double-edged

in a double edged sword sort of fashion, thus is today.

its my dads birthday. and we're estranged. i suppose thats the best way to explain it. he prefers it that way. he likes his life just the way it is. over-filled with work in the daylight, easing into the evening hours, before going home to his disastrously messy apartment, where mah manx Poe now resides. and he entertains the rest of his evening hours pouring himself into what he believes to be a delightful stupor, before stumbling his way into bed. and sure, some evenings he'll spend them at the bar, where everybody knows his name, but thats my dads life. sadly thats the way its always been. from the time my brother and i were little ones. my mother did a fair job shielding us, and for that i'm thankful to a certain extent. i held him on this pedestal. 'my daddy'.

i spent many years trying to build this relationship with him. doing the things he liked to do. going to the hunting/fishing/gun shows he liked to go to and watching the old movies and things of the sort he enjoyed, just to get a glimpse into a man i never really truly understood. i listened to the stories my mother told me of the man she met when she was young. the man she fell in love with, the man she dated, the man she married...completely enthralled with the idea of this different man, a man i never knew.

a man i tried desperately to know, but whom in reality, didnt seem to have the slightest interest in knowing me nor my brother. finally my mother left him. not out of lack of love. as she's told me many times. you can love someone and no longer be able to live with them anymore. so they live around the corner from each other. and she's tried to maintain a relationship with my dad, and he doesnt return phone calls anymore.

i've sent him christmas presents and birthday cards. i've called and left him messages. its like having an invisible parent.

he doesnt send birthday cards or christmas cards or return phone calls. it wouldnt bother me if i didnt have children. they ask about him. so i tell them he's very busy with work. which he probably is, but eventually, they'll realise.

and part of me is sad, for lack of a better word...and the other part of me says, well. that man, your dad, took you in when your own biological father didnt. he didnt bat an eye. so for that he must be commended. he never treated you as anything less than his child. and youre still fiercely protective of him when anyone dares to call him your stepfather, because thats not the case. he's your dad. the end.

and. youre almost 35 years old. do you really need a prominent parental figure?
so maybe its time to let go.
my mother has.
my brother has.
so why is it such a stinging...lemon and salt in the wound for me?





today would have been my sons 7th birthday, its a double-edged sword of sorts.