Out of Sight and Out of Mind

When I started this blog I had no idea the things I would write about daily, let alone keep it going long enough to where I would actually fall in love with it (even more than Facebook).

So far my blogs have been sweet, mostly short, and not of huge significance to anything going on in my life currently. I tried to kind of get there when I started having thoughts about not student teaching just yet and taking on this new job that I currently love. Therefore, I almost feel as if I'm cheating myself and my readers out of something special. Especially because my description reads "honest and genuine words" and so far I don't feel I have really kept up to that.

It's not that I have a problem being open to anyone that happens to come across this or of course my followers. In fact, I find it very easy to simply spill my guts so to speak to anyone who really wants to listen. But I have a hard time finding organization within my thoughts until I actually start saying them out loud..or even writing about them, which I have not done in awhile. So without getting too carried away in reminiscing about what my deal is with all this..I guess I'll just kind of start typing about this thing in my life that I have surprisingly pushed to the back burner of my mind, and maybe even my heart, in order to not have to deal with it at all - which is so not me.

To get you somewhat up to speed (very quickly) my father has never really been a strong parent figure in my life. My parents divorced when I was young and by the time I was 14 I had moved to the US with my mother and family. He stayed behind in Germany with his new wife (and to make things easier I might as well put it out there now) who happened to also be one of his many affairs he just kept around long enough 

to replace his first wife (my mother) and pretty much his two daughters along with that (my sister and I). All of my adolescents we saw him during school vacations..we'd (my sister and I) go on one extravagant family vacation with them after another and then we made the big move here. After that we saw him once a year up until two Christmases ago when I got engaged - which was the last time I saw him - Xmas/New Year's 08/09.

Once I started college I realized my dad was not interested in really being a supportive parent when it came to things like financial support or the slightest bit of assistance, was not a figure I could go to for advice, or anything at all that didn't involve pretending things were sunshine and roses when we would see each other. In between..he never really called, emailed, or even wrote..missed occassional birthdays..didn't call for a major surgery I had when I was 18..no card, etc.

I learned to deal and just kind of accepted.

Then Nick asked for my hand in marriage during our last visit, we got engaged a couple days later while we were there and I thought - maybe there will come a time now when I can grow closer to my dad. He loves my future husband, things with him and I were great, very on the surface, but great. Even my stepmother and I had no issues and nothing but great talks over dinner and wine.

To add a little disclaimer.. Please understand that I am by no means trying to sound spoiled. However, the last few months before I got engaged I had started to dream of what my wedding would look like, the traditions I would follow and for somehow I just always had this thought that my dad would wake up and decided that he wanted to really be part of something very significant in my life and want to support me traditionally financially in my wedding, like my mother's parents did for their beautiful wedding.

Fast forward a bit and skipping the nasty details that followed as soon as I got on that plane back home to the United States in freshly-engaged bliss filled with nothing but love, optimism, and excitement. After months of trying to get a decent conversation out of my dad about a wedding budget, what he'd like to offer, help with etc, so I could start planning mine and Nick's dream day (again - whether it was going to be a backyard bbq or a lavish black tie event did not matter) it turns out that my father had zero interest in being involved in the least, and informed me that he and his wife had planned on at least two ski trips to the Alps that year and if they HAD to help out with the wedding, there wouldn't really be money left over for a ticket to make it out to the wedding at all.

I didn't know a verbal punch in the stomach could hurt worse than a physical one.

When a small donation to the wedding did arrive shortly after and my thank you email and attempted phone call went unanswered I think I just snapped. Why would I fight for some man's attention that abandoned my family before it was even ever fully complete? My entire life he's chosen against his own family, his own daughters and worried more about biannual expensive ski trips, new cars every few years, and his wife's expensive taste - I was a complete idiot for every being hopeful that deep down he really did want to be a father. Let alone the father of the bride.

So now it's been roughly 4-5 months since I last spoke to him (via email). I did not call for Christmas. And not for New Year's. I have no desire. I don't miss him. I don't care to wish him happy anything. And I absolutely, under no circumstances ask him to walk me down the aisle and give me away at the altar. I have the most perfect individual in my life that has walked beside me through thick and thin my entire life and I would want no one else to hold my hand walking down that aisle than her.

And yet, even though I genuinely feel very very little sadness about the whole thing, I am completely and most definitely devastated. I am torn between not giving a shit and simply not being able to understand. Why? Why to so many, thousands of questions that I have that I know will never get answered that I ask myself - why bother?

It seems it'd be life times easier (and I'd probably save thousands of dollars on therapy) to just go with the 50% of my emotions that have never had a father, never needed one, and will not need one now. Hasn't he been out of sight my entire life? So why can't he just go out of mind.