It’s Where My Demons Hide…

(When you feel my heat, look into my eyes…)

I’m extremely disappointed that this Christmas, and then about a month later on my birthday, that my dad won’t call me.

This really shouldn’t disappoint me, because my father hasn’t call me on the phone for Christmas, my birthday, Thanksgiving, any major holiday really, since I was thirteen years old.  After a decade of missed phone calls and excuses of, “Well, I didn’t know if you’d be busy or not, and I didn’t want to interrupt anything your mother had planned,” you’d think I’d be used to not hearing from my father by now.

I think it’s the fact that he’s not around anymore that makes this feel so much worse.  It actually hurts.

While before I would just be mad at him… and roll my eyes as he gave me excuses about interrupting… and spending nights bitching with my mother about how, busy or not, I’m not so heartless that I wouldn’t take 5 minutes to talk to my father on Christmas… or my birthday…. and now it’s like… where is all of that time that we both thought we had?  Where is the ability to make up for all of that?  Where is the time that I’m supposed to be less busy and he’s supposed to feel comfortable enough to actually call me and let me know he gives a damn?

And I can’t even be mad at him.  I mean… how could I?  Sit here and be mad at my dad for dying?

But I am mad.  Not at him… but I’m mad.  So mad.

He might’ve been a really shitty role model… and he may be where I got my temper… and the half of my genes that are responsible for my being bipolar.  He may be the source of a lot of my trust issues.  He may have made up some horrible stories about my mother to try and force me to pick sides in their divorce.  He may not have really been there too much… but he was still my dad.

Was being the keyword, I guess.

(I want to hide the truith; I want to shelter you…)

Nine times out of ten, the more I smile to your face and act like nothing’s wrong… the more I’m suffering from something on the inside.  And while some people might deem it an insult that I’m “hiding” something from them… view it as a compliment.  I don’t want to burden you with my shit.  I care about you enough to want to shelter you from it.

And yes, I realize I’m such a hypocrite… because I very much value transparency… and I’d really like those that I care about the most to be transparent with me.  Call me a hypocrite if you’d like… I’m human.  And I never claimed to be perfect.

And I certainly never claimed to have it all together.  I know I don’t.  I’m a fucking mess, really.

How in the hell can people be so strong?  I really don’t understand… someone enlighten me, please.

Like… it’s only been 2 months since dad died… almost 3… and it still hurts just as much as it did the day I got the phone call.  The best part?  I got the call the day after he died… after he’d been in the hospital for a week.

It took them that long to find my phone number.  That’s how far away he kept everyone from him.  He listed his PHYSICAL THERAPIST as his emergency contact.

Talk about a blow to your self-esteem.

And somehow I feel like it’s my fault… at least partly.  I gave up.  I got sick of being the only one to try… the only one enough to care to reach out only to not receive any effort back.  I got sick of him ending conversations with, “Let’s not make it another 14 months before we talk again…” (because he always kept impeccable count of how long it had been… but didn’t bother to do anything about it…) only for him to NOT call for those next 14 months.  I got sick of feeling like I was conducting a one-sided relationship… like I was trying to force a bond with a man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.  So I gave up.  I told myself that he would eventually see… he’d eventually hate the feeling of having pushed everyone away and he’d make it right…

Then he died.

And I got to be the one on the phone with my aunt, his sister, a woman I’ve only met once in my life… while she cried and told me how he pushed her away too.  She told me about developing cancer…. and how she wasn’t even sure he knew that, because he stopped talking to her.  How he approached her AT THEIR MOTHER’S FUNERAL and said that after all was said and done with the funeral, he was done with her.

And she’d never done anything wrong…

(It’s where my demons hide…)

I never knew my two cousins… only met them once… at that same funeral.  My only real memory is of one of them… and it’s of sitting on the basement floor of my dad’s house, playing barbies.  That’s it.  Not really a fond memory, but not a negative one.  Not much of a memory at all.

That whole side of my family is so disjointed… well… ok… it’s mostly gone now… but when everyone was around, it was so disjointed.  I just don’t understand.

And I don’t understand where all this pain keeps coming from… where all these tears keep coming from… why the wound remains fresh and everyday I wake up and face his death all over again.  It’s like just the act of waking up is just like getting that call all over again.  I can’t breathe… everything I should’ve said and should’ve done comes back to me… and I just want to roll over and go back to sleep.  But I can’t.

I didn’t even know he had heart disease, you know?  I knew he had emphysema… and it didn’t shock me when he told me.  He’d smoked as long as I could remember… so the development just felt natural.  But the surgeon that called me after dad’s friend told me he died… told me that something was wrong with his heart after one of his lungs collapsed… that he’d had a stint put in recently… and that he had been due for another one in late August.  I didn’t even know he had heart disease.  Hell, I didn’t even know that WASN’T the first time his lung had collapsed.

And then the doctors wanted an autopsy because they found masses in his lungs they wanted to look at?  You mean to tell me he could’ve had cancer too?!  I just couldn’t handle it.  I told them that I wasn’t responsible for their medical curiosities and declined the autopsy.  It was just too much.

It still is too much.

I still wake up every day and it’s like I lose him all over again.

Can someone please tell me when I’m going to be able to breathe again?

(Don’t get too close; it’s dark inside…)

*~* It’s Where My Demons Hide *~*

Shape: MINE!
Skin: Cleo (Artic; Makeup 11) – Glam Affair
Eyes: Lovers eyes (Storm) – theSkinnery  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hair: Hearts Don’t Breakeven – Exile  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Makeup: Birds of a Feather – Madrid Solo
Outfit (Tank Top Dress & Tutu): TUTU (Cake) – Gizza
Boots: Thigh Boots (mesh) – HOC Industries  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hands: Avatar Enhancement Hand (Elegant 1) – Slink  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Ears: Simple Ears Hutuu (Unisex) – Mandala  *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Ear Studs: Hana Diamond Earrings – Eshi Otawara
Ring: Hana (Innocent White) Ring – Eshi Otawara
Monroe Piercing: Diamond Monroe Piercing – envi
Necklace: Amarcord Diamond Necklace – Donna Flora
Poses: from the Classic set – PosESioN

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