I had the insatiable appetite to write something long winded at 7 am so...
Sometimes I think I should write a book.
If you could think of the most crazy shit Lifetime could come up with, and add a dab of telenovela dramatics, that would be my life. Maybe not as much now because Iām adulting so well...
FILE THIS ONE UNDER CHAPTER 942429084- DADDY ISSUES.
I was slightly asleep as my fiance was leaving for work, and my brain just would not quit. I just kept thinking about my father, and my siblings and how royally messed up that whole situation is...
I have 5Ā āotherā siblings (one not biological but they are my sibling regardless). This was a hard pill to swallow at 18, mainly because I had only known about two (well, 3. The eldest is about my age) which I met once when I was 6. My father has not been in my life since, well, forever practically. I had fond memories of him not showing up for his visitation days. When he did show up, heād be so shit faced that my mother would react as if we had just seen a wild bear in the woods; sheād have me lay on the ground, far enough from the windows until heād give up banging on the door and went away. Iām sure there were good moments mixed in there somewhere, but there were so many fucked up ones my brain must have recorded over them.
With my siblings, there is this disconnect, which is understandable. I am essentially a stranger to them having been absent for at least 20 years (for the oldest). Itās hard to have a family-type relationship with people you barely know from the start, and then 24+ hour driving distance and general life...it becomes difficult to have bonding moments.
Itās a strange feeling though, the way I feel about them. Almost like theyāre my own children, even though Iām not much older than them. I think because of the missed years, I still see them as these young, fragile things and I sometimes feel guilty, like I was the absentee parent in their life.
Until I knew their story, I spent most of my years despising them because they āstoleā my dad from me. I always wondered if I was brought up in family conversations or if they even thought of me at all. Or maybe I was the skeleton in their happy family closet.
I have a memory that is the last in the archive of my father and itās always struck a chord with me. I was about 7, my mother and I had went to his home for his visitation. At the time I didnāt know the situation with he and his wife, but I know she had left and taken the 3 kids away from him. I hadnāt seen him at that point in weeks. I remember spilling something on my shirt and him getting me a new one (which I kept for the longest time and cherished the shit out of the TMNT shirt). I followed him into the boys room and while drunk, he started sobbing uncontrollably.Ā āTheyāre gone mija, I donāt know what to do...ā. being a child, I had no idea how to react, but here I was consoling a grown man crying about his other kids. Apparently there was domestic abuse (and the obvious habits) I was unaware about and my stepmother was sane enough to leave. He had taken it pretty hard, but obviously not very serious because I also remember from that visit leaving abruptly, and having to walk home in the rain shortly after my father, in his drunken stupor, groping my mother. but not before stripping down to just his underwear.
It wasnāt until my mom having filed for child support from him that I found out that I had two younger siblings too, and he had been living with my step mom again. He had also been previously arrested for drunken disorderly, as well as aggravated assault, which we chalked up to him getting into another bar fight . Itād be 4 years later, after visiting with my step mom and siblings for the first time, that Iād discovered they had had the worst of my father. His drinking and drug habits had escalated, and riding shotgun was a nasty habit of physical abuse. Trying to stay together for the kids, my step mother finally had enough and kicked him out, but he began stalking his family even after being served a restraining order. They moved repeatedly, but he always managed to find them. Finally for fear of the safety of herself and her children, she began homeschooling them.
After learning about all the bruises, cuts and broken bones, any shred of reconciling with him immediately went out the window. To this day he has tried to contact me via Facebook, and I still deny him and always will because of what they did to them.
Every time I look at my brother, I see his face and it kills me.
Every time I think about them, I wonder what life would have been like had things been different.
I wonder when asked how many siblings they have, if they include me.
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