Daddy issues

Mommy wasn’t married to Daddy. In fact, Daddy was married to someone else. Everyone knew this. Everyone except Dani that is. Dani was told mommy and daddy were divorced, but she shouldn’t say this to anyone because it was a secret. Mmmm, ok… but, then, how could she explain the three of them traveling together and Mommy and Daddy kissing in front of her and sleeping on the same bed during those trips? Well, she just didn’t, because children just don’t ask those kinds of questions, they just acknowledge there’s something phony and then go around it.

I met my father when I was around 6 years old. Well, technically I’d met him before, there are pictures to prove it, only I was too small to remember. Don’t know if I’d asked questions before, I’d lived all my life with my mother but then, just around this age I guess, I was told I had a father. “Me?? I have a father? You mean like my friends at school!?” I remember my mother telling me they used to go motorbike riding all around Mexico, and I even remember little details like her telling me the exact spot where he used to park his bike. Then I was showed pictures. And then the day came when he was going to pick us up and we’d all go on a road trip. I was kind of disappointed when he didn’t show up in his bike, mom had forgotten to mention the three of us didn’t fit in one.

One of the pictures I was shown

I guess it must have been between the ages of 6 to 8 or 9-ish that this sort of event happened. After a period of time that seemed like ages to me, he would show up with presents and we’d all go travelling to all sorts of places. Later I figured out that we went on what might have easily been covered up as “business trips”, because he’s always gone on those because of his job. Then it all stopped. Daddy didn’t love Mommy anymore.

Me and my father on a trip

After this period, my mother would nag me to make me call him, like it was my duty. Had I been older, I might have said something like: “Now, wait just a minute, why should I call him, isn’t it HIS responsibility to at least check up on me???” But I wasn’t older, I was still a girl, and I had always been scared of him. So, I was made to call him to his office, and I was told to change my name when I did so, probably so the secretary wouldn’t ask why a girl with her boss’s same last name and who wasn’t his wife’s daughter was calling…or something.

So, my responsibility included calling him and asking him to meet me, and during this meetings, which usually took the form of Saturday breakfasts, I was instructed to ask him for money for all sorts of things. And he would refuse and I’d have to beg. I was also told to say this and that to him, I think my mother was just a step behind making me learn my dialogues, and so seeing or having any form of communication with my father became something I dreaded profoundly. Of course, the breakfasts became more and more spaced, until they stopped too.

The next time I saw my father I was in high school, and I was so filled with anger and hate towards both of my parents that I barely uttered a word during the whole dinner… but I’ll leave the reasons for my feelings to another post.

 

Related articles:

• Daddy Issues, part 2

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