My dad was a good guy once. I remember because my mom used to hype him up as if he was awarded husband of a lifetime. She would always talk about how lenient he was with her and how he allowed her to live- it almost seems like she was bragging about him. Although I didn’t grow up with him around, we always had good memories every time he came home to visit.. and those are the memories I cherished the most.
Good memories I remember:
-He came to pick me up after nap time during daycare (I was 3 or 4??) – I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS HOME. He came to my daycare in his Navy uniform holding my ballet duffel bag telling me he was going to drop me off to ballet class. Man, how excited I was for him to drop me off to dance class.
-This was during Easter, I think I was in 1st or 2nd grade. I remember I was on the phone trying to get ahold of my dad and a man answered. With so much excitement I kept yelling “DAD!! DAD!! ITS ME!! ITS MIKKA!!!” Turns out, it wasn’t him.. It was his coworker and all of a sudden I became really sad. It’s weird that I remember this but I think the emotions I was feeling at this age was very important for me to understand how I was feeling at that moment.
-My 13th birthday. A few months before my 13th birthday, my dad said he had to leave because the “Navy wanted him back”. Mind you, he retired from the Navy when I was about 10 or 11 years old so I never understand why the military wanted him back even though he was already retired. (13 years later, aka 8 months ago, I find out he was actually in jail during this year) BACK TO THE STORY. I was really sad that my dad wasn’t going to be there for my 13th birthday. It really hurt me that he wasn’t there but of course vulnerable ass me understood he needed to go back to serving our country. Damn, was I fooled.
Sadly, these are the only memories I have of us. (The good ones at least) Other than that, I hated him. My loathe for him started after he came back from being “deployed” a few months after my 13th birthday. I was in 7th grade at the time and I clearly remember writing so poorly about him but I never understood why. I wrote about how much I hated him and even called myself “Daddy’s Little Devil” -I drew that on paper multiple times in red ink every time my dad pissed me off. Sadly, those feelings never really changed as I was growing up. What I can say tho- he never seemed to care about what I did with my life growing up during my high school years. He and my mom discussed that he would “watch over and worry about my brothers’ while my mom would “watch over and worry about me” and I always liked that however during this time in my life, I hated my mom and favored my dad more because of how lenient he was with me and despised my mom for being strict with me.
(Additional fact I would like to include: Ever since my grandpa (his dad) passed away, he started acting up. I remember the day of his funeral, no one knew where my dad was. Our family was staying in our house at Sacramento but we were staying at our cousins house and my mom and my dads step mom went out to search for my dad because he was no where to be found. A few hours later, they found him walking around with an empty bottle of vodka and he started throwing up once he got to my cousins house- a fucking memory I will never forget because that time still haunts me to this day.)
Fast forward to today, the roles have switched. My moms became more lenient with me and my dad became more strict. Long story short-my life actually fucking sucks now and my dad is a psycho ass man. WHO IS HE I DONT KNOW WHO HE IS NOW? I was on the phone with my mom today, and she kept saying “He was never like this before. I don’t know where this came from.” IDK man, but whatever the fuck this is, PTSD, EXISTENTIALISM, I don’t give a fuck- this does not give this man a fucking reason to act like a psycho ass bitch to his family. Fuck him for hurting my mom. Fuck him for hurting my brothers. FUCK HIM FOR BEING A FUCKING ASSHOLE. FUCK HIM. I am so ashamed to be his daughter and I am fucking embarrassed that he’s my actual blood ass biological ass father. FUCK YOU VIRGIL.
I’m still smiling.. but slowly giving up.
Aspiring Optimist 