Memories: Part 1

Dear M,

All throughout the day, I think about how I want to write to or about you. It is just so, so difficult to actually DO it. I have so much I want to tell you or things I want to write about you- about us- but now that I am sitting here, I have writer’s block. I think it also makes it real. If I am writing about you being gone…that means you are gone. How is that possible? It has only been two months since you passed away and I can already feel vivid memories of you fading away. I want to remember everything about you. It feels like the harder I try to recall certain things, the harder it is, almost like they just have to come to me organically. So many things remind me of you.

It’s crazy because I think throughout the day how I want to talk to you, but even if you were alive, we were not communicating like that. I see something funny or a meme or a news story and my gut reaction is to text you. Then I remember.

Baseball season is starting. I think a lot about all the things you won’t ever do again- like watch another opening pitch or take your nephew to his first Yankees game and buy him a hot dog and souvenir. Obviously anything related to baseball or MLB reminds me of you. I remember when we went to the new Yankee stadium for the tour. It was such a beautiful day and I have those photos of you and us in the dugout. When you got your new job, I remember decorating the house with baseball balloons and cupcakes and plates and decorations and big league chew packets. The people at the party store probably thought I was having a party for a seven year old 🙂 Even though going to games at the stadium were fun, my favorite memories were us on the deck. You would bring your computer out and stream the game. The dog (and sometimes the cat) would sleep at our feet in the sun. Sometimes you would grill and when it got dark out, we would turn on the strands of lights and burn citronella candles. I remember us hanging those lights- it is such a funny memory. We spent an hour positioning them around the deck, stapling them so carefully to the posts. When I flicked them on for the first time, it was beautiful. Then you went to adjust one and got shocked and the whole strand blew out. You were so angry and frustrated, but we both managed to laugh about it. Then we tried again, but used clips instead and they are all still hanging to this day. The little black mark is still on the vinyl of the house from where the bulb exploded.

Last night, I was reading old emails between us before I fell asleep. I haven’t been able to do that- or to look at letters or cards or anything like that, so it felt like a step. It was so bittersweet to see the evolution of our relationship, from hooking up to starting to care about each other, to becoming “official”, to the struggles of being long distance, to you moving in with me, etc. Many of them were mundane, everyday, silly conversations, but a lot of them were about feelings (or “feeeelings” as you would sarcastically say lol).

One of the first serious emails was from November of 2011 and in it I wrote to you: “I know you think this world wouldn’t really be drastically different without you in it…but please know that MY life would be missing something if I didn’t have you.”

Several people have said to me that I had to have seen your death coming. I didn’t. I really, honestly didn’t. I’m so angry that in some ways if does seem like the world is not drastically different without you in it. I want to yell from mountaintops and tell random strangers that you are gone and about your life. He existed! I know there was nothing on social media, I know there was not an obituary, but he died!

But, my love, the other thing I wrote is undisputedly true- MY world is missing something without you in it. It is forever changed and will never be the same. I will never be the same. And I promise to try to hold on to every single memory that I can.

“I’m proud of you.”

My boyfriend and I were watching TV today when his thirteen year old son texted him warning him that his twelve year old brother was upset. My boyfriend called his younger son to see what was wrong. At first his son seemed upset and angry, but after talking to his dad for a few minutes, he seemed to calm down. I guess he has a tendency to have emotional reactions and outbursts.

As they were hanging up, my boyfriend said, “I’m glad we talked about it and that you feel better. I’m proud of you.” I had to hide my tears when he hung up and looked at me.

One thing about my boyfriend that I never expected to feel is admiration for his parenting style. To be honest, I really was against dating someone with children. I do not have my own and that kind of “baggage” seemed daunting to me. I love hearing him on the phone with his sons- he is so sweet and caring.

My tears, though, were not from the surge in my heart I felt for him in that moment (although I did), but rather from those four simple words that he so casually said to his child: I’m proud of you.

Do nothing taker.

Liar, cheater, stealer.

Scumbag daughter.

You’re a LOSER.

I’m so disappointed. Again.

Selfish. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.

You’re a joke.

Why do I waste my time with you?

