My story

Papa? Papa!” That's all I could say, hell that’s all I knew how to say. At least at the time. Hi I’m  Arie, and this is my story. I don’t remember much from when I was little, well not much good anyways. I never really grew up with a father figure. He just wasn’t there, at least not how I needed him to be. He always wanted to pick and choose when he wanted to act  like a father when it was convenient for him. As if it was as simple and unimportant as choosing to put socks on that morning or not. Was that all I was, a simple pair of socks you could toss around until they were just lost forever? I’ve been stuck in this state ever since I was a little girl of hating my father to his very core, and wondering why doesn’t he want me. I never straight up thought that it was something I did, no. But I would wonder if it is something I could have prevented, or should have.  Or maybe this was for the best. Don’t get me wrong, my father is one of the worlds biggest assholes without a doubt. Yet I still wanted his approval, love, affection, all of the things I was not given from him as a child.  

By the time I was three years old, my father had neglected to express his love towards me which felt like a full life time back then. I tried to grasp his attention, bring him my toys, ask him to play in the backyard, sit next to him and watch a sports game or a movie. Yet nothing I did seemed to be enough for him to put all of his focus on me. I was abandoned. Not physically, well at least not yet but I was already emotionally abandoned. I remember every time I would come back upstairs from the basement I would come to see my mother pacing back and forth in the kitchen. With bills upon bills piled which what seemed to go all the way up to her ears. I would make a small dent in the stack to get to my mother. Even when she would be on the phone with the credit card company pleading with them, she would still look down at me smile pick me up and place me perfectly balanced on her hip. In that moment I felt loved and comfort that only God knows if I would ever get that from my father. 

As I grew up, my father would come more and more in and out of the picture. Like when I was four I remember going three weeks without hearing, seeing or speaking to him. With a time that long I almost forgot that I had a father. It was just me, my mother, and my grandmother who would drive two and a half hours every weekend to take me to church and spend time with me as my mother caught up on the work she missed. But when she wasn’t there I would like it just being me and my mother. Which is good considering a year after that, that's what it would have to be like. When I turned five years old, my mother sat me down and told my father to come and sit with us. I could tell it was something serious if my mother had to have my father there too.  I could tell that he clearly didn't want to be sitting there I knew that he much rather been watching a football game or something. I remember just sitting there in dead silence for a little while with no one knowing what to say. I knew something was up, I just didn’t know what. All I remember that came after that was my mother uttering those five words. “We are getting a divorce.” At that point I couldn’t tell what I should have done, hell I was only five like what did you expect me to do. I asked both of them why they were getting a divorce. My father dismissed me as if I was the smoke coming off of his cigarette, nothing he really cared to think about or notice. So I went to ask my mother. She told me that it was because they fell out of love. I couldn’t understand how two people could fall out of love. I would later come to find out just exactly how that happened. 

Let me fast forward a little bit. I am now six, my parents have been divorced for a year now and I was going to spend Father's Day with my father, after he begged my mother to let me stay there the whole weekend since it was Father's Day weekend. My mother drove me to his apartment and walked me up to his door. I rang the doorbell and he answered me with a big smile and asked me for his gift. My mother was not amused. 

“Oh come on lighten up Em it's a joke.”

“Well it’s not a funny one Phil.”

“What a party pooper. Right Arie?”

“Yes, dad!” I said, not knowing how much me choosing him over her, pained my mother to watch. 

“Come here Arie.” She bent down to give me a hug. “I’ll be back Sunday at noon.”

“I love you mama!”

“I love you too baby.”

I watched my mom walk down the stairs before I went inside my father's apartment. He had already gone inside and made himself comfortable. He didn’t have a bed for e but he made up his pull out couch.

“You hungry Arie? I bet you are.”

“Sure dad.”

“Lets see what will we have. Oh I know I’ll make mac and cheese.”

“Ok!” I loved mac and cheese so I didn’t see a need to complain about the food. As he started cooking the mac and cheese he turned on his rock and roll music and started singing along with the song. I sat their coloring in a coloring book that my mother packed away for me, she probably knew this was going to happen. When he finished cooking the mac and cheese he put them into two bowls and cae to join me sitting at the counter. But he got a phone call. 

“Hello?”

(person on the phone talking)

“When now?”

(person on the phone)

“Sure I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone and ran into his room and changed into a nice shirt and jeans and good looking shoes.

“Listen Arie, I have to run out quickly it won't take too long. You'll be fine on your own right?”

“Well-”

“Perfect bye baby!” And with that he was out the door. 

I was left behind, and on Father’s Day. I didn’t know what to think I didn’t know what to do. His next door neighbor saw him leave, so she came in and checked on me throughout the weekend. He came back later that weekend with no remorse for leaving me, it didn’t even faze him. 

I couldn’t understand why he was just never there for me. Why he couldn’t manage to grow up and act like a good father for me for more than five minutes.  I was always stuck being disappointed. I have never talked to him about this. Have never told him how much he has hurt me, destroyed my view of myself. And I don’t know if I ever will. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of years, and I haven’t noticed a change. It feels the same as it did then like he was not existent not apart of my life. And I was right, he really wasn’t. Being apart of your daughters life doesn’t mean you choose when you want to be there for her, your supposed to just be there through all of it no matter how bad or how great it is. But I guess he was just never ready for that and I’m not sure he ever will be ready for that. 

To this very day I don’t think I will ever have that father and daughter bond that everyone talks about. And I’m ok with that, I didn’t need him then and I don’t need him now. For my story I don’t want it told as the sad girl who got abandoned by her father, no, I’m going to tell it how I want it to be told. All of the ups and downs, twists and turns. Now that is my story.