Love Is Dead
Love is dead.
Ask me how I am feeling right now and the primary answer is hurt.
And angry. And disappointed. And confused. And lost.
And hurt.
The White Tie Affair once wrote “every time I come around you’re ready for the letdown” and there is much more truth to that either you or I care to admit. What happens when we are perpetually disappointed by someone?
It’s one thing when we are scorned from our lover but what happens when it’s a family member? What happens when you can’t look at your own father without feeling hurt, or disappointment, or a multitude of other emotions?
On February 25th, when he threatened to disown me in an email because I spoke out against it to my mother, of course I was hurt. I did not see that email coming because I was, quite literally, 6,000 miles away when her conversation with him took place. I wasn’t even in the same country!
And yet I was the one who was called “disgusting”? Because why - I had said to my mother that I had enough of his drunken phone calls?
I have lived with the guilt long enough. A part of me does and will always blame myself for my father’s alcoholism, irrational as that may be. It’s there and it’s just something I have accepted.
But I am angry, too.
In April, my father had flown to the U.S. for about a week to visit his father (my grandfather). Not once did he call me. When I mentioned this to a friend, she asked me “but did you really want him to call?”
And that’s the thing - if he had called, I cannot say with all due certainty that I would have picked up.
April came and went and the disappointment lingers, as it does when you realize that while you are not worth a phone call, you also didn’t want it anyway. Maybe there is truth, too, to Train’s lyrics: “you say you don’t need my secret midnight call”.
And I don’t.
Flash forward to June when someone asked him “but you do love him, don’t you?”
And I said, “I don’t know”.
Do I hate him? I’m not sure; honestly right now I don’t feel much of anything towards him.
Except maybe resentment, and hurt, and a touch of anger.
I’m still sitting here fuming and although I should probably just drink a Dr Pepper or look at pretty pictures I also accept I’m not completely done writing this out. I apologize if you’ve gotten this part and asked yourself “but what’s the point in this?” because at this point, I don’t know either.
Except maybe to say I refuse to be blamed for his drinking.
So yes. You know what? He can say I’m being out of line or pushing him away or whatever his accusation of the day is.
I will plead guilty to all of it.
But I will also plead guilty for wanting to get the fuck away from it and having absolutely zero intention of coming back.
He wants to put his alcoholism on me? Fine. But I will put not coming back on him.