Three Miles in Baltimore

Chapter Three: "The Boy Wonder"

For most of my life my father has let me down.

It is funny how we know that exact moment we begin to realize we were neglected. I had no real knowledge of what he looked like when I was a girl. My mother was and always had been all I had ever known or had.

My dad was the typical call and never show up kind of guy, with me looking stupid, sitting on my stoop with my duffle bag full of clothes - it took me hours to realize he was not coming and to take my silly ass back inside of the house. (Stoop kid was afraid to leave the stoop.) I always have to commend my mother here. She was so supportive and encouraging of us seeing our fathers. She wanted us to have relationships with them, and as the years went by, I saw my siblings each starting relationships with their dads. I remember my sister Kiara's father, Antonio, also inviting me out on one of their father daughter days to Applebee's - he even purchased me a pair of shoes along with her. A pair of Champion tennis shoes and all night he kept screaming out, "THE CHAMP IS HERE!" Kiara's dad was very funny.

I used to be so disgustingly happy to hear from my father, Bruce, that I would actually sometimes break out in a rash on my neck. For years, I was ridiculously embarrassed to admit that. I wanted to feel tough. I would tell myself, Fuck Bruce!, when he didn't show and secretly cry myself to sleep. Yet every single time he called me, I would turn into mush. I hated myself for being optimistic about our relationship. I hated that I wanted him in my life and with one single phone call, he could make me feel important; he could make me feel needed in his world. He would call and make plans with me for that Friday, he would even call on Wednesday to make sure I remembered, (what a dick for playing with my twelve year old heart), he would do this to reiterate his want to see me and I felt whole. I loved knowing that my father planned to factor me into his life. Like clockwork, he always kept me waiting. He kept me waiting for years; that hopefulness and possibility crumbled like a leaf under my walking feet. I sometimes still feel sorry for that part of me that was abandoned.

I remember the day I finally, FINALLY, got what he was telling me. The day I got it through my fucking skull that my dad, my father, Bruce, was just being who he had always shown me to be. (If someone shows you who they are, believe them.) I felt like an idiot for not seeing it until then.

I want to point out that my views and feelings in regards to my father, Bruce, is now much different from how I felt before I was sixteen, at sixteen, and years after. It took me until I was twenty-one to forgive him, which came much sooner than my forgiveness to my mother. I honestly think because I have always loved and respected her more than any other person in my life. I expected more from her, from the love I gave back to her, the sacrifices I made as a child, just for her; the neglect from her was borderline betrayal to me. I acknowledge that this is not fair - that mothers tend to end up with the kids and are dealt with all the trauma and resentment while the men get off scot-free. I am aware and acknowledge this hypocrisy and yet I cannot deny that I wholeheartedly expected more from my mom because I loved her more. Does that make sense? Because I loved her more, I honored her greatly, and sympathized with her - I actually felt bad that my mother had to be the one stuck with raising us - I knew she wanted out.

Just know, even with all that I will describe in this book, my mother is monumental to me. I have and always will respect my mother, love my mother, and adore my mother in a capacity that my father, Bruce, will never influence. It's no competition, its just factual. They experience me individually differently. Both my parents are one-hundred percent understood by me - I understand what they were trying to tell me about them as a child, now as a woman and I forgive them both.

While my emotions and stance towards Bruce now are very civil, lovingly actually, it was much different at my time of discovery; when I discovered him for who he really was. I remember every moment of that day. Every emotion that I felt, I can still feel it. It's not apart of me anymore yet I still see it in the eyes of my younger selves; as if I have somehow ejected different versions of myself at different ages onto disk and play the trauma each hold like a dvd in a player. I can see the emotion in the sixteen year old girl who was astonished by the truth - like her identity were on business cards that I could reach into my pocket and pull out and hand to you saying "Here, take this. This is who she was."