To Love

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I find myself looking back at my childhood fairly often as I continue to get older. Maybe it's the hopeless part of me that is attempting to heal, or maybe further understand, or maybe even find an explanation for what could possibly of screwed me up this bad. Either way the memories are debilitating and never seem to fuck off.

My dad was the most important person in my life, as a kid. I had always felt like I understood him, and he understood me. We were the same in my eyes.

Deep down, I know he is a great guy. Every bone in his body carries so much passion. A passion that I found so inspiring as a young girl. I loved the way he talked about music, about movies, about his jobs. He had a lot of love in his heart, just could never learn how to use it.

My family grew up in a really poor and lack-luster city. It's hard to believe it shares a name with one of the richest and most gaudy cities in America. Because god it is anything but that. I always imagined it as the Wild West. A tumble weed passing by, you hear nothing but the wind.
It's a ghost town, yet still running... I've always imagined it'd be gone by the time I have children.

At least a third of my family has been tainted by drugs or abusive behavior. A third is generous, but sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I remember finally getting old enough to hear the real stories. I knew it was bad. But hearing my aunt talk about how she had to stop a drunken woman from beating her child for crying. Having to put out a man who had lit himself on fire because his girlfriend broke up with him. Hearing about my other Aunt being locked in a closet and pumped with heroin to become a slave to her husband, driven to schizophrenia. It was normal to them. None of them could even begin to comprehend it.

My parents couldn't help what they faced.
My dad grew up worse than my mom. He was known as the bastard child, as my Grandma had cheated on her husband with another man, got pregnant and I guess to stick it to the man, named him after his father... his true father.
My dad was hated by his family. He was surrounded by abuse and was riddled with fear his whole upbringing.

My dad never understood why the weight of his mothers actions had to fall onto his shoulders.

This lack of love and nurturing would be the demise of him. I was very lucky my parents took us away from that horrible city, but the presence would never leave. The habits instilled would never die.

He was a drinker. Not an abusive or aggressive kind of drinker, thank god. But I would learn it was his getaway. He was drinking to forget. He would consume a whole pack of beers every night, stare at the tv watching something thought provoking to disassociate.
As a kid I never understood the pain and trauma that my dad was running from. All I could understand was that, even though all I wanted was to hang out with him, he was tired and needed time to relax.

It's ironic because, in the beginning, my dad was amazing. He was the parent I remember nearly all of my best days with. Whether we'd be making pizzas, filming random skits, playing video games, going to the grocery store. It was my dad, my siblings and I against the world. He loved us.
Then I knew he loved us.
It was after my parents horrific divorce that it was settled, he would have us only on the weekends.
It was strange to go from spending almost every hour of every day with him, to then only seeing him on the occasional weekend that he would pick us up.

It's hurtful to look back on. Being so young and so ignorant. Only remembering the way it used to be, and being confused why your mom had to yell at him to please come and see us. That we missed him. Why won't he come?

My mom had met someone new not too long after their split. He was in the army and we were going to move away with him.
This is when the tides began to change in my relationship with my dad. I had felt this change coming, it was almost like he had been pushing himself to prepare for the inevitable.
He became intolerable, impatient, inconsiderate... hurtful. I began to see a side of him that scared me.