Those are just a few of the many, many insults and negative things my father has said to my face or on the phone or via email over the years. Although there were incidents of physical abusive, he was always SO verbally abusive.

I was (and still am) a good daughter. I am a public school educator. I own my own house and car and am financially independent. I have a Master’s Degree. I have found the strength to leave two very bad relationships and completely start over. I help my sister. I spoil my niece. I have won several teaching awards throughout my career. I have never done drugs or excessively drank. I was not (or only a little lol) promiscuous. I have taught as an adjunct professor at two universities. I’m not writing all this to brag, but rather that I have had some worthwhile and important accomplishments in my life. I am a good person, a good friend, a respectable member of society. Yet, I can’t remember a single time my father has said to me “I’m proud of you.”

I have said this before and I genuinely mean it: I know my father loves me. He tells me this every time we get off the phone or say goodbye in person. He actually writes it at the bottom of every email, even the ones belittling me. I guess that might be part of the reason I have such a convoluted concept if what love really means.

My boyfriend and I were having a conversation last night about the idea of love and our previous relationships. I have told him much about my failed marriage and how my ex husband treated me. I said, “getting divorced was so difficult because I still did love him.” And my boyfriend responded with, “after how he treated you and the things he did…why? Why did you still love him?”

The question hung in the air for a few minutes while I thought about it- to be fair, that is something I have always just said, but never thought deeply about. “I don’t know why. I guess because he was my husband?” I realize how ridiculous that sounds now. Having a “title” or a certain role in someone’s life doesn’t mean anything. At the time, I felt as if I owed him love because I was his wife and he was my husband. And I feel the same way about my dad…I love him because he is my father (it kind of makes more sense to say I love him in spite of him being my father).

Hearing my boyfriend so effortlessly say those magic words to his son, with no agenda and with sincerity, was bittersweet. I love that he is the kind of man who talks to his children and helps them see value in themselves. I saw a quote recently: “when you criticize your child, you don’t make them hate you, you make them hate themselves.” I’m over 40 years old now. It took time (and therapy!), but I know my worth and am pleased with my accomplishments. I no longer need my father’s approval. But I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t freaking love to just once hear him say, “I’m proud of you.”

478 Days

I got confident. Comfortable. I should have known better. I thought my problems with alcoholics were in my past. Naive. Stupid, even.

I have three alcoholics in my life. My father, my exboyfriend and one of my best friend’s boyfriend/father of her baby. And for a short, blissful period of time, all of them were sober. So I thought. My friend’s boyfriend was sober for five months after going to rehab. He was sober for the birth of their baby and was surprisingly a very hands on dad. Until he started drinking a couple of weeks ago…while he was home alone…WITH the baby.

My dad has been sober since Christmas Eve. He’s actually doing very well. He accompanied my mother to babysit my niece every day since my sister returned to work. My mother asked me to come to watch my niece tomorrow because she has to leave two hours early to go to a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Because she was not staying at my sister’s house for the full day, my dad decided to stay home instead. My mom freaked out, because technically she is babysitting a three year old AND a 72 year old husband. So, now I am watching my niece the whole day so my mother can stay home to futilely try to prevent my father from drinking. This is a familiar role to me…I have always been the “hero” of the family, the dependable one, the helper, the one who is responsible.

My exboyfriend, who I have written many blog posts about, randomly texted me a couple of weeks ago asking me this question: “when I am ready to make amends, do you want me to write to you or leave you alone?” I responded he could write to me. Naturally, every time I give him an inch, he takes a mile and before long he was texting me how much he misses and loves me and that he has been sober for 101 days. He asked me to go out to dinner with him. I congratulated him, but told him that I have moved on and he needs to do the same. Three days later he texted me a photo of his coffee table covered in empty vodka bottles and the words “I relapsed.” “Because of texting with me?,” I asked. “Yes. You’re a trigger for me,” he replied.

