Family Matters

Let's start with how horrible of a daughter I am... my mom and I were exchanging messages on facebook and my phone rang with Dance Little Jean. My mom. I didn't want to answer. I didn't want to TALK to anybody really. Just enjoy a nice night on my couch, watching a movie, and perusing facebook. But I did. And I ended up being snippy and short with her. Which made me feel terrible but not terrible enough to change my attitude apparently. I tried.

Meanwhile, my good friend from high school is dealing with the ten year anniversary of the sudden death of her own mother. And I'm being a bitch to my own. The weekend E's mom died, I'd gone shopping with E on Saturday. On Sunday, her mom had a heart attack and died. On Monday, I went to school and sat down in Psychology, saving a seat for E. Coach Cary then told us E wouldn't be at school at all that week because her mom had passed away. I immediately started crying, gut wrenching - can't breathe sobs. Alarmed, Coach Cary took me the hall and asked if I'd been close to E's mom. Nope. I hadn't even known her. But I could only imagine the hurt and pain E was going through and I put myself in her shoes. I couldn't even begin to imagine losing my own mom and it tore me apart. I vowed from there to not take my mom for granted. And tonight I was less than pleasant with her. Not with anything I said but the way I said it.

Then I was watching a movie. And in this movie, a dad finds out that he isn't the father of his child, that he has been sterile since birth. Well, if you know me, you already know I have daddy issues. I get extremely jealous of girls that have two parents and somebody they can call "daddy." The little princesses of the world. At first the guy finds out and he kind of just shuts down, begins taking unnecessary risks, sees it as the end of the world. Even refers to his little girl as "it" when asking the mom who its dad is. Asshole. The girl can't help it if her mom was whoring around. This is a girl who you helped raise and just because it's not your genetics in her makeup, you're willing to just abandon her? In the end, he realized that it isn't genetics that makes up a family and he walks her down the aisle 15 years later. Cue sappy music. Whatever. Yes, my mom was married when I was a kid. And yes, I called two of those husbands "dad" or "daddy." But where are they now? Ironically it's her current husband who just might be my bio dad and he's the only one I've never called dad. HA!

So picture me, already feeling melancholic from the conversation with my mom, crying buckets because some girl, whose life is as messed up as mine, is happily getting married and calling somebody "daddy" on her wedding day. Pathetic. And it's not even that I don't technically know who mine is, but rather that I miss the days of mom's first husband who treated me like his princess. Who spoiled me rotten because, even if I wasn't biologically his, I WAS his Scooter. And I realize it wasn't a healthy relationship. It wouldn't have turned out well if we'd have stuck around. And I should be happy I have one parent that loves me as much as she does. But I can't help but crave that kind of relationship with a father. And I can't help but think that at 26, it's too late because I will never respect husband #3 enough, even if he IS my father, to call him daddy. Or even dad. I've preached the difference between a father and a dad before. And there are a lot of people who just don't get it. To me, that man may be my father but he will never be my dad. He didn't pick me up from day care with a pack of cheez-its. He didn't paint my bedroom dayglo orange. He didn't bandage my cuts and take care of my feelings when a friend called me a name. He didn't draw elaborate sidewalk chalk murals of the ocean and let me use the bed of his truck as a ship. Or even give me empty beer boxes to make a robot costume. Whatever.

And earlier I was talking to my friend, A, who was adopted when she was somewhere between 3-6 (I am fuzzy on the deets) about how she had recently found her biological dad and two more sisters and a brother. Bio dad is in jail. But she's developed relationships with her new found half siblings and although I am so happy for her, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy that I have a sibling out there that I may not ever get to know and A was already close to the ones she just found a few weeks ago.

Husband #3 has two daughters. One of which is younger than me and I talk to somewhat regularly but with the ambiguity of my genetics, doesn't consider me as much of a sister as his other daughter. And I'm pretty sure only refers to me as Sis because the rest of my family does and technically, even if we're not half-sisters, we're step-sisters. The other daughter is older than me, has two kids (one of whom I've never met), lives in Ohio (which really isn't THAT far away) but has only visited once (8 freaking years ago). And though you might ask why I haven't gone and visited her... it's because I only met her once, she has a life of her own, and I would be there to visit just her whereas if she were to come here more often, she has cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, etc to see. It would just be awkward for me to go there. While she was here, I felt we hit it off and I wanted to get to know her so much more. But we haven't spoken since. In fact the other sister has a facebook status from tonight about how C is so hard to get ahold of and she wants to tell her she's going to be an aunt and blah blah blah. C isn't on facebook or any social networking site. She doesn't even like to use e-mail. And apparently is impossible to get ahold of, even on the phone.

So again, I get jealous of people who have relationships with siblings, especially sisters. I often wonder how life would have been different if I'd have had a daddy after the age of eight. And if I had had sisters. This is in no way an insult to my mother who did the best she could as a young single full time working mother. She made a lot of sacrifices and provided me with everything she could. But I get jealous. And then I think of those that didn't even have what I had and feel remorse for feeling envious. And that is my problem tonight.