Dad
This may not be a super uplifting entry. I have been trying to dig into why I am the way I am about a lot of things. I think I have always tended to be a fairly introspective person, though I have not been recording the reflections much until recently again. So a thing I am trying to sift through is how Dad's leaving Mom and our family when we were kids has affected me and how I relate to others, possibly especially men.
I am the oldest of my dad's four kids. He has me, my brother Colin, and my sister Shannon with my mom. With my stepmom he had my sister Anne. I have memories from very young childhood with my dad being part of my life. When I was a baby my dad was a manager at a Denny's in northern California. I swear I have memories of Denny's servers carrying me around from table to table while they waited on customers, and being fawned over by everyone. One of the servers even made a doll of me with a Denny's server dress (this kind of horrid brown herringbone design, very short) with a little Denny's name tag saying "Erin" and I still have that doll somewhere. For about a year and a half I was the only baby until my brother came along. Funny I don't really have too many memories of my brother as a newborn but I was only a year and a half old so I guess that's not really surprising.
I have a memory of having the flu and sleeping between Dad and Mom and feeling nauseous in the middle of the night... Dad picking me up and trying to get me to the bathroom but I didn't make it and I threw up all over him. I was wearing a little white nightie with pink hearts on it. Dad had no shirt and was covered in sick. It was pretty gross, but he didn't make a thing of it while he was holding me and trying to get me to feel better and cleaned up. I think they took me to the hospital that night because maybe I wouldn't stop throwing up? I had one of those little tiny curved bowl things that they want you to throw up in and I remember thinking it was too small (I was maybe 3 or 4? possibly 5). I think that was when Dad gave me a My Little Pony toy to make me feel better. It was Lickety Split; I still have her somewhere.
When we lived in Yorba Linda we had a backyard with fruit trees. My brother and I would play with our He-Man toys in the backyard for hours. At some point there was a space in the backyard that had a big black widow and Dad wouldn't let us go in the backyard for a while. It felt like a long time. Looking back on the situation, I wonder why he didn't just go out and get rid of the black widow so we could go in the backyard. While I am not a huge fan of killing things, more often than not I will kill black widows due to their being dangerous to humans and not really having a good way to capture and relocate them somewhere safer (for them AND humans). I don't know what Dad's usual method was, but I guess maybe it was just let it live there forever instead of dealing with it so his kids could play in their backyard.
Shannon was born and eventually we moved away from Yorba Linda. I was almost 6 years old. Dad had gotten a job with some people his brother knew, so we moved to south Orange County. We lived in two houses on the same street in that neighborhood. Our family became friends with Dad's bosses (a married couple who owned the company he began working for). Colin and I were enamored with their son Philip; he knew some karate and he liked Robotech. I am sure there were other things we thought were cool about him. He is three years older than me. We were pretty enamored with his parents Mark and Lorrie too. Mark taught us some Japanese and Lorrie taught Mom, Shannon, and me some belly dancing moves.
Our families began doing stuff together, like picnics and going to each other's houses. There were company parties at another boss type guy's house with a pool. I have strong memories of Hallowe'en parties at Mark and Lorrie's big two-story house. I could go on at length about the decorations in the house, both the ones that stayed year-round and some of the ones that went up for holidays (some of the Hallowe'en ones were really frightening to me), but that's not really what this entry is about. We kids were having a grand time and everything seemed pretty great.
One day Dad and Lorrie came into the play room in the second house on Glenmeadows (that second house on the same street.. same floor plan but mirrored.. I don't remember why that happened) while Colin and I were playing with our He-Man figures, dinosaurs, dragons, horses, and a myriad of other toys. They said, "We have something to tell you..." We looked up eagerly. "We want to take everyone to somewhere special. Where would you like to go? Disneyland or Knott's?" We excitedly responded, "DISNEYLAND!!!"
It was a fun family trip with Dad, Mom, Mark, Lorrie, Philip, Colin, Shannon, and me. I have memories from that trip too, but again, not really what the entry is about. But hold that phrase in your mind, "We have something to tell you."
Lorrie began spending the night at our house. We don't truly know where Mom went, but we assumed it was Mark's house to play D&D. Lorrie and Dad would rent movies for us and it would be really to have her over. We didn't really put together what this could mean, in our innocence and naivete. I don't even really know how long this went on, but it could not have been all that long.
One Sunday morning we were having scrambled eggs. I am sure there were other breakfast foods involved, but scrambled eggs stand out. Dad and Mom came into the kitchen together. Mom was behind Dad a little and I couldn't see her very clearly, but she didn't look happy. Dad said, "We have something to tell you..." We looked up eagerly, excited about another family trip to Disneyland or somewhere else. "I am moving out from this house and moving in with Lorrie. Your Mom and I are separating." Or something like that. I don't remember the exact words. Whatever was said, it was certainly not what my seven year old brain was ready to comprehend. My face crumpled into a tearful mess. My scrambled eggs looked all blurry and unappetizing through my tears and I didn't even fully understand what was happening, but it seems pretty bad if Mom looks like she's been crying. I think Colin started crying too; he was five years old. Shannon was three, and she may have started crying, but really only because Colin and I were. Maybe we got up and hugged Dad, asking him why. Maybe he said something about Mom and him not being in love with each other anymore, but he and Lorrie were in love now. I don't know. It all felt pretty bad and sad.
