Moody Meow

Liberal, lunatic lassie, with mood swings and foot-in-mouth syndrome

He’s Not Invited

Posted on | October 26, 2004 | 4 Comments

He’s not been a part of my life for over 10 years. So, why do I feel like I am the one missing out?

This happens sometimes. A longing. A melancholy floats like a whisper in my memory. My recollection of his calloused hand in my hair and the funny way he would twitch his mustache to make me smile can’t fill years of silence. Change rises steadily in the horizon as I leave the foothills of my twenties. The gorgeous crags of adulthood loom, promising challenges and slippery stumbles. But, Candy-land beckons. The times of bright gummy-colored plastic and bacon and eggs bleed their blinding sunshine into my happily foggy today.
I long for my father to come into my contemporary life. But, that invitation remains locked in a drawer. Collecting dust, it will never be sent. I will have to deal with the remorse when the possibility of reconciliation dies with him. No. I will probably never speak to my father again. That doesn’t make this lingering pain any less present.

Our history is not unlike the histories of countless women whose fathers left. I don’t doubt that he loved me, but I do understand now my purpose post-divorce. I was a weapon against my mother. She steeled herself against his emotional attacks. But watching her children crumble beneath his derision pained her more than the blows he once rained on her. I don’t think she took fully understood the damage he wrought on my life. All I wanted was a family back. A solid unit. The smiles. The songs. The comfort in knowing the demon that skulked in shadowy silence. (He would be better than the trustless fiend disguised as family that would later penetrate my will.) But the ideal of our family faded when he slapped her. The memory of his rage in turn, smote me and tore from me the shield of ignorance and innocence. I know that the tears shed as I mourned the disintegration of my family pained me the more than any later in my life. Those little orbs of salty liquid eroded my young soul, pulling grief from places not yet discovered.

Our relationship failed to recover from the blows of the divorce. And from about 8 on, it slipped further into uninhabitable territory. I decided at 18 that enough was enough. Without much celebration, I walked away. Alexis lived with him for a time, trying to reconcile her memory of him with the reality. And through long, heartfelt talks with her I understand that the ideal in my memory is nothing more than what it is: a hazy image of a truth never born in this world, a lie, the fabrication of a hurting child.

Change stirs my future. The ingredients for success lay waiting for the right moment to rise. The question is then: do I try to contact him, tell him what I have done with twenty years? A part of me wants to. It’s a small, childlike piece of me that still aches for his funny smile with the twitching mustache.

But I haven’t smiled at his memory in years.

Some ghosts are better left abed.

Category: Did I forget to mention?

Comments

4 Responses to “He’s Not Invited”

  1. Erica The Meow
    October 28th, 2004 @ 7:40 am

    I would find a way to say hello again, or even goodbye for good face to face if I thought it would make this permanent state of unrest settle a bit. But I know his methods and his desire, even now, is to wound.
    It’s hard to reconcile scars, hard to justify their presence without explanation. But I am going to have to reset the balance on my own. I have tried to retune the scales for years, and at this point in my life, the scales matter less than the journey I am taking. The most important scar is the one I shall never allow him to inflict. I will always say, “I wish….” But it will usually be “I wish he could have been an adult about this whole thing.”

    When my sister walked down the isle in June I remarked to myself that it was sad for him not to be there. Sad because he, in his undying rage against my mother, sacrificed moments that meant the world to his kids. Something that hatefully powerful has no business in my life.

  2. Nick
    October 26th, 2004 @ 8:06 pm

    Unsolicited 2 cents:

    Your history with your father sounds similar to mine. Not really the fondest memories, family trauma, etc. (my summary doesn’t make light of the situation).

    I had an opportunity, a few years back, so say goodbye to my father. I wasn’t aware that it was that serious, but it was. Looking back, I should’ve taken it, because no matter how angry or hateful I was towards my father, not having taken the opportunity is more haunting than having contacted him and having ill results.

    It sounds as if the universe may be showing you how to reconcile. And it may not necessarily mean with your father, but with yourself, to reset the balance.

    We all yearn for an understanding of who we are, genetically, and various other ways. It’s a tragedy when the tie that binds us to our ancestry is severed, dooming us to live in the uknown.

    So I speak to you as someone who often says “I wish I…” or “if only…”

  3. chris
    October 26th, 2004 @ 6:45 pm

    A wise woman once said “Never think that speaking your mind will get you in trouble. Keeping your truths hidden is where problems lie.”
    i think that kind of applies here.

  4. Erica The Meow
    October 26th, 2004 @ 10:44 am

    Sorry for the somber post….something I just had to get off my chest.

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