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I've been thinking about my Dad for a while, tonguing past him in my mind like a sore, a rotten tooth, an empty socket. On the one hand, it feels a bit as though I've finally got him sorted: he's never going to be the father I once wanted because he was never capable of being that sort of father, and while it's disappointing to realize that I've wasted so much time wishing things could be different, I'm not dead yet--I have a family, a husband, a life of my own. When I needed him he wasn't there, but I don't need him anymore, and it wasn't something in me that made him go away in the first place, either; no, that was all him.
"And Mom," I could add, without being anything but honest--but seriously, I've been exactly where he was back when, feeling like I couldn't stand to be in proximity with the person who'd hurt me ever again, and guess what? I didn't leave the fucking country, never to return. Would it have been hard to interact with [that guy] on the regular, if I'd had a child with him? Hell, yes...but I would have done it. I would have expected HIM to do it. Because it wouldn't have just been about us, at that point--and when that happens, things change, or should. They fucking well have to.
You know, the funny thing is that it's actually pretty easy to cut somebody out of your life, even when you're still occupying the same hemisphere. I've done it with friends, with ex-lovers; when you don't see people every day, you really do tend to forget them--I do, anyway. Mom could've done it with him, especially considering that she now says she never loved him at all, not really...and that hurts a bit, but not as much as I might have expected it to. It mainly offends me because he's still part of my DNA, literally, so if she never loved him, isn't she sort of saying I shouldn't exist? I know what it is to be a mother now, though, so I don't even vaguely think that IS what she's saying; I do exist, I'm like a part of her body walking around somewhere, which means that to deny me is to deny herself. Not to mention how no me means no Cal, and she sure doesn't want that.
But in the final analysis, I just can't think that a man who wrote an entire (half a) book chronicling in great detail how he so consistently gave more of a shit about his career than he ever did about being there for me can ever really be said to have felt the same. Gary Files says he loves me, sure, but it's not unconditional, and it never has been; it's always been contingent on my being what he wants, doing what he wants. He's never had any respect for what I've spent my entire life building, and that goes both ways--if I've devoted myself to a bullshit genre when I should've/could've been doing almost anything else, in his opinion, then it's equally true that my critic's sensibility makes me objectively assess his IMDB.com entry like so: "Some hits, mostly misses, an attendant lord to swell a scene, now best-known for vocal work on a cult marionette TV show. The kind of guy you have to give so much context for every time you mention him that after a while, you just stop doing it."
It all comes down to this, forever: he left. He stayed away. He made it easy for me to choose to forget him. And then he made me wish I could.
Fuck, how I wish I could.
"And Mom," I could add, without being anything but honest--but seriously, I've been exactly where he was back when, feeling like I couldn't stand to be in proximity with the person who'd hurt me ever again, and guess what? I didn't leave the fucking country, never to return. Would it have been hard to interact with [that guy] on the regular, if I'd had a child with him? Hell, yes...but I would have done it. I would have expected HIM to do it. Because it wouldn't have just been about us, at that point--and when that happens, things change, or should. They fucking well have to.
You know, the funny thing is that it's actually pretty easy to cut somebody out of your life, even when you're still occupying the same hemisphere. I've done it with friends, with ex-lovers; when you don't see people every day, you really do tend to forget them--I do, anyway. Mom could've done it with him, especially considering that she now says she never loved him at all, not really...and that hurts a bit, but not as much as I might have expected it to. It mainly offends me because he's still part of my DNA, literally, so if she never loved him, isn't she sort of saying I shouldn't exist? I know what it is to be a mother now, though, so I don't even vaguely think that IS what she's saying; I do exist, I'm like a part of her body walking around somewhere, which means that to deny me is to deny herself. Not to mention how no me means no Cal, and she sure doesn't want that.
But in the final analysis, I just can't think that a man who wrote an entire (half a) book chronicling in great detail how he so consistently gave more of a shit about his career than he ever did about being there for me can ever really be said to have felt the same. Gary Files says he loves me, sure, but it's not unconditional, and it never has been; it's always been contingent on my being what he wants, doing what he wants. He's never had any respect for what I've spent my entire life building, and that goes both ways--if I've devoted myself to a bullshit genre when I should've/could've been doing almost anything else, in his opinion, then it's equally true that my critic's sensibility makes me objectively assess his IMDB.com entry like so: "Some hits, mostly misses, an attendant lord to swell a scene, now best-known for vocal work on a cult marionette TV show. The kind of guy you have to give so much context for every time you mention him that after a while, you just stop doing it."
It all comes down to this, forever: he left. He stayed away. He made it easy for me to choose to forget him. And then he made me wish I could.
Fuck, how I wish I could.
