[Bishop's Fantasy?]
This is MY story and I'm sticking to it!Father's Day
2007-06-17
Today is kind of a mixed bag day for me. I could talk about my father, but I'm not sure what I'd have to say. I used to despise the man for choosing alcohol over his children. I didn't understand what alcohol does to a person. I didn't understand how it anesthetizes a person against their pain for a time or how that pain comes crashing in more intense than before when the effects wear off. I didn't understand what it was like for him to get married young to a high school girl he got pregnant. He worked from the time he was old enough to work. He helped his mother, who was morbidly obese. He helped his sister through college, but never got to go himself. He drove truck for a living and drank most of his take-home pay. He and my mother divorced when I was three years old. My older brother was 7 and my younger brother was a baby. I don't know what happened to tip the balance and cause my mother to leave.
All I know is that we lived with my uncle for a time. We lived in Sioux City when I was very young. First, in an upstairs apartment next to the bar where she worked nights. She left the three of us alone while she was at work. My older brother used to light matches in the closet. I've been afraid of being trapped in a burning building since I was little. I walked to kindergarten alone, which was located almost a mile from home. We didn't usually have food to eat for breakfast, so my biggest meal each day was the free lunch we got at school. We used to stop in the 7-11 on the corner and steal cinnamon flavored toothpicks. I got one birthday present when I turned 6 years old. It was a pink terry cloth dress which I was told was from my father. My mother later told me she bought it and put his name on it. I used to dress my younger brother in that dress.
Eventually we moved into a house with a shelf basement when my mom got involved with a guy named Bill. I got a toy sewing machine for Christmas that really worked. I remember living on a steep hill and sledding on the street when it snowed. The basement flooded while we lived there. Things must've gone sour between my mom and that guy, so we moved to Lincoln and lived with my aunt and her three kids. We lived in a three bedroom house. I hated that house. I loved my school, though. I went to Calvert Elementary in Lincoln for 2 years. I skipped 1st grade in that school. I went to summer school between 2nd and 3rd grade just because I had nothing better to do and going to school was preferable to staying home. We moved into a house located right next to the school and my aunt moved to an apartment down the street from us on Stockwell Street. The house we lived in was later condemned and we had to move. Around that time, my mother met her second husband.
He was a garbage collector and an all around bastard. He swept her off her feet by sending her roses. I can't blame my mom. It was the first time anyone ever sent her flowers. He was her second husband and she was his third wife. His first one left him with two sons. After getting to know him, I can't blame her. His second wife left him with an accusation of abuse. After living with him for 6 years, I believe it. My mom left him just before I turned 13. I don't know if she knew, but she left just in the nick of time for me because he was on the verge of sexually abusing me. He'd done it verbally for awhile and had touched me inappropriately a couple of times. If he'd worked up a little more courage or had any more time alone with me, he would've followed through. He got our unlisted number after she left him and called me to proposition me. He offered me $100 and concert tickets to any concert I wanted to attend if I'd allow him to take my virginity.
We moved into Lincoln and lived with my mom's new boyfriend, who had a son my age. I liked the boyfriend, but couldn't ever get close to him because of my previous experiences. His son was a total stoner. We went to school together and he once handed off a bag of pot to me to keep for him until the end of the day because they were doing random locker searches and they'd never suspect me. Things didn't work out in that relationship either, so the boyfriend moved out. It was just my mom and two brothers for a little while, but then my mom met her third husband.
He was a recovering alcoholic and seemed like a really nice guy. He had two kids who were just 4 and 6 years old at the time. I was in high school by then and kept pretty busy with music and working, so I spent as little time at home as possible. My new step-dad was 10 years younger than my mom and 10 years older than me. It was awkward, at best. I liked him, but there was always tension for me. I had no idea how to form a father/daughter relationship and it seemed ridiculous to think I could with someone so close to my age. Their marriage lasted only 3 years. They got divorced just before I graduated high school. My mom, younger brother and I moved into a 2 bedroom apartment after that because it was all she could afford. I paid my own car insurance, bought my own gas & groceries, my clothes, and paid my college tuition the first year. I shared a room with my mother until I moved out. It wasn't too much later that I got pregnant, quit college, had a baby, and got married.
In all that time, my dad paid very little child support. My mom spent as little time as possible on welfare. She worked and was gone a lot. I grew up way too soon in some ways, and took a lot longer to go through some of the "normal" emotional developmental milestones. I don't hate my father. No matter how many bad things I heard about him, I still loved him. He contributed half of the genetic material that makes up who I am. He taught me a lot about how the choices parents make effect their children. I learned a tremendous amount about what I wanted my children's lives to be like by realizing what my own experiences did to me. I'm not bitter anymore. I had a lot of forgiving to do and I believe I've done it. I just can't forget. I shouldn't forget. I am who I am at least in part because of what I've been through. My children have had a vastly different life and I'm grateful.
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