21

Day 21: Something you wish you could forget.

No, not my brother. I love all of them.

I've never been shy about the fact that the portion of my childhood spent with my father wasn't happy. Or at least, not happy enough that I have good memories of it. We only went there for summers or the occasional winter or spring break, but it was still uncomfortable.

This picture, in particular stirs up all kinds of twisted emotions for me. See, my stepmother went to high school with, and was good friends with, someone who is now a pilot for NASA. He came to visit us on vacation, and we all ventured out to Grand Lake.

Beanie Babies were really popular back then, and Cody (the next kid born after me) had lots of them. He spent his souvenir money on this one (I think it's a skunk). He wasn't very old... Maybe eight or nine. So he was playing with it, talking to it, carrying it everywhere. What I remember from this is that my father acted so shitty and embarrassed of Cody that day.

It pretty much sums up every experience with him during my childhood. See, when we were with our mom, we were always encouraged to be who we were. As long as we were okay, and we weren't hurting anyone in the process, she was fine with pretty much whatever we wanted to do or be. So it was a definite shock to spend our summers with someone who was always very concerned about what people thought, his idea of what we should or shouldn't do, what might be seen as weird or trashy, and so on.

As the oldest child in a somewhat dysfunctional family setting, I internalized a lot of this. My brothers (excluding my half-brother) were partially my responsibility. It pissed me off to see them treated with anything other than respect, because in our normal lives, we were respected as people. Not pets, not tiny little image-boosters, not embarrassments. When we were with our mom, we were just small people.

I remember hating my father for treating us like this, and seeing pictures from those days makes my stomach hurt. And while, for the purpose of this challenge, I say I'd like to forget those times, the truth is that remembering them only helps to solidify my current policy of small, structured amounts of time with this man. Never getting close, never allowing our relationship to become so close to familial that he feels comfortable enough to start acting crazy again. Never, ever again.