The Weight of Not Being Wanted

I will always carry the weight of knowing that my own father chose to not do his only job and be a parent to my brother and me. As I’ve gotten older I have learned that this part of my life doesn’t define me but it hasn’t always been that way.

For my first four years of my life, I had two parents and a brother who loved me and we were a very close family. When my parents split up when I was around four, the only thing that changed was that my Dad no longer lived with us. He would still pick me up from the bus stop with a smile on his face and a warm hug. I remember feeling a sense of pride when he would be waiting at the bus stop with his brand new car (he worked for a car company and got a new rental every few months)  and my classmates would all gather at the windows with the best view and they would all ask in awe if that was my dad and I would always be thrilled that he was picking me up. He would still come to my hockey practices at the crack of dawn, he would still come over for dinner some nights, and he would even come back to the house and stay with my brother and me when my Mom had to go out of town on a business trip. For the first few years after the divorce, he was a good dad. He was there when we needed him to be and that’s all we ever wanted from him. My brother and I used to be so happy spending weekends at his one bedroom basement apartment. There was only a TV, a pull out couch, a queen sized bed and a fold up table, but it was more than enough. We never asked for much; the simple things were what mattered.

It was a gradual process. I remember the first time he didn’t come over for Christmas morning. We used to call him first thing when we woke up and he would come over and we would all open gifts together and then spend the rest of the day together as a family. I was seven years old when I asked my mom why Daddy wasn’t coming anymore. I remember feeling like I had done something wrong or it was somehow my fault that he chose to spend Christmas with his new girlfriend and her daughter instead of me and my brother. Slowly but surely he stopped coming to everything that was important until I barely saw him anymore.

I always felt as though it was somehow my fault that my dad chose not to be a father to me. It hurts knowing that he’s not in my life but also knowing that he is a good dad to the two other children that he has. For a long time I blamed myself for this. I had this voice in the back of my head constantly asking, “Why aren’t I enough?”, “What did I do to make you not want me?” When I was younger I used to stay up at night wondering what was going on. I didn’t understand. It had nothing to do with my self-worth at all, it was my fathers shortcoming. It wasn’t until recently as I’ve gotten older, that I’ve come to terms with the fact that his decisions are not related to my feeling of self-worth. He made mistakes and he’s never had the maturity to own up to them and fix them, instead he pushes it to the side and hope it will resolve itself and turn out for the better. I’m a lot like him in that regard, I also push things to the side. Despite the fact that there is undoubtedly some characteristics I got from my father, I will never make the same mistakes he has. I will be a better person than that and maybe someday a parent. Even though I have come to this realization, I will always carry the weight of knowing that my own parent abandoned me. It no longer defines me. I am no longer in a constant state of anger that was a mask for how sad I truly was. There are some days where those questions are posed more frequently than others, but that’s okay. I’m still learning how to balance the weight.