DONE. That is the only way I can explain how I felt when I read that. The years of trying to support him, the months of begging him to get help, the weeks spent watching him cling to life in a coma, the days of researching rehabs he never went to, the hours and hours and hours of tears I cried…it all just blended together and finally (fiiiiinalllly) I. Was. Just. Done. I texted him that I hoped he would get the help he needed and then I blocked his number. So many people had suggested over the past year that I should do that, but I couldn’t. I still felt that twinge of responsibly, that fear that he would try to hurt himself and reach out to me as his last resort. But something just snapped inside of me and after 478 days of keeping the door cracked open enough for him to sneak into my life when it served him, I closed it and locked it.

My cousin’s best friend was just found dead on her apartment floor two days ago. She was a severe alcoholic and although her cause of death has not yet been determined, I will not be surprised if it is related to drinking. Another life ruined. Two young adults without their mother.

I don’t know if I will ever be free from the disease of alcoholism. This, of course, is incredibly ironic considering I do not drink. In reality, my friend’s boyfriend, my cousin’s best friend, and now even my exboyfriend are all on the peripheral of my life. My dad, on the other hand, is an active part of my life, albeit with boundaries that are based on his behavior. He is sober = we talk, are friends on social media, see each other often. He drinks = I see him the obligatory twice a year for my niece’s birthday and Christmas, speak to him as little as humanly possible and I block him on social media.

I read a quote recently that began with, “When a woman is done, she’s done.” It may have taken me 478 days to get there, but better late than never.

Teaching a different kind of lesson

I shared an article on my personal Facebook page the other day that really resonated with me (I will include the link below).  It was about how having schools closed right now for the purpose of social distancing is not a “vacation” for teachers.  Throughout my 20 year career teaching English, I have faced many difficult situations, but nothing prepared me- or any of us- for this.

Yes, I am home in the comfort of my own house, wearing pajamas for most of the day.  I do not have children of my own and I live by myself.  It does give me flexibility in my day to binge watch a show for a couple of hours or take a short nap, but I sincerely wish I was at work instead.  I miss my school, my colleagues, the routine and my classroom.  I truly miss my kids.  I have 120 11th graders that I am responsible for every day, not to mention my “formers” (the students I had last year, many of whom I see daily).

I work in a very diverse school district.  This means that many of my students struggle in many different ways- some financially, some with social anxieties or other mental health disorders, some with language barriers, some with difficult family situations, some with learning disabilities, some with food insecurity, etc.  My school is using distance learning and luckily our students were provided with Chromebooks before the virus began to spread and I have been in touch with the majority of them, whether through our class website or email.

This is not a vacation for me.  I am worried about my students- now and in the future.  Are they nervous, scared, anxious, worried, confused, alone, eating, sleeping, healthy…?  I am a junior class advisor and planned the prom for April.  I am waiting for the directive to cancel that.  It makes me sad that students will miss out on milestone events in their high school experience.  I know a school dance is not important at all right now in the bigger scope of things going on in the world, but to a 16 year old, it kind of still is.

There is so much uncertainty right now and as an adult, I am overwhelmed by the fears and anxieties and stress I feel.  I can’t imagine being a child right now.  For some of my students, school is the only stability they have in their lives.  I worry what kind of lasting effect this will have on their mental health, their future economy, the world moving forward.

Yesterday, we found out the gender of my sister’s baby- a girl!  It was so wonderful for ten minutes to celebrate something, to forget about all of the urgent news alerts constantly lighting up our phones.  But then it was back to reality…my sister is twelve weeks pregnant during a pandemic and my niece is only two and a half and my father has compromised health and my mother is over 70 and my brother in law was laid off yesterday and I am struggling with agoraphobia and there’s no toilet paper and *deep breath*….

Every opportunity I have to interact with my students I am trying to be as positive as possible.  I made funny memes to make them laugh (or at least roll their eyes).  I sent a picture of my niece opening the box with bright pink balloons popping out at the gender reveal.  I tell them how I am doing with my new “coworkers”, who sometimes annoy me and step on my computer (aka my two cats).  I tell them I am here for them…anytime. I reassure them that we are all doing the best we can do right now and that things will be okay.  I am doing this for them, but also for myself.  I also need to be reminded that this “new norm” will not last forever, that things will go back to the way they were, that we will be okay.  It is much harder to convince myself, though.

