  

The Class of 2020 is the first class that will read about this attack and were not alive when it happened. They are lucky in a way that they don’t know the horror of watching the events unfold, over and over and over again.  

I did not know anyone who died that day, but I will still take time to remember and pray for those who did. I will always remember.  

God Bless us all.  All lives matter.  

The Chuck It Phase

So I made French bread pizza for dinner since it was only Bird and me. He kept asking me how much longer until it was done since I don’t feed him enough. 

So while he was waiting he distracted himself from starvation by telling me that it would be cool if we had a robot that if you said French Bread pizza, the robot would go poof there it is in a second and then chuck the pizza at your face. 

I said well, that would be fast but you would get your face burned off so no, not cool! 

So he says fine. Tell the robot noodles and then when he chucked them at your face they wouldn’t be as burny hot because they are smaller. That would be cool.  

I say yes but then the noodles would be slimy and moist on your face and that’s gross!

He said yeah but having a food chucking robot would be cool.  

I agreed.  

Then we went grocery shopping which was most definitely not cool. Nothing on the shelves and they stuffed the three bags I had since I only brought three I only want to use three right? Ugh! 

Anyway,  on the way to the store Bird says that it would be really cool to fish in the ocean and catch some random big fish that he could chuck at someone’s face. I asked why would you waste your fish chucking it at someone’s face???  He said because he could because it was only kinda big not too big.  

Oh. OK.  

Then at the store he starts talking about how he is going to make a game like baseball but he would use lemons because then when he chucked it at someone’s face, they would get juice squirted in their eyes and that would be funny and cool.  

I said well it wouldn’t be cool for the people watching that got juice squirted in their eye because they were too close to the person you were really chucking the lemon at. He said well Mommy,  they would have special cool juice prevention glasses!!!! 

Oh. OK. Wonder if you have to catch them as they are chucked at your face.  

Father’s Day from an Orphan’ s Point of View

Sorry for the long silence. Things have been a bit rough and I haven’t been able to write. This was written last year, but I felt too vulnerable publishing it. But now I think I need to, to help me as I try harder to stay in the present and not obsess over the past or worry about the future.

“All you had to do was say you’re sorry. I would have forgiven you.” Postcard on http://www.Postsecret.com

I didn’t become an orphan in the usual way, where both parents passed away at the same time. No, that label took 16 years to take hold, the first parent leaving when I was 13, the other parent leaving when I was 29. One left by choice, the other by circumstance.

The one who left by choice was the man who helped my mother have me. When he decided she wasn’t enough woman for him and walked out to be with his girlfriend, he turned my world upside down. I was 13, already dealing with hormones and body changes and mood swings and I didn’t understand. I was angry, and felt forced to spend time with him and felt like he didn’t want to be with me either. Then one day when he dropped me off after a particularly awkward “visit” he said, “I was never a 13 year old girl. I don’t know how to relate to you.” And those were his last words to me.

I have tried through the years to contact him because I couldn’t bear to not be in his life. I realize now he should have tried to contact me, because he couldn’t bear to not be in MY life. My college graduation, my first marriage, the celebration of earning a Master’s degree. I wrote so many letters, some I sent, some I didn’t because I was upset and afraid to send them, telling him, begging him, to come to these events, that nothing from the past would matter. And no response. I don’t know why I kept trying, to be honest. Maybe I thought he wasn’t getting the letters, that his new wife was intercepting them so if I kept trying maybe she would relent or he would get to the mail first. Then his mother died and the obituary said she was survived by one grandchild. I was the oldest of two. But though that hurt me, I still had hope that he would find me and say he was sorry, can we please start over and try to fix our relationship. And I would have!

But then on whatever day I had the service for AngelMom, I knew he would do something to show that he cared for her, for me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him there, it would distract from her if he did come and probably upset me more, but I hoped he would at least send flowers or a card or something. Again, no response, on the day I most needed one. Maybe he didn’t know where I lived but he could have sent something to the funeral home! So that is the day I decided he was dead to me and I was officially an orphan.

