recovering.
it has been very hard for me to describe my feelings these past few months. and thinking about it has caused me to be wide awake tonight. so i decided to download the Shopgirl soundtrack to pass the time. i forgot how much i loved that movie and the music. the soundtrack is a score written by Barrington Pheloung and performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra. anyways i was just listening and doing other things, until the song "recovering" started to play. i remember the scene from the movie where the main character Mirabelle is lonely and laying in bed staring at the ceiling and suddenly the music became mine. This song said everything i was feeling without a single word and i knew in that instance that i'm really not fine with my life right now. i'm closer than i was before, but the real impact is settling in.
it's been two months since i've spoken to my dad and i can't spend a day without being reminded of that. and the sad part is i'm glad that we're not talking. i am actually relieved to be away from him. it seemed like my whole life has been dedicated to making him proud and now i don't care about that anymore. the difference is i am never worried about making my mom proud because i know her love is unconditional, but it is not the same with him. he expects us to follow his little game and i have to admit he is very good at manipulating people into believing he is some sort of victim. i think i've played his game and been a good daughter to him for the majority of my life. he had me fooled into blaming my mom for the divorce and acting like this model father. and yet has never admitted to doing anything wrong ever in his life. he continues to drink himself into a coma and still sees nothing wrong with it. this summer i realized he has no idea who i am. and all i can think about is the time i wasted with him and how i always told the parenting coordinator that everything was fine so we could continue to do shared parenting. i was so stupid. i believed every word that came out of his mouth. and he became worse and worse to the twins. and i knew that i couldn't blame them for the way they treated me. they were just angry at him through me, because they were so scared to make him mad since he made them feel like they should be lucky he even calls them his daughters. and all of this time has passed and absolutely nothing has changed. he is becoming more bitter and hateful than ever. i have finally decided to give up on him the moment i found out he didn't invite us to our nana's funeral. i just cannot for the life of me figure out why he even did this. he told rachel that we weren't there for her when she was alive and didn't deserve to be there. and all i can think is that despite the way she treated us, we were always good grandchildren and took her criticisms. my dad's parents have been nothing but vicious to rachel and rebecca, and both of them were able to look past that and still love them because they needed them in their life. and my dad cannot even see that. and even though i feel this way it doesn't mean that i didn't love my nana. she was a big part of my childhood and life. i just don't understand his motive. but to me that is unforgivable. and he told everyone that we said we just didn't want to go. he lied and now my dad's family hates the three of us. i tried to call my pop-pop to explain what happened but he refuses to return my calls. and now i'm left with this mess. this to me is not something i can forgive. i honestly don't know what i did wrong. he makes me feel like this ordinary, insignificant person and i don't deserve it. i'm so sick of trying to do everything possible to win his love, because the truth is he should be thankful to have these children who to me are special and worth his time. how can a man who lost a child be so hurtful to the children he has? what makes someone so utterly heartless? i cannot even begin to express the pain i feel right now. i'm not disposable. and the only way i feel i can ever recover is to completely remove him from my life. it's so sad, but i feel like i'm left with no other option.
this week i had the most meaningful conversation with rachel on the phone. we talked and for once i made her feel better. and with this sister who has always seemed distant, i regained that connection we had when we were little. and rachel actually said that she was sorry for the way she has treated me these past few years and for once i knew she was saying something she meant. since then i've known that leaving him is the only answer to save my relationship with my sisters. i've always known how much our relationship was dependent on my father, but rachel and becca have finally come to terms with that.