Here is the article I mentioned above: boredteachers.com/…/covid-19-quarantine-isnt-a-vacation-for-teachers

 

Through my eyes

One of my early childhood memories from before my dad started drinking was standing with my feet on top of his.  I was seven or eight years old, he would hold my hands and I would stand on his feet and hold on as he walked around the room.  We were not really dancing, but it was fun and my sister and I would take turns.  I think a lot of little girls do this with their daddies and it is a sweet memory I have of him.

When I was in college studying literature, I was very drawn to a particular poem:

My Papa’s Waltz 

by Theodore Roethke

 

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

 

There are a lot of different opinions and interpretations about what this poem is describing.  Some readers interpret it as the happy childhood memory of a young boy playfully dancing with his father in their kitchen, while his mother gazes on.  Other readers believe that the dance is a metaphor for physical abuse by a drunk father.  The first time I ever read this poem, I instantly believed it depicted abuse.  However, I wonder if that is because my father became an abusive alcoholic (while my mother helplessly watched on).  I always tell my students that this is the beauty of literature- the reader is able to interpret what they read in their own personal way.  We all (sometimes subconsciously) are influenced by our own life experiences and as a child of an alcoholic, that was the lens I saw the world through.  Yet, I got a feeling that this boy still loved his father, which was another part of the poem I could relate to, because I still love mine.

I know without a doubt that if my father was not an alcoholic, he would have been an awesome dad.  Just like I know that if my exboyfriend did not suffer from the same addiction, he would have been a wonderful life partner.  When I went to an Al-Anon meeting recently, someone used the phrase “detachment with love”.  I realized that I unknowingly started doing this with my father years ago.  I have his nasty emails blocked, his ringtone on my phone is “silent”, I immediately erase his toxic voicemails and I speak to him as minimally as possible, especially if I know he is drunk.  When I see him, if he is sober, I chat with him, but I stopped letting him “in”…I try to no longer let his behavior negatively affect me.  I accepted that I was not going to be able to change him, so I stopped trying to.

I am currently detaching with love from my exboyfriend.  While I never felt responsible for my father, I did feel VERY responsible for my ex.  By protecting him and enabling him, I was actually hurting us both, which I am able to see now that I have some space from the situation.  I cannot protect him from the consequences of his choices and I do not want to continue to suffer because of his actions.  By releasing those feelings of responsibility for him, I was able to start focusing on myself and my needs.

I love my father and I love my exboyfriend, but I hate their alcoholism.  My father, the man who should be the one to protect me, physically hurt me and still verbally abuses me. My exboyfriend, the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, lied to my face and cheated on me, violating my trust.

I think I will always see the world as the child of an alcoholic and as someone who deeply loved and was in an eight year long romantic relationship with an alcoholic.  It is just a part of who I am, woven into the essence of my being.  However, I know that they both made their own choices, but that I also had the ability to make a choice for myself.

And my choice was to detach (with love) from both of them.

20 Questions

1. Do you have any regrets?

Not seeing each of my grandparents one more time before they each passed away. My travel anxiety held me back from visit them and I will always wish I had one final chance to see them.

2. How would you like to be remembered?

As being kind, thoughtful, caring and funny. A good sister, daughter, aunt and friend. An inspiring teacher.

3. Have you ever broken a promise to someone?

Yes, myself. I swore to myself that I would never date or marry an alcoholic because of my father. I feel like a cliche that I did, but I am also relieved that I broke the cycle.

4. Was there one event that changed your life and the way you think?

When I was in elementary school, I saw a documentary on children in third world countries, specifically Ethiopia. I had never seen images like that before and I remember being shocked that there were kids starving in the world. It taught me to appreciate the life I had and I have thought of it often.

5. Would you sacrifice everything for love?

No. I have learned the hard way (twice) that love is not enough.

6. Are you afraid of dying?

I rarely think about dying myself; rather I fear losing someone that I love. Now that my parents are older, I am afraid of my mother dying more than anything.

7. Have you ever been abused?

Yes. My father was/is physically, emotionally, verbally and psychologically abusive. He is still very verbally abusive, but I think the psychological abuse affected me the most, even more so than anything physical.

