I never post here... but, on this day, at this time, it's time.
My mother makes me smile.
I made a throwaway joke in an email reply to her about the prestigous Olympic Sport of Curling (immortalized in Mario 64 DS) and she started her reply with not answers to my questions, but with a comment about how much she loved the joke. If you have kids, remember that. It was a boring conversation about helping her with a computer issue and planting roses in her yard, and I made a goofy joke in the middle of my email. Her first words in her reply were saying how much she loved the joke. I don't know if she really did, really, but does it matter? Her email made me happy. She makes me happy.
So on this Hallmark Holiday which exists to make insecure dads feel validated, and make beligerant kids feel like like great children by buying Dad either a tie or some power tool, I just want to send a message to my friends who don't have dads. I don't. As far as I am concerned, my mom had a virgin birth. The man who knocked her up twice is a sick man, he has shown through his whole life that his illness controls him beyond any and all concerns. I don't hate people... and my mom doesn't want me to hate him. Yet, I can't not hate him. At least on this day, HIS day. I feel like I am allowed to feel true hate for him at least today. For the abuse, for the neglect, for how he treated my mom, my sister, and myself. For how Becky waited so long to finally escape him, only to be herassed by him and his newest whore, a woman finally as sick as he is.
I hate my father. Sometimes, on my days off, I go to Hannaford Bros stores in the random chance that I will confront him. I walk by the deli and butcher shop, not even remembering what he looked like except for the moustashe he had when I last saw him 14 years ago. I daydream about the conversation... and in it I am the bad guy. By choice. I chill my soul to pure ice. He walks up to me wanting to make ammends for the lifetime of torture and uncertainty he has put me through. Wanting with a handshake to make up for an entire puberty wondering why I wasn't good enough for him to even fucking care. Wanting to suddenly erase all the nights I lay awake wondering what he was doing, if he was happy, if he ever thought of me. And I punch him. Square in the fucking mouth. One shot. All I want is one shot. All the hate, all the rage, all the feelings of never ever being good enough, all the sadness, all the pain, all the tears... in one shot. I want to cave in his front teeth, both levels, so that for one last time our blood mixes. His gums and my knuckles. My final act of revenge making us one for a second, and him finally realizing what he did to me, how he made me feel, how he THREW ME AWAY LIKE A PIECE OF FUCKING GARBAGE! Then he can go on with his life... I can go on with mine. Fianally clean, after all these years. Finally clean.
My mom makes me smile with her love... and my father makes me cry. Even now, 26... almost 27 years after I was born. At least I have the comfort of knowing that I have never hurt anyone as badly as he hurt me, and God willing I never will.