Daily Archives: July 19, 2012
Yes! I Have a Father.
As you know, I spend a lot of time with my Mommy – she makes up a major part of my life so, if you are going to have a conversation with me, she will probably be mentioned.
BUT, this post is NOT about my mother. It is about my father – Yes! I have a father! You haven’t heard about him much, have you? I can’t even remember if he has ever been mentioned in my blog at all. I love my dad very much but he’s the kind of father who figures that he got me to the age of 18, so he has done everything that he is supposed to do and can now just leave me be. Nonetheless, and unreasonably, I continue to strive to attain his approval and admiration. Realistically, I’m never going to get it. Yet, for some reason, I still try.
Now, I feel pretty safe about writing about this topic here because my father has never even bothered to look at my blog. According to ClustrMaps, 22,516 people have visited this blog – but not one of them is my father.
I’m not sure that my father actually knows what FM is – he doesn’t read any information that I forward to him in emails, so I printed it all out. He still didn’t bother to read anything – the papers are still sitting on the backseat of his car. He has never watched any of my videos. He hasn’t visited my Facebook page.
When I received 91% for my last (taxation law) exam, he said what happened to the last 9%. When I graduated with honours, he hadn’t even realised that I was graduating with honours and then asked why I wasn’t the dux. I stood outside the training sessions of his (religiously) favourite football team for three weeks in a row, in the middle of winter, so I could get him a football shaped port bottle signed by every member of the football team – the bottle sits in his garage. You get the idea.
Now, Mommy and Dad have been divorced/separated for over 20 years, and Dad has been with his current ‘partner’ for nearly 20 years. We don’t necessarily get along all of the time. She has been upset with me when I introduced her as Dad’s girlfriend, but she has also been upset when I said she was Dad’s partner. So, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to introduce her.
My father called me today for two reasons (and not one was to check how I was going): firstly, he was upset about one of my personal status updates on Facebook. I had written that I had woken up at 3am one morning, giggling, because I had been thinking (in my dream) how the pasties that strippers wear on their boobs could work on a penis. I have no idea about what the rest of the dream was about, but I thought it was funny, so I put it in a status update. Now what is really interesting is that Dad doesn’t look at Facebook (or that’s his excuse for not looking at my page) – his partner does, though.
The second reason he called was to tell me that, if I was trying to phone him around dinner time, call the house line. His partner thinks that I am trying to avoid speaking to her (rather than just making sure that I reach my father), so my father decided he should say something. Oh, and by the way, when you talk to her, be cordial, ask about her mother, her health, her sons…
But there are restrictions, I am not allowed to talk about my Mommy, or her partner, or that side of my family because she doesn’t like it. It upsets her.
So getting together with my father and his partner is a particularly comfortable setting – NOT! I don’t talk about my condition because they are not interested; I can’t talk about other stuff that I have been doing because, mostly, it involves my mother; and I am not permitted to get too excited about anything because then I’m acting like a child.
I don’t want to upset my father (still seeking his approval) so now, more often than not, I just shut up; but today’s phone call has my father asking me to involve her more because she feels left out.
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! I just can’t get it right. And this upsets me.
The bloody phone call happened about 4 hours ago and I’m still fuming.
Sorry about the rant (but at least it’s a new one and not about doctors!), and I could go on for pages and pages. At least you’ve now been introduced to my father.
