Day 38

Dear Dad,

I don’t know why I didn’t just make a blog where I write about my life.  Well, I mean, I guess I did that on accident, ’cause this blog is basically me writing about my life.  I just pretend to write you a letter while I do it.  Is that like lying?

On nights like tonight, when Zoe screams for approximately the entire 2 hours she’s awake between her “nap” and bedtime, I wonder if you and I don’t have a better chance than most parent/child relationships.  I say that because tonight I dumped water on Zoe’s head as she was screeching that she did not want her hair to get wet (she was in the tub); which made her howl even louder and made me wonder what kind of parent I am.  And, more importantly, what kind of wounds I’m already inflicting on her.

But you!  You weren’t around to scar me.   You weren’t around to dump a glass of water on my head when I threw a tantrum (I was not in the tub).  You didn’t slam my fingers in the door not once but twice and leave a scar on my fingers (it was an accident, really).  You weren’t there for all the extremely painful pubescent moments from age 12 on.  We have a clean slate, you and I.

I have hope for meeting you yet.

AM

Day 36

Dear Dad,

Meet Zoe Feodora.  This is her a month or two ago, wearing a crazy outfit, with her eyes closed, paci inserted, mid-twirl and dance.

She is almost 2.5 and very full of life (which is what “Zoe” means).  She is incredibly passionate, caring, sweet and funny.

She likes to just sit and read, to dance and run, to give kisses, and ask a lot of questions.

She loves cookies, french fries, grapes, and apple juice.  She eats oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast and has since she was just 6 or so months old.

She loves baths, kitties, walking and running.

She likes to help around the house:  doing dishes, sweeping, cleaning up spills.

I wonder if I was like her when I was little?  I wonder if I really had a chance to be.

Maybe you’ll get to meet her one day,

AM

Day 30

Dear Dad,

I’m sort of running dry on topics tonight.  I’ll tell you something that might surprise you (or not):  I really like Sci-fi stuff.  I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG and always pretended to be LeVar Burton’s character by putting a headband over my eyes.

I sometimes think that I don’t like Sci-fi, but I totally do.  I like Alien/s; I like Terminator; I like anything having to do with time travel and/or the space time continuum.

I just do!

AM

Day 20

Dear Dad,

This is my little baby Lazarus.  I know the picture’s a little blurry, but this image captures his personality so well.  I’m thinking about what it will be like to get to know him as he grows.  All the little moments, like this one, that will add up to the big picture of who he is in entirety.

You don’t get that with me.  Or, I mean, you didn’t get that with me.  And I wonder if that’s something that can even be overcome?  Will you ever be able to be a parent to me– not in the sense of parenting me, obviously; but in that being who I would think of you as.  Does that make any sense?

Like my mom is my mom; always has been, always will.  Whether she is mean, emotionally cloy, or otherwise, she will always have the standing in my life of mom.

But what will you be?

You’ll be… like nothing I can think of to compare you to.  I’ve never really had even a “father-figure” type in my life, so I don’t have that to gauge what fathers are like.  I have stories friends tell about their dads (good and bad, of course).  I have TV shows that show me different story lines of fathers in fictionalized settings.  But you won’t be like any of that, really.

I might not meet you until I’m 25, 28, maybe 40 if I really drag my feet.  What’s it like to try to appropriate a “father” at that point in life?  At this point in life?

I’ve left the nest and started my own family.  I am a mother for goodness’ sake.  I am trying to be a parent at this time, not trying to be parented.

And all the hard work of getting to know someone in the middle of his life?  Trying to delicately step into someone’s established family?  And what will your kids think of you?  Your wife?  Your own parents?

This all makes me wonder if I won’t do you more harm in trying to contact you than I will be doing good for myself.

Does that even matter?

Sorry if I ruin your life,

AM

Day 16 (aka MLK JR DAY)

Dear Dad,

Unfortunately, I really don’t have anything to say about the good Doctor above.  I do sometimes think about civil rights in this country, as I am a woman (did you know that?) and at one time our country as a whole didn’t think much of the likes of me.