But deciding I was an orphan didn’t turn off the feelings completely, I guess because the mind knows you’re lying to yourself, that it’s not factual what you believe. Two months later I married Mr. G, and then a little over two years later I had Peanut, and then four years after that I had Bird, and through all these years I would see him around town. I so wanted to go up to him and say, here are your beautiful grandchildren that you will never have the joy of knowing! I looked just like him, he would always know me right? Of course he would! I never went up to him because I was afraid he would pretend he didn’t know me, and by rejecting me again he would reject my children as well and they didn’t deserve that. I couldn’t bear that. So I kept quiet and made myself miserable.

What’s funny is that those hateful last words put me on a path for what I thought was normal male behavior. Three boyfriends followed after he left us, one almost turned into a husband, and one did turn into a husband, and they all felt that I wasn’t enough for them and found another woman, yet I felt it was my fault. I was a teenager or in my early 20s, I didn’t even know who I was or what I wanted, how could it be my fault???? Did any of them really love me? I don’t know. It made me distrustful and guarded and reluctant to love.

I did have positive male influence in my life, and I appreciate those men who were or still are in my life, and the new men who have accepted me as family! But it’s not the same as the blood relationship and believe it or not, Father’s Day is almost as unbearable as Mother’s Day! It’s the same ache, same jealousy I have watching other women with their mothers. My children will only have Mr. G’s parents as grandparents and that makes me sad. But unfortunately there is nothing I can do about that. I can’t try anymore. He doesn’t want to be in my life. I have to accept it. And yet, I will still think of him today and wonder if he thinks of me too. I can’t help it. I wish I could. He has hurt me enough.

To the man who helped my mother have me: None of this is my fault. It’s yours. All you had to do was say you’re sorry.

Two Unfamiliar Sights

There are two things I haven’t seen in so long I almost forget what they are…. The sun and Peanut’s several thousand dollar smile. 

The April showers haven’t brought May flowers but more showers! And Peanut has been dealing with school drama and me and Bird being annoyingly alive… So she has been a bit moody.  I know such a surprise!!!!

So of course when she asked to go grocery shopping with me late Friday night, I said sure that would be great but thought something else completely different! Yeah I said it, any parent of a teenager would totally back me up here!

She was wearing long sweatpants, and when she got out of the car she stepped in a puddle and her ankles got wet. So she rolled her pants up ridiculously high so they looked like shorts, but until she ran into the store one leg had unrolled and the other was half unrolled. She said “OMG MOM!!!! I HOPE I DON’T RUN INTO ANYONE I KNOW!!!!” I said she was probably safe that late on a rainy Friday night. 

As usual when she is with me, there were alot of foods in the cart that she loves in the store that will be despised as soon as they are in the house. But she was happy so I was happy!

But somehow I left my teenager in the store and picked up another.  It was raining again when we left the store,  and this strange girl says, “Get in the car Mom, I will unload the groceries and take the cart back.”

Funny, she also had her sweatpants rolled up so they wouldn’t get wet! Wonder if she knows Peanut?

She Knows Me Too Well

So Peanut had a fun day and spent the afternoon shopping at a large mall with a couple friends. Bird had a fun day playing at his friend’s house. I thought I had a fun day doing next to nothing reading, coloring and playing solitaire on my Kindle, but now I realized I forgot to get the wine out and celebrate a quiet house so I didn’t have as much fun as I could have!!!

Anyway.  😛

Peanut comes home and tells me everything she bought and excitedly tells me she got shorts buy one get one free for $40!!! She was not too impressed when I said that’s a common trick to make them more expensive but you are actually paying the regular price for two then. “OMG MOM YOU DON’T KNOW FASHION!!!” 

Sigh. 

So then she proceeds to show me what she got. And it was interesting in that each item became shorter, tighter, and more revealing as she got closer to the end of the items! And also interesting was that before I could say Oh HELL no she quickly informed me,  “OMG MOM!  IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS YOU WEAR A TANK TOP UNDER IT OR A JACKET OVER IT!!!  ALL THE KIDS WEAR IT LIKE THIS!!!!”

So I guess it’s good she knows what I am going to say when and knows how to work it so I am not upset immediately. Maybe I should tell her next time wait to show me until after I had some wine.