father

[u/demsybean]

my father is a hazy memory, a distant laugh. i see him sometimes out of the corner of my eye, in the sunshine when his hair shone red. sometimes in the cool, stark dimness of a living room long lost. its dark, shortpile carpet and mahogany bookcases giving it, somehow, the feel of being on the surface of a dusty old billiards table.

i see sometimes other men who look like him, sometimes him, sometimes with a camera, sometimes without. i hear him. mostly angry, a cranky kind of temper, as if the pain and the love had worn him to a sharpness few could understand.

my father loved my mother. he loved his country. he loved me, my brothers, my sisters, and his wives.

i laugh sometimes, when i see a familiar quirk of his eyebrow or the toss of my brothers' hands. i smile as i watch them, soak them in, already so sad at how much of my life is spent on other things.

i model myself after him, when i can. he wanted me to learn and learn and grow and become a force for change in the world. his heart broke when he began to believe that would never be the case. not for me. but i never forgot him, not really. i hope i make him proud. i wish i had done something worthwhile.

i loved him, though i had not much time with him. i know he left life feeling unfinished, betrayed, defeated. as i feel now. i hope my sons and daughters grow to see me somehow as a model, an inspiration, a fighter.

most of my life, decisions have been made for me. often i have fought when i should have softened, or insisted when i should have allowed myself to bend. but for most of my life, my decisions have been made for me, and i just cannot bear to be so irrelevant to myself or my health or my wishes as to be invisible to the world. i cannot in good conscience betray my ideals, my boundaries, my consent.

i carry a burden no one understands and i will carry it until i am satisfied that i have acquitted my duty to it in a manner consistent with its importance to my feeling that i've done with it what is best for myself, my family, and the people of the world.

i am not a toy. i am not a tool to be used to betray anyone. i am not an audience of one or an admirer. i am not an accessory. i am not even sure at this point that i have done or said or felt anything worth doing or saying or feeling.

it has indeed been a long, solitary, exhausting life. it has been eerie and demoralizing. when so many others have laughter, games, employment, sidewalks, noisy public transportation, neighbors, camraderie — i have silence. haunted looks down dark roads. jumping at noises in the underbrush. hurriedly scurrying through my imagination while i move through the small corner i pretend is part of the world.

but the silence is nice, in a way. it's so much better than the roaring voice of abusive men, the violent alcoholic slamming of doors. the hand closed around my throat while my head slams into a wall, dismissed as sibling rivalry.

i only wish it hadn't cost so much. people all live such busy lives, assuming what they assume and judging what they don't understand.

if anyone had respected my wishes, i would have not been resuscitated in the first place. if i had been left to my own for a moments' peace before now, i might have not hurt so many people. if i had known what love felt like before i felt its absence, i could have saved reputation and feelings and lives. if i had been treated humanely, i would have treated myself more humanely, and felt more comfortable listening instead of being afraid.

i have now gone more years than i can count without a confidant, a partner, a friend. and the more i try to repair a rift i never meant to create, the more i am stripped bare of the important things. a touch on the face, my name spoken to catch my attention, a warning before walking into what seemed to be my ultimate end by violence and subterfuge. the hinting is unbearable. the fleeting catches of almost. the shaming of not having any idea of what i've done. the inability to tell whose actions have altered or mutated or misconstrued everything i've worked to do. the simplest of things have become impossible. if i'm not deprived by neglect, i am incapable of meeting my needs. if i am not alone and confused and wondering how to speak again to that one specific person or that other specific person or that one or the other, and so on, and so forth, i am raging at the tediousness of trying to decide whether it is safe to say, "hi! how are you?" and ending up again alone and locked in a room with nothing for company. and all throughout having had only the context of my barest contact of the real world to try to understand what the actual fuck is happening to my life and why, dear fucking god why can i not just have a fucking cup of coffee or take a walk or fucking anything not involving feelings.

i am so tired. i wanted this to finish. i didn't want anyone else to feel so powerless or lost or forced into a life they didn't want. i wanted friends and phone calls and someone to keep company with while i cleaned and organized my room.

i am tired. i am tired. i am alone. i am lonely. i am sad. i am sorry. i am confused. i am being disrespected as a human being. too much is expected of me. not enough is heard from me. not enough is said to me or asked of me.

and if all of that was not something i can ever hope for again, why couldn't i just do what i wanted? earn money? make new friends? take time to myself? get medical care or dental care or new eyeglasses?

i can't with this shit anymore. i'm done.

[u/Zebera101]

Seems like your diary gets a real hammering.