Writings From Within

Where Were You

We are supposed to love our family. Cherish them and support them. Protect and LOVE them. I cannot stress it enough. I guess your love skipped a generation.

I guess you were too young. I guess you didn't know what you were doing. I guess it was the wrong time, just like I guess I never stood a chance at knowing what a father's love feels like.

How hard is it to love something you have created? How could you not love something so complex it took 9 months to make? How could you not love something you created with a person you loved? A person you supposedly loved. How could you?

In a way, I do understand. I've created paintings that had taken hours to complete. And when I laid the brush down from the final stroke; I too looked at it with resentment. I, too, didn't love what I had created. All I could see were the countless uneven lines and stray splatters of paint where there shouldn't be any. How the colors mixed into an unappealing shade. I could only see how much time I had wasted on something I created and didn't even love. Is that what it's like?

Or is it more like when I get halfway through painting a canvas, even before I get the shapes outlined, I don't like what I see. I hate it so much that I stop working on it. I abandon that work and start over with a new one. Just like you did to me. 

You did that. You did that to me before I was even here; before you could even look me in my eyes. Before you even got to see that my eyes are yours.

I've seen you just a handful of times. We are damn near identical. From the way we walk to even how we talk. Could you not love the part of you that's in me? Or could you just not love me?

I watched you raise my sister from afar. Banished from your light, I lurked when I wish I hadn't. What I saw broke me. I saw you pour your time, energy, and love into her. Why couldn't you do that for me?

 And then I realized. I realized that it's not that you didn't know how to love a child, you just didn't want to love me. You didn't want to love me, but you loved every other kid in the neighborhood you lived in. Anytime they needed anything, you would break your back for them.

But you couldn't pick up a phone for me. You couldn't tell me happy birthday. You couldn't give me five minutes.

After hearing nothing from you, you show up at my job. You show up with a woman maybe 10 years older than me. You introduced her as your girlfriend. How could you have time to love her if you were always too busy to love your own kid?

But I see it now. 

I never needed you. I never needed you because I had someone better. And she loved me enough for the both of you. 

And even though we were not well off, she was there. For the birthdays, the good days, the bad days. She loved me harder on the bad days. And you couldn't even manage to care even a little bit on my best days. 

I'm glad you were never here. I'm glad I never wasted my time on you. Thank you for showing me the truth. Thank you for showing me how lucky I am. 

How lucky I am to have my mother. A mother who was a better father than you ever thought about being. My mother is a better man than you could've ever hoped to be.

You will never get to know me. 

You will never get to know the love I have.