I was blindsided last week.
Long story short I found my “dad.” And by “dad” I really mean “sperm donor” because, let’s be real, supplying genetic material does not a father make. My father is my step-dad. My bio-dad never paid child support, never visited me, never called, never wrote, not even a single birthday card. Ditto for all my paternal grandparents, uncles, and so on. But don’t think that keeps a little girl from wondering, and wishing, and hurting.
When I was a child I longed to find my dad.
When I was a teenager I longed to find my dad and give him a piece of my mind.
When I was a younger adult than now I longed to find him, give him a piece of my mind, and rake him over the coals for never having paid child support.
Then I found that I didn’t care…or, at least, I thought I didn’t care. After all, why on earth should I care about someone who cares not one iota for me? But that zen conclusion was the product of circumstance. I couldn’t find him. And that was that.
Until I “ran into” him on Facebook.
On Facebook.
And it turned my world upside down.
There he was. He was on Facebook, and MySpace too. There were pictures of him, surrounded by his collection of eleven electric guitars. Eleven guitars. Funny, he wasn’t around to help my mother pay for my one clarinet but he could buy himself eleven friggin’ guitars. And there he was, with a different child in his lap. He couldn’t be bothered to make the child that was me a part of his life, but apparently he had room in his life for others.
I freaked out. I was angry. I was sad. I yelled and cursed and cried. I bawled on the phone with my mother. I vented to Adam. I tweeted about not knowing whether to contact him or not. I exhausted myself with the emotion of it all.
And then I made my decision.
They say you can’t pick your family {with the exception of your spouse}. Well, I’m lucky because, in this case, I can pick my family. I get to choose if this man will be a part of my life, a part of my family. Over two decades ago he chose to not make me part of his family.
And now I’m making the same choice.
There isn’t a good reason in the world to invite a person like that, a person who would desert his own daughter, into my family. There isn’t a good reason in the world I should put myself through the stress, and anxiety, and hurt I’ve been through any longer. And there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’m giving him a chance to be a negative influence in my daughter’s life.
He walked out of my life over twenty years ago.
And I’m letting him go.
Forever.
Goodbye…asshole.
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