Why my life is no longer a life

When I grew up, my parents did everything they could to not be with me.
My father would never drive me anywhere for anything, and as far as vacations, I remember two.

I remember them like they were yesterday. My Aunt and Uncle sitting at the kitchen table in Hack’s Point, MD and me being 8 years old, I wanted to be with them.
Except they wanted to get as drunk as possible. My Uncle would say things like, "Why do you go play marbles in traffic on Island Road," which was a four-lane highway. Real funny. Uncle Joe, the bastard of all bastards.

The second vacation was about 1968; I will never forget this one.
The world was much like it is today. Uncertainty, after a short period of hope in '64 that died with J.F.K.

After Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed in '68, the U.S.S.R invaded Czechoslovakia, which made everyone predict nuclear WW3.

You would think that would be enough for a 13 year old, but my parents had more in store.
I will try to be brief and not too graphic, but they sat at that kitchen table drinking until they could barely see.

My parents kitchen table drinking had digressed to a game of finishing a bottle of whiskey, and the one who got the last drop picked whose wife he would have sex with. Not in a future rendezvous, but in the same house where I was standing, observing, not a child for long.

So, as my Uncle took my Mom upstairs, My Aunt Franny, who will always be a saint, because she at least resisted until her husband threatened her with physical violence, finally left with my Dad to go over to my Uncle's house to fulfill the drunken-black contract that Satan made sure her name was unwillingly attached to.

Being thirteen, I know what I saw, but still could not believe it, so I went downstairs and over to my Uncle's house to confirm it.
I didn't feel very loved or valued; just worthless, nor did I speak of it for years.

What worth did I have if my own parents would display such a disgusting example of low-life behavior in front of me?

So, if you fast forward to when I met my wife. I had no intention of getting married. I knew nothing about how to respect a woman or be a good parent or husband. Those lessons were not taught at my house.

After I was living with her and since she became pregnant by purposely not taking her birth control pills, Colin was born and of course, once I saw him, I could never ever leave him.
Her mother suggested putting him up for adoption since I did not want to get married, but I would never let my son go. He was mine and I loved him with all my heart, whether I was married or not.

My second son, on the other hand, was planned since it was one of the short windows in time when I was with my wife, that she didn't complain about something I was doing or missing her family.

I didn't make it any easier, since my drinking elevated with her constant complaining.

Of course, not realizing why I acted out over the years, I finally did see a psychologist in a effort to save my family, since I really did love my wife and my two perfect sons.

The therapist suggested as an exercise that I write letters to my parents which I would never mail, so I could say anything I wanted. But, as is my way, I mailed them anyway.

When I talked about the incident at Hack's Point, she denied it at first and then said, "Everybody was doing it." That made me even more angry.
I ended my letter saying "that I would appreciate the names of some of the other kids whose parents acted like that, since I could really use someone to talk to right now."

After reading the letter, she went back to denying it. My brother Danny saw things and I suspect others knew too. You can ask Danny if I am making it up.

We had moved back to her hometown and because of both of our drinking, it was decided I had to leave. Her parents bailed her out and were content to let me disappear.

I worked anywhere I could to pay for a crappy apartment and make sure I paid my child support.

When I smashed my ankle riding a bike to work because there was no other way to get there, I still made sure I took my kids to either movies or to the mall each of my precious two days to get them.

I bought them Pokémon cards and anything else I could afford.
I also went to AA meetings and slowly recovered, but not fast enough.
Her mother was now calling the shots and in her opinion, I was not worth any more chances.
I would be lying if I said there was not some enjoyment is seeing that she missed her own shortcomings while trying to remove me from the picture.

But, the inevitable divorce said I could only see my sons 4 days a month, and my ex-wife read that as the letter of the law.
Everyone else from their Aunts and Uncles, and any one of my ex- wife’s friends spent much more time with my kids, which made me live in a city I hated for kids I loved.

I could have moved to Philadelphia and maybe when they reached a certain age, you would have wanted to find me and be with me, but I tried to do what my Father didn’t do; what I thought Father’s should do.

Since those weekends rarely fell on birthdays, the mathematical chances that I would see my son’s on their birthday was every seven years, actually about once in their lifetime until age 16.

The same happened with other holidays. Thanksgiving is not a weekend, nor is the many school holidays, so I was becoming a guy named Dad who was not part of their life and that’s the way their Mom wanted it.
I paid them for report cards just so I could see them, even though the court ordered I should be given copies.

Whenever I asked for extra days, I was flatly told no. That would interfere with their family days.
My Ex also made a serious attempt to get my sons to call and treat her short-lived fiancé as their stepfather to further distance me from them.

When my Ex told me my son had picked the fiancé to help him do a soapbox derby for cub scouts, I just crumbled. She had won.

That victory was short-lived since her DUI's quickly amounted to four and no driving meant no job, no job meant she would lose custody of the kids she had drug through every drunken hook-up and numerous broken promises.

When her eventual alcoholic breakdown came, a breakdown I had warned her parents about for over two years, my sons had nowhere to go.
I was overjoyed that I had enough money to take care of them and make sure they knew they were going to college without the burden of a loan upon graduation.

What I didn’t count on was that years and years of no real contact made you want to be with the people you grew up with.
You would rather go to dinner and vacations with their Aunts and Uncles.

After two vacations where they obviously were too uncomfortable to say no to, they wanted me to act like her. Stay in my room and don't bother them.
That was what a parent was to them.

I thought I was being unduly sensitive until I researched what I thought were great vacations in Florida and also one where we would go white-water rafting.
When I presented the plan, they both passed. Just didn’t look too interesting was the answer I got.

They did ask to spend some time in Atlanta with their Aunt and Uncle during school vacation to which I gladly agreed.
I discussed a trip I planned that we could go on when they returned. Visiting Florida and even a white-rafting trip. They said they would rather not.

I remember being transported back to being a 13 year old boy whose parents could care less what he did, when they told me of the great vacation they just had with their Aunt and Uncles, which included white water rafting as well as a drive to Florida.

So, here I sit in an apartment where no one talks to me other than, “what’s for dinner,” or “I need a new computer” and have a son spending $20,000 a year on an engineering course that he was talked into by his in-laws since they claim their Dad was an engineer.

Except, he was not an engineer, just like their cousin is not an "NFL Head Physician", except he is a “team doctor.” (quite a feat in itself, but why the lie? Can’t anybody be what he or she really is?)

Sorry, for having you read this and I know some parts were quite disturbing.
But, I have had it. I don’t blame anyone. They know what they did as do I.
But, I will no longer live in an apartment where I mostly live in silence since there is no one here who wants to speak to me.

I have lived with that all my life.
I no longer have any more room for pain.

It is no coincidence that their Uncle is coming on my son’s birthday and you can be sure their Mother will ask if they can come over on a non-visitation day for the party.
I will say yes.

I’ll pretend it’s my birthday and do what I always have done on Dec. 30th or Father’s Day, or Thanksgiving.

Some traditions can come in very handy.