My dad left his family to start a different family with a different woman. I know it hurt my mom pretty deeply; I am a lot like my mom in many ways. Both genetically and through modeled behavior. My brother feels a lot of rage at the unfairness and injustice of the betrayal of our father to our family. How can someone just leave their kids like that?
Mom tried to take us to counseling. She couldn't afford much (another whole different story) so we went to a sliding scale place in Laguna Beach. All three of us saw a woman named Ellen. We loved her. Shannon was still just a toddler, about three years old, so maybe she didn't contribute as much to the conversation, but we loved going to see Ellen and we didn't mind crying in front of her. Then Ellen left us.
There were some other counselors in different grouping configurations: Shannon and I saw a woman named Leah who we though was really nice and she gave us little crystals each visit. I remember sometimes being stubborn and not talking to her. I don't remember what Shannon did. There was a lady who saw Colin by himself, but he was really mean to her. There was an old woman none of us particularly liked and I think there was a session with the whole family (Dad, Lorrie, Mom, and we three kids) but I don't think much came of it. I think Dad was probably not very talkative and maybe didn't think he had done anything wrong; I don't know, it's just speculation and blurry memory. Colin eventually was able to see a male therapist named Jon and he guided Colin through a lot. None of us are "fixed" though and for a very long time I thought counseling was pretty worthless. What's the point? How far can you get if you start opening up and then they just leave you..... again... like everyone else?
Through all of this we were navigating visitation between Mom's and Dad and Lorrie's houses. We both wanted to go and didn't want to. Sometimes Philip was also at Dad and Lorrie's and that was fun. Eventually Dad and Lorrie had a baby together. We were never allowed to tell her her, "no" and it felt like that was a rule no matter what she did.
There is a lot more to the story, but this entry is already quite long and I have not really dissected how I feel about any of this or how I think it might have affected me.
I know I have a fear of abandonment, and an expectation that I WILL be abandoned. I don't think anyone likes to be abandoned of course, but I am not sure that everyone expects it from anyone they get close to. So within that I guess my dad's departure from his first family left me with a sense of worthlessness. What have I got to offer anyone to make them stay if my own dad didn't even want me? But of the four of his kids, I probably have still managed to maintain the best relationship with him, or any relationship at all. Anne, of course, seems to have a pretty good relationship with him and her mother, but I am sure she has a host of other issues having to do maybe with feeling like her part time siblings eventually abandoned her. I have not really talked to her about it though.
I think Dad may have tried to instill in me a fear of males. I remember in high school I had a boyfriend and I mentioned going up to his room to listen to music or something and Dad and Lorrie were mad at me that I was alone in a room with a boy. Dad tried to tell me that men are hardwired to want to have sex and that being alone in his room would be too much temptation for my boyfriend and if he got started there would be no stopping him because he would become a mindless sex zombie, I guess. They clearly didn't know this boy. And they clearly didn't know me. I was the one trying to convince my boyfriend to explore our sexuality and he was shy and nervous. I told him I was not interested in intercourse, but there are so many other things. And it's not like my boyfriend's parents were super okay with me being alone in his room with him either... I was not supposed to go upstairs with just him, but if his best friend was there too we could all be in his room together.
Once I was at my boyfriend's house on a weekend and his family were getting ready for wedding. My dad was supposed to come pick me up, and the time just kept crawling along. I helped braid my boyfriend's sister's hair. Dad still hadn't shown up. Eventually I finally got a hold of him on the phone and he came to get me. He had forgotten he was supposed to come get me. Forgotten me.
If Dad left Mom, and I am just like Mom, maybe men will leave me too. This is especially fucked up thinking since it besmirches my mom and she's pretty cool. Definitely not a person without worth and not someone who should be abandoned either.
When I moved in with Dad and Lorrie in my early 30s, I appreciated them giving me a place to stay and taking care of some of my needs like food and laundry. But they were also really weird about some things like telling me how I should dress and act as a 30 year old. They were really into this show called What Not To Wear. I thought it was kind of horrible to see these people being made over and all their uniqueness squashed out of them by fashion snobs who think they know better than anyone. Some people definitely looked happy about their makeovers, and that's totally fine. But I distinctly remember one girl who I thought was so cute and fun looking and her makeover was so boring and lifeless. She didn't look particularly happy. Maybe she was fine with it, or came to accept what they did, but I personally thought she looked a little sad and lost. I really didn't like that Dad and Lorrie kept trying to tell me what to wear or how I should act or dress at my age. I finally got Dad to come to my work for lunch once and he was able to see that literally every adult there was dressed much the same as me, a nerdy tee and jeans. Even the freaking president of the company. Every day at Blizzard was twin day, you just had to show up and you would eventually see someone wearing the same shirt as you, sometimes several.
Dad both expressed that it was cool that I seemed to "know who I was intrinsically" at a pretty young age AND not accept me for the unique geeky adult I am. I think this leads to me second guessing myself often. I DO know who I am. I DO feel comfortable with my values and the way I dress and activities I do. But I also feel like I am too much to deal with or whatever bullshyte I have been told in my life, usually by men (though sometimes by women who may have been jealous).
Perhaps a lack of validation from my father has led me to seek validation from other people. I sought to be liked and approved of by many other adults in my life. As I got older, sometimes this affected how I work with a team and a manager and this affected interpersonal relationships, both romantic and platonic in nature. I may explore this train of thought further in another entry; I think I ran out of steam for this entry.