even typing this, i can't stop shaking because it's so real. i just want to get better. i know there's hope because my mom was able to do it. and i don't feel like i'm losing a father because honestly, not that i consider duncan to be my dad or anything, but i know he really love the three of us. my mom told me that he has devoted the past three weekends to building a set for the children's play my sisters are directing and how awesome it looks now that it is done. and all i can think about is how my dad would never have done that for them. i remember when they asked him to pick them up at firestone since their car was getting fixed and they needed a ride to practice he refused and they missed it. he told them he was going out to play golf, when in fact his golf game was three hours away from the time they called him. it is just so many little things like that have added up and now i cannot stop thinking of them. duncan was the one who was my OM coach, helped me build my robot, my mousetrap car, the arch way at prom, and never doing these things to impress me, but really just to let me know that he was interested in my life. he was the one there to take pictures at homecoming and going on my camping trips. i am so greatful to him and the way he has made my mom so happy. and when he found out my final exams went past the date of the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels show at Barbara B. Mann we all planned on attending, he bought Whitney and i tickets for the weekend show just so i didn't miss something he knew i really wanted to see, without me even asking.
i couldn't ever get my dad to pay attention to me long enough to tell him how my day was. even coming home from months away at school, my conversations were never more entertaining than some show on tv. he is so disconnected from my life that he thought making me sleep on a blow-up mattress on the floor all summer is okay, because what really matters is he has his steelers room that he can sit in 10 or 12 times a year. even when i had everything in that closet for storage he asked me to move it all out so he could make that his own space and i literally had nothing that belonged to me in a house that i had lived in since i was 2 years old. he treats his wife like shit, even though she's a bitch, but still no one deserves to be treated like that. this summer i watched him pat her on the head when she did something he thought was stupid, as if she was some child he had control over. europe was going to the best trip of my life and he made it into the trip from hell. yes i had a fantastic time seeing everything, but most moments were ruined by missing tours because me dad couldn't wake up from his pub hang-over. this trip was just a big ploy for us to forever be greatful to him. i'm sorry to say that it didn't work on me. i knew his motive, but hell, who doesn't want a free trip to london and paris? even if i did have to travel with the biggest assholes on the face of the earth, i still had some great moments with the twins.
one memory still haunts me. we were driving somewhere, just me and my dad in the car and i put the mirror down to put on some lip gloss on the way there. and he, to be funny, hit the brake a bunch of times to mess me up. i kept going and laughed it off a little and he told me that i was going to make a great wife. at first this statement struck me as kind of sweet, thinking it was some kind of breakthrough because my dad never said stuff like that to me. but when i mentioned it to my mom i wasn't getting the reaction from her that i expected. she really didn't say anything at first. so later i said something again and she asked me why i kept bringing that up, like i was expecting this wonderful answer from her. and then i began to realize what his statement really meant. we weren't sharing some father daughter moment, but in reality he was teaching me that being a good wife means letting your husband make fun of you and be annoying and i refuse to accept that fate. especially since i can recall sooo many moments that my dad did that to my mom when they were together and how that made my mom feel so small. i know to anyone else that seems so stupid and like i was reading way too much into it, but only my mom and i can really understand his meaning, because if anyone else had said it would have been very normal. but he has found a way to twist his words into hurtful statements.
it is sad to say this, but i almost feel relief in the fact that chache and mac are gone because i was so devoted to them, almost to the point that they were my only motivation for going to his house. they were my dogs. it was so weird to see my dad's reaction to their deaths. he was so uncharacteristically emotional. then something crossed my mind. he was able to do that because those dogs never asked for anything from him. they never needed compassion and attention. he refused to pay our dental bills, but trips to the vet were never questioned. how could he treat his dogs like family and his daughters like disposable beings? the simple answer was they never needed him to show his love to them. when i think about it my dad is a really sad person. he has lost so many friends over the years for the same reasons he is losing us now. he finds pleasure in making fun of his friends and doesn't care about others. his wife is just someone who cleans his house and lets him do whatever he wants, exploiting her money for his own wishes. he's jealous of his brother who makes way more money than him and has always been in a race with him to win the affection of their parents. i do understand what has made him this way, but i still refuse to believe anyone who has suffered the his losses is willing to give up his daughters in the name of pride.
