| Your Daddy Is Darth Vader |
 What You Call Him: Big Daddy Why You Love Him: He's the Mack Daddy |
Sure. Okay, it's Father's Day. For most people it's a time to send a card, make a phone call, or even give someone a tie. For me, it's a day to reflect upon something I've never had. I know that sounds cruel, but my father left when I was 5 (believe me, it was for the best - long story) and would be in and out of my life until I was 18. On my 18th birthday, I didn't get a card. Instead, I got a court-filed document that said he didn't have to pay my mom child support anymore. I was mad. How dare he hurt me because he thought my mother had hurt him?
I have blocked out my childhood until I was 10 years old. People tell me things that I said or did, and I just don't remember. I have elements here and there, the color of my bedroom, playing barbies and our family pet. Anything having to do with my family life is just gone. We continued to go to the same church as my dad until we moved away when I was 9. As the story goes, I would ask my mom every Sunday, "Will Daddy talk to me today?" I'm 31 and still asking the same question.
He knows where I am, knows my cell phone number, my email address. What I get are the jokes he sends out to his friends. I've tried contact with him over the years. I even met him in Columbus once for lunch, but I know I will never have a relationship with him. His wife yells at any of us who contact him about how we've been bad children to him. No. I'm sorry. He was the adult. I was a child. I may be an adult now, but I'm still just a little girl who needs her daddy.
I have tried time and again to find out why my relationships don't work. Sometimes it's not me... mostly I think it is. Last year at this time I started dating someone and I was the luckiest girl in the world. I fell in love for the first time in years and let myself go. I was a better person when I was with him. But I screwed up. I kept thinking that I should push him away before he had the chance to push me away... as had happened so many times before. When I finally realized what I had done, it was too late. He can't forgive me for that, and I can't forgive myself for breaking his heart. But I think about him every day and hope that he's happy.
As for me, I've been alone for a while now, and I'm learning to like it. The self-punishing side of myself says that at least I'm not hurting anyone else. The rest of me just feels lonely.
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