Dad,
I don’t even know where to start with this letter; there is so much I’ve wanted to tell you but have never taken the chance to actually explain my side of the story. I’m not going to sugar coat this at all because I want you to know exactly how I feel, exactly how much this is impacting my life.
When I stopped going over to your house 4 or 5 years ago, slowly moving out with every passing day of avoiding visiting you, I was crushed when you didn’t even notice my lack of presence, but during that time, I never saw you anyway, so I assumed that you would never care to notice. I feel like I’ve never belonged to your family, like I was neglected. You were always so busy and never paid any attention to me when I was trying so hard to impress you by doing everything you liked doing: by playing sports, but then I realized I was always walking myself to my own practices, so it didn’t matter anyway.
Then you got really upset with me when I didn’t call you on Christmas while you were in Red Deer... thing is, dad, you’re the adult and I was only 11 or so. And still, I’m not an adult, yet I think you expect me to take control of this situation because I’ve matured so quickly. I don’t know if you’ve even considered this, but I’ve had to grow up too quickly and because of that, I lost my childhood. I hate to sound cliché, but I lose sleep staring at the ceiling, over analysing my life, and when you refuse to see that this isn’t entirely my fault, I’ve brought myself to the conclusion that there is something wrong with me in order for you to not want me in your life.
And now, once every few months, you walk back into my life, get my hopes up into thinking that maybe you’ll step up to the plate, take control and actually want to fix this, but then you either cancel on me, or just fall off the face of the earth again. You’re just like an older brother who’s moved out of the house already, and I occasionally visit you because we’re blood related, but dad, I don’t even know you and you don’t know me. You know nothing about my life, my strengths, my weaknesses, that I cry until I’m dehydrated because I have extremely low self confidence, or even the little things like that I have saved nearly $2000 from working, that I don’t get home until 10pm some days, that I spend hours getting ready every morning trying to approve for someone because you never did.
Sometimes, Norm sits on the edge of my bed for a few hours listening to me cry and he won’t leave until I tell him what’s wrong. He takes me out for coffee to just listen to slivers of what goes through my head every minute. He’s been my Dad for years, while I sit here, forgetting your eye colour.
So here’s what happens now: either we fix this, or we drop it. But fixing it requires effort, a lot of time and patience. And to be honest, I don’t think this will ever go anywhere for I still feel like I’m a stranger in your house. I have a family, it’s not perfect, but it’s better than what most people have in this sickening world.