So on a more depressing and more of an angry note, I ran into someone this weekend while I was at the mall. I was heading to work on Saturday morning and because I always take the bus early to avoid the possibility of being late, I just kind of wandered around the mall. I had breakfast and browsed before actually going to work (which is a two minute walk from the mall, it's not attached to it). Now, before I even go any further, let me explain to you something about the person that I "bumped" into.
I've never been close to my father. There are too many times that I could tell you all about where he truly just let me down, over and over again. One of my favourite ones that remind just how much of a dick he was when he couldn't come to my high school graduation or even better, couldn't come to my Prom, so I had to do the "Father-Daughter Dance" with my mom. How embarrassing. I cried at my prom. You aren't supposed to cry at your prom.
So, when my parents divorced, I made sure that I never forgot how much I hated him, no matter what he said. I know this might be somewhat hard for some of you to understand how I could
hate a parent, but just understand how far from a real parent he was to me and my brother and sister. It took me a whole year to really get over my parent's divorce because it just continued to go on longer than it really needed to. He kept wanted to pull away from more and more responsibilities, which is probably what hurt the most, realizing that what he wanted was to remove any ties he had with children, as if he never had any.
My parents divorced in 2006/2007 and the last time I saw him was in the summer of 2007 (again at the mall, because I was at the time working IN the mall). I'm about to go into some pretty heavy details of what happened when I saw him this weekend and how exactly it made me feel, so brace yourselves. I need some kind of release from this whole thing, even though it lasted two minutes, it hit me harder than a bus coming at full speed.
I was putting on my coat, getting ready to walk out the exit. I pulled my bag over my shoulder and I was grabbing my tea.
"Kristal?" He never called me by my whole name. I recognized his voice instantly and when I turned to face him the words just escaped my mouth.
"Shit..." I knew I said it outloud and I knew he heard me. He looked exactly the same as I remembered but maybe a little more tired looking. I saw the sadness in his eyes as he looked at me, I didn't know what to say, I managed to ask, "How are you?" but he didn't answer me, all he said was,
"Well, tell everyone that I said Hi". All I could do was nod. I smiled slightly and turned to face the exit again. I quickened my pace because the doors couldn't have felt any farther away in those thirty seconds. I didn't want to turn around to look back, I didn't want to see him standing there still watching as his twenty year old daughter walked away from him like just some old acquaintance that he hasn't seen in a while. As soon as the cold air hit my face I felt like I was going to collapse, like I just got punched in the gut. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry and I wanted to get as far away from there as possible. Seeing him just reminded me of how much damage he inflicted on my family intentionally and unintentionally. It was like being hit over the head with a bagful of painful emotions and memories that lingered a little too long. You'd think that two minutes wouldn't effect you so much but I knew after that, my entire day would be askew. All I could think of doing was text the one person who would understand how I felt but of course it was too early in the morning to get a response. All I
could do was go to work. Go to work, get through the day and forget it happened.
I know I may seem kind of over the top with this whole thing, I feel kind of silly writing about it this way, but this is honestly how I feel about it now that I look back at it. After two years of not seeing him, not being affected by him in any way, it was like BAM. I'm still alive. Of course I knew he was still alive, but I didn't want to actually
see him. This was like ten times worse than running into an ex-boyfriend when things ended on bad terms. I know I probably shouldn't hold so much hatred against my
father but really, you have no idea how much this person messed up. So I can understand if you can't understand.
One thing that pisses me off the most, (yes here's another story) last spring, I went to a wedding reception. Everything was fine until the "Father-Daughter Dance". I completely lost it. I started crying, I tried to stop myself from crying but only ended up making more noise, only further making the people at our table and the tables around us look to see what was happening. It didn't help that I was there with the rest of my family and that they all pretty much understood the meaning of my outburst. My mom tried to comfort me, telling me not to worry and the look of pure sadness that my brother and sister gave me, it only made me want to cry harder. Seeing a wedding and realizing that I probably wouldn't have that moment (not that I even wanted it) made me very, very sad. My emotions sometimes break out at moments where I least expect it. I'm sure I'll have someone to dance with at my wedding for that moment, or maybe we'll skip that entirely, I don't know, I haven't really thought about it and I don't really have to think about it for a while, I'm not planning on getting married any time soon.
Little things like that have a big impact on me, just like that random encounter. I told my mom about it and she won't stop talking about it. She's all like, "Did you hear what happened to Kristalyn?", "Did you sister tell you what happened to her at the mall?", it's pretty annoying. What bothers me the most is that she tried to sit down with me and have a conversation about it. Like there was more to talk about it after I explained exactly what happened. She told me that it was going to keep happening and that maybe I should try to get in contact with him again. She's always trying to push me back into his arms, like he deserves a second chance with me. My mom likes to remind me of the fact that I can't escape him no matter what, even though I like to think otherwise. In my eyes, my family is better off now without him and from the way he behaved after the divorce and in the courtroom he doesn't deserve love or even remorse from any of us. Yet, my mom continues to try to make me call him, I don't understand why, of all people she should understand how much he's hurt us. "He's your father, you can't forget that." Well. Maybe I would like to do exactly that. Her boyfriend now has been more of a father to us in the past three years than my father has EVER been to us in my whole twenty years of my life and I'm not exaggerating.
I'm sorry for spilling this all like this. I've been in this weird writing mode and I've actually started to write something of a story, which has in fact taken a big chunk of my free time in the past two days, so this was kind of a regurgitation of what happened to me in the style of my "wannabe" writing. Not that this has any falsity to it, this is all the pure truth. If you wanted to understand me a little better, here is aspect of my life that I rarely share with people.
I'll never be a daddy's girl.
They are all I need.