i don't know if we'll ever resolve our problems. but i do know that i will never apologize for any of my actions because i have been nothing but a supportive daughter and grandchild. i can't believe that i'm finally strong enough to do something this drastic. i think it takes a lot of courage to be willing to endure so much pain to achieve a better life in the long run. i have no regrets. everything will be for the best.
music has released that hope for better and greater things.
i'm recovering.
please help me to stay strong.
don't let me lose hope anymore.
start over.
begin.
it's been two months since i've spoken to my dad and i can't spend a day without being reminded of that. and the sad part is i'm glad that we're not talking. i am actually relieved to be away from him. it seemed like my whole life has been dedicated to making him proud and now i don't care about that anymore. the difference is i am never worried about making my mom proud because i know her love is unconditional, but it is not the same with him. he expects us to follow his little game and i have to admit he is very good at manipulating people into believing he is some sort of victim. i think i've played his game and been a good daughter to him for the majority of my life. he had me fooled into blaming my mom for the divorce and acting like this model father. and yet has never admitted to doing anything wrong ever in his life. he continues to drink himself into a coma and still sees nothing wrong with it. this summer i realized he has no idea who i am. and all i can think about is the time i wasted with him and how i always told the parenting coordinator that everything was fine so we could continue to do shared parenting. i was so stupid. i believed every word that came out of his mouth. and he became worse and worse to the twins. and i knew that i couldn't blame them for the way they treated me. they were just angry at him through me, because they were so scared to make him mad since he made them feel like they should be lucky he even calls them his daughters. and all of this time has passed and absolutely nothing has changed. he is becoming more bitter and hateful than ever. i have finally decided to give up on him the moment i found out he didn't invite us to our nana's funeral. i just cannot for the life of me figure out why he even did this. he told rachel that we weren't there for her when she was alive and didn't deserve to be there. and all i can think is that despite the way she treated us, we were always good grandchildren and took her criticisms. my dad's parents have been nothing but vicious to rachel and rebecca, and both of them were able to look past that and still love them because they needed them in their life. and my dad cannot even see that. and even though i feel this way it doesn't mean that i didn't love my nana. she was a big part of my childhood and life. i just don't understand his motive. but to me that is unforgivable. and he told everyone that we said we just didn't want to go. he lied and now my dad's family hates the three of us. i tried to call my pop-pop to explain what happened but he refuses to return my calls. and now i'm left with this mess. this to me is not something i can forgive. i honestly don't know what i did wrong. he makes me feel like this ordinary, insignificant person and i don't deserve it. i'm so sick of trying to do everything possible to win his love, because the truth is he should be thankful to have these children who to me are special and worth his time. how can a man who lost a child be so hurtful to the children he has? what makes someone so utterly heartless? i cannot even begin to express the pain i feel right now. i'm not disposable. and the only way i feel i can ever recover is to completely remove him from my life. it's so sad, but i feel like i'm left with no other option.
this week i had the most meaningful conversation with rachel on the phone. we talked and for once i made her feel better. and with this sister who has always seemed distant, i regained that connection we had when we were little. and rachel actually said that she was sorry for the way she has treated me these past few years and for once i knew she was saying something she meant. since then i've known that leaving him is the only answer to save my relationship with my sisters. i've always known how much our relationship was dependent on my father, but rachel and becca have finally come to terms with that.
even typing this, i can't stop shaking because it's so real. i just want to get better. i know there's hope because my mom was able to do it. and i don't feel like i'm losing a father because honestly, not that i consider duncan to be my dad or anything, but i know he really love the three of us. my mom told me that he has devoted the past three weekends to building a set for the children's play my sisters are directing and how awesome it looks now that it is done. and all i can think about is how my dad would never have done that for them. i remember when they asked him to pick them up at firestone since their car was getting fixed and they needed a ride to practice he refused and they missed it. he told them he was going out to play golf, when in fact his golf game was three hours away from the time they called him. it is just so many little things like that have added up and now i cannot stop thinking of them. duncan was the one who was my OM coach, helped me build my robot, my mousetrap car, the arch way at prom, and never doing these things to impress me, but really just to let me know that he was interested in my life. he was the one there to take pictures at homecoming and going on my camping trips. i am so greatful to him and the way he has made my mom so happy. and when he found out my final exams went past the date of the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels show at Barbara B. Mann we all planned on attending, he bought Whitney and i tickets for the weekend show just so i didn't miss something he knew i really wanted to see, without me even asking.
