Let Me Introduce Someone

I'm not going to start with a poor me, my childhood was awful story. I can't say my childhood was the most fabulous thing either.

My parents truly never loved each other, it may have felt like love at some point but that was just the high levels of toxicity. They were married my Mother's senior year of high school, when she turned 18. It was assumed that they got married because she was pregnant with me, that wasn't true... I was born 13 months after they were married so I am not a bastard.

Okay, so they got married, they had me, they had my brother, they had my sister. My sister was a year old, and I had just turned 6 when my mother left... basically, this was when they divorced, I'm sure it was more like a year or 2 later, depending on how the courts worked in 1992. So, my parents are divorced and my father moves all of us into his grandmother's house, my great-grandmother. Bless her soul and may she rest in peace, that woman spent her entire life raising children, she raised her own. She went on to raise my father and uncle for a period in their lives and then she raised myself and my 2 siblings. That woman was the saving grace of my existence and the only one that truly raised me. I owe a shit-ton of who I am today to her.

I'm slightly off-track.

My father, I want to introduce you to my father, a man that I haven't spoken to since ... well, I reached out when my youngest was 2 (5 years ago) and he did attend her birthday party. He came, we said a handful of words. It was awkward and we haven't spoke since. The year leading up to the birthday party, we had spoke a handful of time through e-mail, where I asked him about memories I have and he denied them, so I dropped it. Before that? It would have been the week of my high-school graduation, when I had already lived on my own-ish (I was not living under the same roof, or even in the same town as him). I hadn't spoken to him in over a year and showed up to give him 2 tickets to my graduation. Basically, I said "here" and he said "thanks".

He didn't show up to my graduation, in case you were wondering.

Let my introduce you to my father, a man that always showed up to his children's events drunk or drinking, or both. I joined track to impress him, he would show up drunk, reeking of booze and hitting on anyone he thought was legal. My brother joined basketball and my father went to an away tournament for it. There was time to kill before my brother's game started so he went to the closest bar, he got drunk, he went to drive back to the basketball tournament, he got pulled over, he got arrested. We (my sister, my great-grandma, and myself) get a call from dad in jail.

I wasn't there, so I don't really know but I could almost bet that my brother was extremely disappointed that night, especially since dad was there, then he wasn't and he wasn't there to take him home instead of him having to ride the bus and this was WELL before cell phones so we couldn't let my brother know anything. I bet that incident fucked up my brother's mentality in some way.

Oh, my little sister, she got in trouble as a teen... not a biggie, but kind of a biggie. She was in trouble because her and my brother went joy-riding in my dad's car when my brother was 15 and my sister was 13. She ended up on probation because my father pressed charges. So, she had monthly probation meetings; my father would make her drive because he was drunk! What in the actual fuck? Right?

I would like to introduce you to my father. A man that had a really good lawyer on retainer because he fucked up a lot and was always in trouble for alcohol and driving. My father was always drinking, always drunk. I do believe he was mostly sober for work but as soon as he clocked out from his 9-5 (which was actually, 6-3), he was drinking.

He was a violent drunk. He found himself in quite a few bar fights and whatnot. He was a strong man so he always handled himself just fine and I don't ever remember him being injured. However, his violence did carry on into the household and he was abusive towards us. It trickled it's way down, I took the most beatings and my youngest sister took the least. I remember we all would get "whipped" with the belt multiple times a week. We lined up after he got home from work and took 3 belt swings to the ass. Do not move, and DO NOT STUFF A PILLOW IN YOUR PANTS. The beltings were usually because "he knows we've done something we didn't get punished for".

There were other beatings too, these were more aggressive. If grandma told dad that one of us (me and my smart mouth) was worse than the others, that one (me) would get a good smacking, maybe a punch to the ribs or in my later years choked and thrown.

Once, he was beating on (punching and smacking) my brother while he was in the bathroom washing his face. I overheard it and, as the big sister does, went to save the day. I told my dad to stop and he told me to go wait in his fucking room. He came in and punched me directly in the ribs. I collapsed, I actually think a rib was broken. He told me that I deserved that because I'm the reason that he and my mom are divorced. He pulled me up, smacked me across the face, said "you look just like that bitch, go to your room".

Ugh, I remember that night so vividly and it was 22 years ago at this point. "you look just like that bitch..." that part sticks with me the most after all of these years. Why? Because I look exactly like my father. I have his face, I have his eyes, I have his hair... I look like the exact female version of my dad and I look nothing like my mother. To use the excuse that I look like my mother as an excuse to smack me across the face when I look just like him just baffled me.

Oh, have you met my father? He has told me a few times that he has never wanted children and he knew he'd be an awful father. Yet, he had me, my brother, my sister and later my half-sister... Oh, and when we were doing the email catching up, he admitted to paying for 6 abortions that were not my mother's while he and mom were married. Shit, he also told me that I might have a few Korean half-siblings because he was there for work and he fucked a lot and did not use condoms that much,

Seriously, you should have just gotten a vasectomy.

Let me introduce my father. A man that lives at home with his parents because he still can't get his life together. A man that has lost his children and will never really know his amazing grand-children. A man that has truly failed at life and I honestly feel sorry for. A man that has always been lost and just lives there now.

My father taught me that it only takes a little fucking to become a father and it takes so much more to be a dad. I see my husband with our children and they are so lucky to have him . He is their father, he is their dad, he is amazing and if my father taught me anything... it was to stay away from men like him and I most certainly have. Not a single man I have ever dated has ever laid a hand on me and that is so much more than I can ever say about my father so...

THANKS DAD.