Mid Life Crisis?!?!?!

This man, sitting across the table from me, was no stranger to my broken heart. I have always believed that everybody is broken. When he told me about these future plans, I realized he was probably a sole contributor to the brokenness of my heart. He was arrogant, and money hungry. Everything with him came with a price to pay, sooner or later. He was manipulative and irritatingly charming. He never knew when to quit, and he loved boasting about the fantastic things he did for the people he ‘loved.’ But the joke is on him because I don’t think he has ever truly loved anyone. He has always been extravagant and over the top around people who don’t know him, and yet, completely frugal behind closed doors.

He has no regard to the way his words hurt people, especially me. But that has never mattered. My mother always said it was his way of teaching me lessons. His way of trying to make me a stronger person, a better person. Instead it was just plain mean, and conniving. My grandmother always said I should take the money and run, and never feel guilty after the things he had done to me and said to me. I was not really like that, and it was hard for me to accept anything from this man, knowing that one day I would pay in some way, shape or form for the thing I had accepted.
After all that, I still can’t help but love the man sitting across the table from me. The man that was hurting me so deeply, with complete disregard to the fact that he was even doing such an act. The man, that was hurting me, is my father. He is not a stranger to me and yet he was every bit of a stranger in those moments that we ate lunch together. I loved him, and still do, but in so many ways he made me hate him that day.

Chapter 2
I had never felt such a feeling; it was as if someone had stolen the breath out of my lungs, or stabbed a knife trough my chest. Almost as if someone had ripped my heart out, and forgot to tell me that life was tough. He was my father, and in that moment it was like he was saying for the last time, that I wasn’t good enough for him. That, in all of my 22 years of life, this was it, he had made his decision, and he wanted a second chance at life. But what about me, what about my second chance, what about my hundredth chance to prove I was good enough? Or what about the thousandth chance I had given him to let me prove to him that I was the daughter he always wanted?

I sat across from him in that booth, and he took a bite of his sandwich and said, “Paris and I have decided to get married.”

I was stone cold shocked, only two years ago I could remember her swearing to me that she would never get married again. Better yet I could remember asking him if he saw himself marrying her, and he had said, “No, why would I get married again?”
But here he was telling me that he was going to get married for not the first, or second time in his life, but the third time. Third times a charm I guess. He was going to have a wedding and wear another piece of metal around his finger, which would never truly amount to anything in his mind. He was just afraid to be alone, I thought to myself.

I looked him in the eye, when I could finally catch my breath, let alone catch his eyes to say this, “Why would you ever get married at your age? What? You decided I am not going to get married, so you should spend the money you put aside, for my wedding, on your own? Your third wedding?’

He replied as if it was the simplest explanation on earth, “Well yea, I guess so.”
I was shocked, he had thought I was crazy nine months earlier, when I had informed him I was going to get married. He had offered me five thousand dollars, not nearly enough to pay for a wedding today, but in his mind “if I couldn’t afford a wedding on that budget, I couldn’t afford to have a wedding at all.” He clearly knew nothing about what it was like to have a wedding. After all, this was not 1983 when he married Jamie, nor was it 1994 when he whisked away, with my mother, to Hawaii, just the two of them, to get married. It was 2009 and weddings weren’t cheap…I didn’t think he realized that. Better yet I didn’t think he realized how ridiculous people would think he was when he had a huge wedding, with a woman I didn’t care for, dressed probably in white.

She had never had a wedding herself, being that her twenty-year marriage she had gotten out of five years prior had started due to her getting knocked up. Of course her daughter had no idea that the reason her parents had married was because she had been conceived. I did though. I also knew that that was the reason they had not had a real wedding, because there was no time to plan a wedding. So I figured Paris would want a big fancy dress, with a big fancy reception. And unlike for me, my father would provide that for her, happily. He would find it necessary to give her that happiness, even though he could never find it necessary to give to me my happiness. I would learn why, in about thirty seconds after he told me about him and Paris getting married.

After he said they were going to get married, and he had watched me ponder that comment over in my head, he continued with, “So Paris and I are thinking of having a baby too…”

I now was dumbfounded, and replied, “Why on earth would you have a child at your age?”

“Well, we want a baby. She’s been cleared to have a baby, so we are thinking of having a baby.”

“What do you mean she’s been cleared?” I asked.

“She went to the doctor and they said it was okay if she had a baby,” he said to me.
At that moment I realized my father was crazy. I knew I had to keep my calm and not get riled up, as riling me up was his favorite past time. “So you think that you want another baby?”

“Well yes,” he said.

“And you are not kidding me, not pulling my leg like you tend to do?”

“No I swear, we are going to get married, and we want to have a baby together.”

I looked at him and simply put into words the one question I had to know, “So whose idea was this?”

He finally looked me in the eye again, “What idea?”

“The baby, and the marriage?” I repeated as if it were a bitter plum on my tongue.

He looked dumbfounded now, the way I felt, was the way he looked. “Well, mine, and her’s. I want to have a baby”

“Why on earth would you want to have a baby at almost fifty dad?” I had to know at this point, whether this was his or her idea, she influenced him in so many more ways than one, and he refused to accept that. Keeping my cool was getting more and more difficult.

“Well because I have never had a baby that was mine. I want a baby and she is okay with that.” He didn’t look at me when he said this. Instead he took a drink of his soda.

“So what am I? Just some kid you help out every now and again?” I was pissed now, keeping my cool was getting painfully difficult.

“Well, you’re my kid,” he said. “But ya know I’ve never had a kid of my own, that had my blood. I’d kinda like that.”