It does make me think a little about you, though.  Because I do think that you’re Mexican (still not sure on the PC-ness of that, or if, since it’s technically true, that it’s okay to describe you like this?  Way to be educated, right?), and I wonder if you think about civil rights or Dr. MLK, Jr. and the ideas he brought to the forefront.

I wonder:  how different might my life have been if I had grown up claiming that as part of my whole being?  Would it have mattered?  Would anyone have believed me?  (I am extremely pale at this point in my life and cannot stand to be in the sun long enough to even get a tan let alone a sunburn.)  Would I have bothered to care enough to take part in your heritage and maybe learn Spanish?

If I remember who I was at 13, the answers are all probably no.  Especially to the question of caring.

But, maybe if I knew you and you knew me, I would’ve been different.  Maybe.

Talk to you tomorrow,

AM

Day 10 is here

Dear Dad,

I’ve been in counseling for a while now. It’s been a life-changing experience in so much as my life is not like it was before I started going. (Was that too obvious?) It’s really funny, though, because I feel like I’ve been asked a lot how not having a dad has affected me (in life in general and counseling in specific), and I’ve always had trouble answering.

I guess it’s a hard question to answer because it asks me to compare the only way I’ve ever lived life (without a male head-of-household of really any type) to a way that I’ve never experienced. It’s like asking a turtle how not being able to fly has affected him. Unless turtles used to be able to fly? I’m really bad at evolution…

Anyway, it’s weird to think about because it is so difficult to think of the things that I must have missed. And I think I’ve said before, if only incredibly vaguely, that my mom was not awesome when I was growing up.  She had/has issues that made it so I never felt wanted and rarely loved.  So that affected me.  Her being who she was as a mother and the fact that I never felt convinced that she actually meant to have me and keep me affected me.  But some dude not knowing about me because my mom decided not to tell him?  Well, okay.

How does that make YOU feel?  It never me feel anything but angrier at my mom.  Like maybe this guy could’ve loved me, right?  And here I am back at an idolized, fictional (because I’ve obviously never had a nonfictional) version of you.  You could’ve been worse.  You could’ve told me you never wanted me.  Or, hey, maybe you’ll get the chance to do that someday soon here!

I guess that is the focal point of my soul:  rejection.  Because I believe I’ve written about that here already, and I’ll probably write about it over and over again.  I will honestly be more shocked if I am accepted than if I am rejected.  By you.  By anyone.  That’s where I’m at right now.  Generally, I think I am good at what I do (staying home, cooking, taking care of my babies, being funny), but I don’t think most people– you included, of course— will accept me just the way I am.

Luckily, I have been accepted and loved for who I am, just the way I am (read: CRAZY), but just enough people that I believe it can happen.  I also truly, in my little black heart, believe that Jesus loves me in this way that no one else quite does.  And it’s God that I can count on to love me no matter what.  But that’s also ethereal and doesn’t always do the trick to calm my anxious mind when I think about my crazy life and contacting you( you, random man, you) to tell you that I am from you.  We’re intrinsically a part of one another and, hey, what do you think of that?

That was kind of a lot.

Hope you can deal with it one day,

AM

Day 6 glitch

Dear Dad,

Today I’ve sort of run out of things to say.  Not really a great sign for the next 360 days…

I’m generally afraid that people won’t like me, but you really probably won’t.  I’m pretty crazy:  I’m some sort of Literal, Reformed, Mystic, Swearing, Drinking Christian.  I spend some of my time thinking about demonic influence (and then praying prayers of release; saying things like “in the name of Jesus”).  I cloth diaper my kids.  I am considering doing a very restrictive diet (GAPS, just FYI) in order to heal my gut.  I say the word “gut” and am not joking.  I try to ferment things.  I prefer to mix cookie dough by hand.  I mostly read self-help and religious books.  I am someone I never thought I would be; someone I would’ve hated and thought was Crazy (yes, capital “c”).  I wouldn’t have talked to me.

But, here I am; being who I am.  Hopefully you can handle it, but if you can’t, I would understand.

See ya,

AM