I am 30 and I still don't have a strong handle on how I feel about my father. Do I love him? Do I hate him? Am I indifferent? Can you be absent of feeling for the man you once loved more than anyone? At this moment in time I have to say yes. But that is a huge jump forward. And I am supposed to start at the beginning, even if I am not so sure where the beginning is. My family has a tendency to review history with major changes. My father's stories of his past do not match the ones my gram tells. I will try to piece it together.
My father met my mother when she was 18ish and he was 21ish. From what I understand she was a mess because her parents were getting a divorce and my dad was a wreck because his high school sweetheart turned wife and the mother of his 2 sons was having an affair with his best friend. Today it's pretty clear that his second son was actually his best friend's son. And so my mother and father fell in love (i guess) and had 2 babies. My mother turned 20 a month before I was born, my father was 23. My mother turned 22 4 days before my sister was born and my father was 25. I've never gotten the full story from either my mother or father. My mother is always drunk which makes it difficult for her to stay on task when answering a question. And my dad just flat out refuses to answer questions. He answers questions with questions or acts as if no question has been asked in the first place. Its frustrating and immature but effective, to say the least. Not only did I never get the answers to my questions but I ultimately stopped asking them. It has also helped to his advantage that we haven't kept a speaking relationship for any long period of time since I was 21.
From things my mom has told me and bits and pieces of information I have received from other relatives my dad had a cocaine problem. My mom says he was dealing out of her mothers house and eventually became addicted. This is completely believable and at the same time extremely unbelievable to me. The whole time I lived with my father I only knew of him to drink 2 or 3 times. At his wedding (the 3rd one, to my step-mom), at a party we had at our house when I was in 8th grade and maybe once or twice he had a 7 and 7. So anyway, from what I gather their life together was pretty volatile. I literally have 1 memory of parents living together in the same house. It's a foggy one. I must've been 3 or 4 years old. I was up late, I don't know why. I was on my mom's bed and the t.v. was on. I don't know if I had been up or the commotion woke me up, I just remember my dad bleeding. I think it was from his nose. I think he had been in a car accident. He wasn't himself. Something was off about him.
My father met my mother when she was 18ish and he was 21ish. From what I understand she was a mess because her parents were getting a divorce and my dad was a wreck because his high school sweetheart turned wife and the mother of his 2 sons was having an affair with his best friend. Today it's pretty clear that his second son was actually his best friend's son. And so my mother and father fell in love (i guess) and had 2 babies. My mother turned 20 a month before I was born, my father was 23. My mother turned 22 4 days before my sister was born and my father was 25. I've never gotten the full story from either my mother or father. My mother is always drunk which makes it difficult for her to stay on task when answering a question. And my dad just flat out refuses to answer questions. He answers questions with questions or acts as if no question has been asked in the first place. Its frustrating and immature but effective, to say the least. Not only did I never get the answers to my questions but I ultimately stopped asking them. It has also helped to his advantage that we haven't kept a speaking relationship for any long period of time since I was 21.
From things my mom has told me and bits and pieces of information I have received from other relatives my dad had a cocaine problem. My mom says he was dealing out of her mothers house and eventually became addicted. This is completely believable and at the same time extremely unbelievable to me. The whole time I lived with my father I only knew of him to drink 2 or 3 times. At his wedding (the 3rd one, to my step-mom), at a party we had at our house when I was in 8th grade and maybe once or twice he had a 7 and 7. So anyway, from what I gather their life together was pretty volatile. I literally have 1 memory of parents living together in the same house. It's a foggy one. I must've been 3 or 4 years old. I was up late, I don't know why. I was on my mom's bed and the t.v. was on. I don't know if I had been up or the commotion woke me up, I just remember my dad bleeding. I think it was from his nose. I think he had been in a car accident. He wasn't himself. Something was off about him.