8. Have you ever been in love?

Yes, I would say three times. In college, I had my “first love”- where you love so naively and hopelessly. I loved my ex husband and I love (present tense) my ex boyfriend. With both my husband and boyfriend, it wasn’t because of not loving them that the relationships ended, hence my answer to #5. I think the true love of my life/soul mate is my ex boyfriend, but there are very logical reasons we are not together.

9. Are you happy with who you are?

Yes. I definitely have my flaws, but I think I am a good person. I care about other people and always try to do what I think is right.

10. Would you ever give up your life to save someone else’s?

Yes, definitely my sister or my niece…without even a second thought.

11. Have you changed at all in the last year?

This last year has been life changing. I experienced my boyfriend being in a coma…I don’t think I will ever be the same. He was so close to death. I am so, so grateful he survived, but I lost him anyway.

12. What is something most people don’t know about you?

That I suffer from agoraphobia and at one point years ago it was so bad that I didn’t even want to leave the house to check the mail or go to the grocery store. I just recently told someone about this and they didn’t believe me. I guess that’s a weird compliment in a way.

13. Do you like being alone?

I really do. I need time to decompress and just think. Sometimes I just lay on the couch without turning on the tv, just to be in silence.

14. Is there something you would never do?

Get married again. I felt very trapped. I definitely did not grow up with a good role model of what marriage should be and I stayed with my ex husband far longer than I should have simply because I felt like I had to try everything to make it work because we were married. I want to be with someone by complete choice and I want the ability to walk away if it isn’t the right relationship for me or if the person changes.

15. What makes you uncomfortable?

Confrontation. Although I have gotten much better at standing up for myself lately. I felt like I had to be an advocate for both myself and my ex boyfriend through his illness and it severed the relationship I had with his friends and family.

16. What is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to you?

My dad says so many mean things pretty much daily, but excluding him, after I got divorced, my ex husband wrote me an email saying he was sorry he couldn’t “fix me”.

17. What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you?

I can’t pick just one thing because any time I get a compliment from a student or they tell me I inspired them in some way, it is the best feeling. Recently, a student wrote me a letter saying that through my actions, I taught her how to be a stronger person and that meant a lot to me.

18. What is your prized possession?

A green diamond ring from my maternal grandmother. My sister and I used to try on all of my mama’s jewelry and we each had a favorite ring of hers. It was a joke in our family that she would leave them to us in her will. During one visit, my sister and I were parading around with our rings on and when we went to give them back to her, she handed us the empty boxes and said she wanted us to keep the rings so we would have the memory of her giving them to us, rather than it being a sad time when we inherited them. That is also one of my favorite memories.

19. What is something weird or unusual that you do?

Every year when I decorate my Christmas tree, I watch the movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street”. I have no idea why there is a connection, but it has become a weird tradition. I love that movie 🤷🏼‍♀️

20. What is your favorite quote?

“Education is not preparation for life; Education is life itself.” -John Dewey

Still hurts…

The majority of the time I say to other people (and to myself) that my father’s emails and voicemails don’t bother me.  In a lot of ways, they have just become the norm and I am sort of used to them.  Every once in a while, though, one stands out that is particularly hurtful.  I feel like my mom, sister and I just give him free passes because we know he is drunk.  Today he sent and email copied to all of us where he singled me out and called me a “loser” and he also left me a voicemail calling me a “scumbag”.  I obviously know these things aren’t true- I am a totally respectable member of society, a teacher, a homeowner, etc. but it still is mind-boggling to me that my own father can say these things about his daughter totally unprovoked.  My sister and I have always used humor to deal with my dad and the way he treats us.  She recently began seeing a therapist (I have gone for years, so I am super proud of her for starting to go!) and the woman said to my sister, “you talk about the things your father has done like it was only in your childhood, like he is deceased…this is still active abuse.”  That really made me think.  I do consider what my father did to us growing up as abuse, no doubt about it, but I guess since I don’t live with him and rarely see him in person, I didn’t really consider it to be current as well.  But it totally is.  His emails and voicemails are verbally and emotionally abusive and total harassment as well.  People always ask my sister and me why we don’t just block his number and his emails (I have a totally separate email address just for him so they don’t go into my regular email inbox) and neither of us have a good answer for that question.  I don’t know why I don’t just block him…I should.  He deserves it.  I honestly don’t even know if he would notice, because no one ever responds to his emails.  It is like the same way I can’t answer why my mom never left him…I kind of write it off as her being a “battered wife” and I guess in a lot of ways I am a “battered daughter”.

