"Missing someone hurts, but whats hurts even more, is knowing that you're the reason that they're gone."
Hello Internet, sometimes i find myself wondering why it is in the last 4 years my biological father has increased effort to correspond with me, To be certain it actually started earlier than that, but during that time i was for lack of a better word, bluntly not interested.
Basically I had told him to die in a fire.
It was a year later after my 18th birthday that he came into town and urged me to come to a karaoke bar, he wanted to talk.
Obviously I didn't care. I had given up on the dude, but my other family members wanted to see me as well so I went for them...and probably because I was forced.
He started out acting as if nothing happened as he has tended to do for years, but then things changed... I think it was about halfway through the night, I struggle to recall if the talk or song came first but, at some point he dedicated a song to me. One with lyrics that seemed eerily specific. It was clearly chosen with some degree of thought.
After or perhaps before that, we had our talk in which I believe for only the second time ever, the man opened up to me.
There was no condescension, no random trivia or promises for future events he'd never act on, just him in a vulnerable state, saying his piece, apologizing and talking about things, that to my knowledge, nobody else could get him to open up about. And the part that bothered me the most was how similar this man was to me.
He couldn't have manipulated the reasons for why we're similar. Mind, it was how he said things, the way he moved, talked, the little things. He had no way of knowing.
And in that moment I didn't forgive him... not really, but I did offer him empathy. I offered him an open door with a spring-lock mechanism to boot him out if shit went arie. It's been years since then, every now and again he calls me or texts me on the IMs... not to brag or make promises, hell it is an improvement that he's even reaching out of his own accord.
No most of the time he just asks how I'm doing, if I have seen this thing we share an interest in, Or even a thing he doesn't like but I do. And while I still refuse to call the man Dad. Or send hearts or affection…
It feels like for the first time, he's making an effort not because someone told him to, but because he wants to. Course as i
I am cynical so I often dismiss it as guilt; dude has got to be in his 40s or 50s by now. And I really tore into him that one time. But maybe just maybe we've made some progress, both of us.
...
Today he messaged me again, said he just wanted to check in, I asked him in all politeness how he was doing.
He admitted to being...weirdly enough not okay! Being depressed in fact. Made a joke about buying a book from marvel to cheer himself up; and from there we just kinda talked like friends would.
And I would be remiss if i didn't say for once I enjoyed it.
Maybe someday we will do all those things he wants to do. I doubt it, but it isn't promises he can't keep anymore, just ideas for the future. Maybe that makes all the difference.
Stay Golden,
~Mjax Majoran
14/09/2020
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