will I be stuck in my head? How long will the endless carousel of bullshit with my family turn? How long will my father continue to call me, drunk and rambling, and leave me message after message? How many times will I call him back only to not understand his slurred words?
How long will I fight with my husband because I am pissed off at myself? How long will I take out all of my anger on him because it has no where else to go? How far can I shove him before he pushes back?
How long can I keep from my daughter all of the anguish and pain that this f-ed up family comes with? How long can I hide the truth from her? When will she ask- where is my Grandma? Why do we not see Grampa?
How long?
I usually have hope, but today I am fried. My father has called me 6 times in the past few days, leaving drunken messages strewn with slurred words and curses. I called him back just a few minutes ago just to hear him ramble about nothing. He won 11,000 dollars in Vegas last month. He will have to move soon. He's going to move to Nevada. His legs aren't working good. On and on.
I want to approach all this with faith, but sometimes my faith doesn't stretch that far. Fact of the matter is, I have been piss poor cheated out of what everyone should have- family, support, and care. Most days I do without and don't think about it much. But then there are days like this one...weekends, really, weeks...when I just can't find the will to push past the hurt. My mask slips. My resolve weakens, and I let go.
How can you miss something you never had? How can your heart actually hurt and ache for something you know nothing about? How can tears lie useless in your eyes, choke you like a hand on your throat over something you have never experienced? I don't know, but it does, surely as the sun rises.
So here it is. Life keeps going, despite it all. Despite my father drunk dialing me. Despite my mother in the cold ground. Despite walking through this life not being understood.
It keeps going, keeps turning, and keeps hurting.
I want to say it will get better. But it doesn't. It's just a different form of pain. It morphs. It used to be a lonely pain, solitary, like a living thing beneath my skin. Now...God, now it is worse. It is a pain I have to struggle not to pass to my precious baby. I have to slip the mask on everyday. I can't let her see this. I can't allow her to walk through this. She is my joy and my love and my everything. She is the reason I hold it together.
My father is lost behind the bottle. He is slowly robbing himself of life, with every drink, with every moment he cares less and less for himself. I love him. I love him and am losing him. But the sad truth is, I have always loved him more than he loved me. He loves himself more than anyone else, and that has always been the struggle between us. He doesn't care that he hurts me. He doesn't care that his eventual drinking to death will wound me in ways I will never recover from. He doesn't care about all the words that will be unspoken. He will carry no burden. I will.
The well of tears seems to run dry, but there's always a new source. As if on cue, just when I think I have it all together, here comes daddy with his bag of tricks. A drunken message, a hospital trip, a frantic phone call from my brother. Things look grim, things look better. And here I am, waiting for the hammer to fall.
I want not to care. I want not to love. But despite all, I do and I will.