‘Til death do us part

I recently read an article online and came across a quote that struck me.  It was written by a recovering alcoholic who stated, “All of us stop drinking at some point. It’s just that for some people, that point is death.”

I kept going back and reading those two sentences over and over.  It is such a simple statement, but it is really powerful and concise.  I never really thought about alcoholism in that way.  My father has never attempted to stop drinking and I have accepted the fact that he will most likely die an alcoholic (he may even be drunk when he dies).  My father’s alcoholism will not end until his life does.

Today, my dad wrote one of his obnoxious, embarrassing emails and copied various people on it- my sister and my mother, my aunt and uncle (his own brother from whom he is pretty much estranged), my other aunt (my mom’s sister who is an alcoholic herself), my cousin and about seven friends of our family (two couples and a few guys who have loyally remained friends with my parents from when they were first married).  Even though I am accustomed to the lunacy of his emails and can usually ignore them completely, sometimes I have to look at it from the perspective of one of these unsuspecting recipients.  They must literally think he is insane.  It is hard not to feel that it is a reflection on our family (or that at the very least there are several people who probably open his email and can’t help but pity us).  Most of what he writes is utter nonsense and this email was very tame compared to the majority that he sends, but it still makes me feel weird.  The other day when my sister and I were with my mom we were talking about hobbies and one of us mentioned that it was unfortunate that my dad doesn’t have any interests to keep himself busy.  My mom quickly replied, “he does have a hobby- writing his emails.”  It’s darkly funny and ironic…my paternal grandfather used to write in a journal every day when he was alive.  He had an easy chair in the corner of their living room, right next to a small bookshelf filled with little leather bound journals.  His journals seemed sacred when I was growing up and during my visits to their house, I was never tempted to read one of them.  After he died, my grandmother packed them all up in a big box and put them in the attic.  Many years later when she passed away, my sister was helping to clean out their house and found them.  She brought one to me as a keepsake (she and I are both VERY sentimental, especially regarding our grandparents).  I was shocked to discover that his journals were not filled with philosophical ideas and deep reflections, but rather the minutiae of everyday life.  He noted the weather, how he was feeling, what he did that day (“went to the dump”), etc.  If my sister and I were visiting, he would write about how much we had grown and about what we did at the beach that day.  I have to admit I was almost disappointed when I read it, because I was hoping for…more.  Now that I know he was an alcoholic, too, I wonder if this was his pre-technological way of doing exactly what my father does.  My dad treats his emails as a daily journal, although instead of keeping his inner most thoughts private, he copies various people on them.

When my dad does die, I wonder who will care.  I mean, I know people will care, but will they really care?  He has burned so many bridges with so many people.  During his brief two year sabbatical from drinking, he changed in so many positive ways.  If he had passed away during that time, it would have seemed more tragic…like he had so much to live for…that my sister and I had lost our dear father.  Now, he just seems pathetic.  His death will be a big deal for my mother, sister and me, but will be a tragic blip on most other people’s radars.  They will feel sorry for us, they will feel sad for losing the man they remember- the brother he was growing up, the friend he was in his 20s.  But when people think about him, he will always be thought of first and foremost as an alcoholic- a sad label that defined him for the past 25 years.

 

Call in case of emergency

Twice in the past couple of months, my father has been in the hospital.  The first time, he was unable to breathe and was rushed in an ambulance and the second time, my mother drove him.  Both times, he was admitted and stayed for several nights.  Each time, it seems they find more things wrong with him, yet there has not been an “official diagnosis”.  During these two visits, doctors found symptoms indicating that he has congestive heart failure and diabetes, in addition to his breathing problems.  My father has not only been an alcoholic for over 20 years, but he has also been a heavy smoker since he was a teenager and this is what is causing the majority of his recent health problems.

