Haunted by the American Dream

For most people, having a father or at least a ‘father figure’ has been an important influence in their lives. I suppose I can’t really be considered ‘most people.’ The only time I really think of my dad is the month of December. These thoughts usually start on the beginning of the month, at the first or second day.
I wonder if this will be the year he forgets my birthday (which is on the third). I wonder if he’ll actually call, or just fire off a short ‘happy b-day’ email message, send his birthday and Christmas guilt gifts and go on not thinking about me for another year.  There are two reasons I started thinking about him in November this year:
1. A friend of mine is having family issues and
2. I am on a bus going nowhere in particular.
Busses are my favourite places to think. I’ll hop on one heading down to Phibbs Exchange, which is a good hour away from my house. And then I hop on the returning one.
So here I am, sitting in my favourite seat in the middle of the bus next to a window. My massive white headphones embrace my ears and shove music into them.
And so here I am, giving my whole family situation some deep thought. However, said thoughts won’t make any sense to you unless I give you some background.
This is my story:

My knowledge of the beginning of my existence is rather unclear. My mother has never given me the full details. Or any at all, really. However, I have managed to gather some information. For example, I know that my mother and father were never married. I don’t know if they had any such plans, or if they were even dating at the time. I have the feeling that I was really the unfortunate result of a night of fooling around. Possibly a one-night-stand.
My mom was young when I was born, only in her early twenties. I don’t know if my dad was still in the picture by this point or not. I’ve been told that he held me once when I was a baby. I don’t know how old, but that was the only time I’ve ever met the man that helped create me.
Shortly before or shortly after my birth (or maybe not so shortly,) if my parents were a couple, they ended their relationship.  My mom and I moved away, and so did he. And thus, seemingly disappears from my life completely.
Cut to one spring day in fifth grade. My best friend decided to ask me about my dad. Innocent in it’s exterior, but bubble-shattering at its core. This question disturbs my whole world. I was so used to this existence where I had one parent and no real male influence. It had always just been me and my mom. Sure, she’d had countless boyfriends and even a fiancé once. But none of those men were my dad.
Even when everyone else I knew had a daddy and a mommy, I didn’t notice that anything was missing. My mom was both. And I never gave it a second thought, and nobody asked. Until Mariah, that was. That question bothered me for a long time before I worked up the courage to ask my mom about him.
Even then I lacked tact, just as I do now, and brought the subject up abruptly and bluntly.  My mom and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie in our small Abbotsford basement suite. And without any previous hinting or obvious reason (well, not to my mother), asked:  “…Mom, who’s my dad?”
She was completely taken aback, and totally unprepared. She was silent for a moment before pausing the movie and suddenly hugging me and gushing, “oh, my poor baby.”  To get the massive impact of these actions, one must know that my mother is not a hugging, gushing kind of person. I could probably count all the hugs I’ve received throughout my entire childhood on one hand. As for gushing… I think that has to be the only time I’ve ever seen her gush in my so far short lifetime.  

Now, I think you can understand my being completely mortified.

And so, within the next few days, I was put in contact with my father. I was incredibly excited, but also incredibly nervous.  What would he be like? Would he like me? We started off with sending emails because I was too terrified to talk to him on the phone. But honestly, what would we say? Probably not a lot. The first few emails involved us telling each other about ourselves.  
I learned that I have three half siblings. One sister older than me by several years with one woman, and a younger brother and sister with the woman he’s married to now. My mom sent him pictures of me, and he sent me pictures of him and my relatives on his side.
I was so excited that I brought them to show and tell at school. I didn’t notice that my classmates were less than impressed with looking at pictures of people they’d never met nor cared about. It didn’t matter, because I did care. Grades five and six were the years that I really truly cared and thought that my father did, too.

But then he slowly eased off on responding to my emails.

He had his wife pick out any gifts he sent me. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for those things, but receiving them felt so hollow. It was more him getting them for me because my mom was guilting him into it than him wanting to because I’m his daughter. His flesh and blood.
At first, I was completely oblivious, coming up with excuses for his not returning my last email to tell myself, when he wouldn’t even bother. “Oh, his computer must be broken,” or “he must be sick” or even “maybe he’s away.” Because there was no way that he could have stopped caring. And there’s definitely, positively no even small possibility that he didn’t care to begin with. That would be ludicrous. He was my father, and he was supposed to love me. There had to be other reasons for his neglect.  
In the back of my head, I always knew I was kidding myself. But I didn’t want to face the truth and the reality was, my father didn’t love me.