i couldn't ever get my dad to pay attention to me long enough to tell him how my day was. even coming home from months away at school, my conversations were never more entertaining than some show on tv. he is so disconnected from my life that he thought making me sleep on a blow-up mattress on the floor all summer is okay, because what really matters is he has his steelers room that he can sit in 10 or 12 times a year. even when i had everything in that closet for storage he asked me to move it all out so he could make that his own space and i literally had nothing that belonged to me in a house that i had lived in since i was 2 years old. he treats his wife like shit, even though she's a bitch, but still no one deserves to be treated like that. this summer i watched him pat her on the head when she did something he thought was stupid, as if she was some child he had control over. europe was going to the best trip of my life and he made it into the trip from hell. yes i had a fantastic time seeing everything, but most moments were ruined by missing tours because me dad couldn't wake up from his pub hang-over. this trip was just a big ploy for us to forever be greatful to him. i'm sorry to say that it didn't work on me. i knew his motive, but hell, who doesn't want a free trip to london and paris? even if i did have to travel with the biggest assholes on the face of the earth, i still had some great moments with the twins.
one memory still haunts me. we were driving somewhere, just me and my dad in the car and i put the mirror down to put on some lip gloss on the way there. and he, to be funny, hit the brake a bunch of times to mess me up. i kept going and laughed it off a little and he told me that i was going to make a great wife. at first this statement struck me as kind of sweet, thinking it was some kind of breakthrough because my dad never said stuff like that to me. but when i mentioned it to my mom i wasn't getting the reaction from her that i expected. she really didn't say anything at first. so later i said something again and she asked me why i kept bringing that up, like i was expecting this wonderful answer from her. and then i began to realize what his statement really meant. we weren't sharing some father daughter moment, but in reality he was teaching me that being a good wife means letting your husband make fun of you and be annoying and i refuse to accept that fate. especially since i can recall sooo many moments that my dad did that to my mom when they were together and how that made my mom feel so small. i know to anyone else that seems so stupid and like i was reading way too much into it, but only my mom and i can really understand his meaning, because if anyone else had said it would have been very normal. but he has found a way to twist his words into hurtful statements.
it is sad to say this, but i almost feel relief in the fact that chache and mac are gone because i was so devoted to them, almost to the point that they were my only motivation for going to his house. they were my dogs. it was so weird to see my dad's reaction to their deaths. he was so uncharacteristically emotional. then something crossed my mind. he was able to do that because those dogs never asked for anything from him. they never needed compassion and attention. he refused to pay our dental bills, but trips to the vet were never questioned. how could he treat his dogs like family and his daughters like disposable beings? the simple answer was they never needed him to show his love to them. when i think about it my dad is a really sad person. he has lost so many friends over the years for the same reasons he is losing us now. he finds pleasure in making fun of his friends and doesn't care about others. his wife is just someone who cleans his house and lets him do whatever he wants, exploiting her money for his own wishes. he's jealous of his brother who makes way more money than him and has always been in a race with him to win the affection of their parents. i do understand what has made him this way, but i still refuse to believe anyone who has suffered the his losses is willing to give up his daughters in the name of pride.
i don't know if we'll ever resolve our problems. but i do know that i will never apologize for any of my actions because i have been nothing but a supportive daughter and grandchild. i can't believe that i'm finally strong enough to do something this drastic. i think it takes a lot of courage to be willing to endure so much pain to achieve a better life in the long run. i have no regrets. everything will be for the best.
music has released that hope for better and greater things.
i'm recovering.
please help me to stay strong.
don't let me lose hope anymore.
start over.
begin.