My boyfriend said something to me the other day that caught me off guard, but made me think.  He said, “you know, your dad is going to be in and out of the hospital from now until he dies.”  I know that is most likely true and it is a sad reality.  It is obviously difficult to think about losing a parent in any context.  It sounds silly to say this, but it just upsets me that my father is most likely going to die due to his bad habits.  He is not the victim of a genetic disease or a horrible accident…at one point in his life, he chose to smoke and chose to drink and then they became lifelong habits.

Not so coincidentally, my anxiety has been peaked lately.  I talk to my mother every day, sometimes multiple times a day, usually just about everyday life like her gardening club, funny things my students said, our cats, etc.  It is so hard to describe, even to people who know her well, how different her voice sounds on the phone when she calls to tell me that she called 911 for my dad.  There is such a seriousness, yet I can tell that she is trying to stay calm, for both herself and for me.  And now, I worry about her calling me every day and telling me that he is being rushed to the hospital again- or worse.

Uncomfortable much?

One topic I hate to address is how inappropriate my father can be when it comes to issues related to sex.  In his emails, he will bring up how he and my mother are not intimate.  This is hardly a surprise considering he is drunk almost every day and he and my mom have had separate bedrooms for years.  My sister and I will sometimes tease my mom about this and she gets visibly grossed out.  As a woman, I can completely understand why my mother is not attracted to my father- both physically and emotionally.  As their daughter, I want to think about their sex life about as much as any one else would want to think about their parents having sex…AKA: NEVER.

My father, however, crossed the line recently.  Instead of a casual mention of my mother “not being a wife” (which is the euphemism he usually writes), he went into great detail about his libido, watching online porn, my mother refusing to have sex, him wanting to get Viagra and having erections during the night.  This was all in an email he sent…to his two daughters.  My sister and I were both completely disgusted and called my mother to tell her (she was horrified, of course).  She obviously yelled about my father about being so offensively inappropriate because we received an “apology” email the next day.  He seemed confused as to why my sister and I were so upset and stated that he would have thought that as his children, we would wanted to know about any medical issues he has.  Clearly if my father has a disease that affected his private parts or anything like that, we would be sympathetic, but being a horny old man is not a medical condition last time I checked.  What is almost worse than my father sending the email was his really not thinking that it was inappropriate.

When my sister and me (and my boyfriend) first read the email, we all kind of laughed it off, then got understandably grossed out.  It was only after an hour or two that my boyfriend and I talked about it in more detail and I realized how upset I was by it.  I have a lot of memories, some clear, some blurry, about my father saying and doing inappropriate things when I was younger.  One example that stands out is when I was a teenager and went to the mall with my friends.  I got home with a bunch of shopping bags from various stores, one of which was Victoria’s Secret.  My father insisted that I show him what I bought.  It didn’t come off like “I’m concerned that you bought age-inappropriate underwear so let your mom see and decide” kind of thing…it was creepy.  My dad was always a butt-pincher (like when we walked by him or stood in front of the open fridge), he made a lot of comments about my body (like calling me “thunder thighs”), he made funny, but sexual, jokes about waitresses and actresses on TV (“look at the boobs on her!”).  When he was drunk (which was most nights during my teenage years), my mother would ask my sister or me to go tell my dad dinner was ready.  He would slur that my mother had to put on a skirt, pantyhose and high heels or he wasn’t coming to eat.  He would lay out sexy lingerie on my mom’s side of the bed during the day (not exactly a subtle hint).  All of this is just to prove that my father has always been a bit perverted and there have been many times in my life that he has made me uncomfortable.

It is sometimes hard to reconcile all the different aspects of my dad.  I feel like if he read this, he would be genuinely appalled that I think these things about him.  During the two year period he was sober, my mother explained to him all the abuse that she and my sister and I suffered from over the years by him and he was flabbergasted.  I mean, unless my dad has Academy Award winning acting skills (doubtful) or is a complete sociopath (possible?), he truly did not believe he was capable of doing the things she told him he did.  If he was sober, I know he would not be saying the things he is about sex to my sister and me, especially not in the blunt, very descriptive way he did.  But him being drunk as an excuse is getting really old.