My father didn’t give two shits about me, and he never did.

I was just a piece of his irresponsible past that had come back to haunt him. When I first came to face this fact, it really bothered me. I thought it was my fault, I thought there was something wrong with me, and that was why he didn’t email or call any more. It didn’t help that I was just entering grade eight and was suffering from a low self-esteem as all eighth graders do. I was convinced that there must be something so horrible about me that made him hate me so much.

But it was never my fault. There was never anything wrong with me. There was something wrong with him. It was his fault for being an irresponsible jerk.

As I began to realize this fact, I began to care less and less. That takes us to where I am now. Nearly sixteen and sitting on a bus. My father can’t bother me now. I bet this will be the year that he forgets all about me. And that will make absolutely no difference to me, nor will it affect my life in any way, shape or form.
When people find out that I don’t know my dad, they look at me with eyes full of pity and speak to me with pseudo-sympathetic tones that and tell me they’re sorry.  “Well, to be quite frank, I’m not,” is usually one of my automatic replies. Taken aback, they always ask if I ever want to meet him. I’ll usually say no and something about spending my whole life without him, and happily living the rest without him.
I still don’t understand it when people act like I’m some sort of charity case because of the whole no father thing. Nor do I get why they’re so surprised by my apathy toward him.

Trees rush past me, all in a huff as I non-chalantly bob my head along to a random Iron and Wine song. My eyelids float downward, nostrils flaring momentarily as air rush into the open cavities. Inhaling deeply, my thoughts turn to my mother. Exhaling hesitantly, my eyelids rise out of their short reverie.
Where to start with my mother? We’ve never been close. We’ve never gotten along. We’re two opposite poles with one thing in common. Stubborn-ness. Both of us refuse to back down and let the other one win. There’s too much pride there for that.
I hate to sound harsh or brash, but I’ve never liked my mom. Not even when I was little. We’d fight even then, and I’ve never understood how she manages to get such great friends. I mean, she completely doesn’t deserve them at all. Her two-faced-ness is so intense, I often wonder if these people saw who she is when they’re not around, if they would still remain friends with her.
Perhaps I’m biased, but even if she wasn’t my mother, you couldn’t pay me enough to be her friend. Actually, the only time we ever even slightly got along, was when she would work twelve hours a day.  We would communicate through notes.
She would leave early in the morning, and get home late at night. It was great; she never had the energy to be on my case about the silly insignificant things like she does now. She was never around enough to inflict the verbal and emotional abuse she does now.
My grandmother likes to tell me that my mother has been through a lot. But is a neck surgery any reason to call me a selfish little bitch? Is getting a cist removed any reason to tell me the things I like and are important to me aren’t and shouldn’t be important? Is back pain any reason to lie to the police and tell them that I gave her a shiner and attempt to have me put in a foster home? If those are legit reasons, I think I’ll jump off a bridge, because I don’t want to live in a world where things like that are justifiable.
My grandmother also likes to tell me how I never went without anything when I was little. Actually, I basically lived with my babysitter and only really saw my mom at night before bed. So, I’d say I went without something huge. I went without a mother, who was supposed to be the one person in my life that made everything ok instead of making everything harder and more confusing.
I went without a sense of maternal love that I’ll never know. I would gladly give up all of the things I had then and now if I could have been close to my mom. Maybe she’d be a better person because of it.
Maybe we could have avoided the massive rifts that have opened up between is. Maybe we could have avoided all of the fights, and all the times the police were called. Maybe we could have avoided all the tears and anger.
Oh well. No use crying over spilt milk. What’s happened in the past happened for a reason, and because of it, I am who I am, and there’s no one else I’d rather be.
A small ‘ding’ noise is heard as I pull the wire that drapes itself across either side of the bus.  The sign facing the nearly empty seats is illuminated, and it’s now possible to read the red block lettering that reads ‘STOP.’
It’s only a few seconds until the bus has come to a halt where I need to get off. My feet are sluggish as they stumble down the steps and then the sidewalk.  A cold breeze creeps its way down my neck, not even pausing at the collar of my shirt, and creeping down my spine. The time for contemplating was gone. The time for reality and endurance of said reality had come.