I now knew what he was getting at, that in all these years I had been right. He had never really seen me as his own daughter, even though he was the one that had pressed me calling him ‘dad’ when I was a toddler. I understood in that moment, that I never meant as much to him as I had always wanted, that there was a reason he reminded me every time we spoke, of the things he had done for me and given me. That every now and then I caught him calling himself by his name instead of ‘dad’ and why he hesitated when calling me his kid from time to time.

“So you want to have a baby. You know blood isn’t everything. You really should adopt dad. Do some good for this world. There are tons of kids who don’t have a home,” I said to him.

“No we want to have a baby, she has been cleared and so that is what we are going to do,” he said this so matter-of-factly, as if it they had been planning it for years.
“Why did you never adopt me?” I asked.

“Because it would relieve Mike (my biological father) of his responsibilities to child support.” As if that had mattered, as if this man ever needed the money my real father never provided.

“Dad he never paid the rest of his arrears, the state gave up on him when I turned eighteen.”

“I guess I never realized that, but still it’s the principle of it all,” he said.

Yea because you had never asked, and like you cared. You never knew whether or not he was paying the support fees when you were married to my mother, I thought. I now knew that all the times he had said he would get around to adopting me, had been empty promises. That he had never truly wanted to adopt me at all, not in a long time at least.

“Still, I wish you would have adopted me.” Awkward silence….

He looked down when he said, “Well it doesn’t matter now, you are all grown up and a name means nothing.” Yea maybe to you, I thought for bajillionth time.
“I still don’t think getting married is a good idea and having a baby is definitely not a good one either. There are a lot of complications that could come out of a pregnancy at her age.” I said this more like a knowledgeable friend than a daughter who cared.
“Well why not, what else am I going to do? It will be five years in the spring that Paris and I have been together, so we figured we would get married. And we want a baby, so we are going to do that too. And if the doctors think it’s okay then it must be.” He told me this with finality. Yet I still felt like he had no idea of what he was getting himself into, and better yet, I really didn’t think he was too sure of it all himself. I also didn’t think he realized the risks that came with a pregnancy at her age, nor did I think he cared what he was going to with the rest of his life.

“Do you realize you will be like 70 when this kid graduates from highschool?” I asked.

“Actually 68, and so who cares.” He said

“Uh well maybe the kid will when you never see them get married or have a baby for the first time.” I said this as a caring daughter who would not want to burry my parent at the age of 25, which was closer than I would like to think about.

“Eh, it’ll all work out,” he said.

Yea sure I thought, “So if this is what you want then more power to you but I don’t think you need to get married, and better yet I think it’s weird that you want a baby at 50.”

“Why it’s something to do, and who cares how old we are? It will be fun,” he said this uncomfortably.

“You do realize I could get knocked up tomorrow and we could be raising kids together? Your grandkid and your kid would be the same age…”

“Yea I guess so.” He said this one very unsure, as if he hadn’t thought of it that way. It made him uncomfortable, but it was the truth, if he had a baby for real, I was old enough by several years to be my future brother or sisters mother.

“But you don’t even like kids dad,” I felt like reminding him of this, since he was never really around during my childhood. O, wait maybe that was because I am not his real kid?!?!

“No I like kids, you don’t like kids,” he said this laughing like I was an idiot for thinking he didn’t like children. I knew he didn’t really like kids. He more or less liked handing them back to their parents when he was done with them, when they started crying or got bored. And better yet he was terrible with discipline, and easily persuaded.

“I like kids, I don’t like other people’s kids dad. I like the kids I have gotten to raise by being a nanny. Just because I don’t want to teach does not mean I don’t like kids.” I said this in a defensive tone; it was the first defense mechanism I had used in over a half hour. He thought my major was absolutely ridiculous, as it was supposed to lead to teaching, and I never planned on teaching, I should be proud of myself at this point, but it was difficult to be proud of myself when I felt like this man was not, and never would be proud of me.

“Okay whatever you say. You should know, I am gonna spend your inheritance too.” And there it was, the fear I had had about Paris getting all the money was true. It had never been a question until he had met her and moved in with her.

“What, why? How is that fair?” I asked this like I didn’t already know the answer.
“Because Grandma Dunn is leaving me nothing,” he said this while holding up a zero he made with his hand, “so I am leaving you nothing, seems fair.”

Yea if you want to be a jerk, and its not like she intended to do that to you, I thought to myself. He had even told me this once. But I knew the real reason he was leaving me nothing, it was because I was not his real kid, and I was sure Paris had reminded him of this. Therefore reminding him that, by being his wife, she would have more claim to the money than I, the kid he had pretended to father for the last 20 some years. And of course now that they were going to have a baby, she would need the money more than his older daughter, who needed to pay of student loans.

“Well I guess it’s your money,” I said, as if the comment wasn’t eating away at me from the inside out.

“Yes it is.” He smirked that stupid grin he gets when he thinks he has won.
“So if you really are planning on having a baby, do you know how much it costs to raise a kid in eighteen years?” I asked. It was time to see if he knew what he was getting himself into. Oops, there went the smirk.

“No…”

“$260,000,” I replied with complete confidence, maybe I had learned something in college, “so if you plan on having a kid at fifty you should probably be prepared to leave behind enough of my inheritance to take care of your kid, and to burry you, which puts your around $300,000.” Now I was being mean, but I had to get him going, it was our game, riling each other up. Now I was smirking, and I was on the winning side.

He chuckled. “That’s a lot of money, but we have it. Okay so enough money to burry me and take care of my kid in case Paris and I die, is what you are saying is fair?”
“Yea I guess so. I can support this ridiculous plan of yours, if I know there will be a way for me to take care of those things.” Riling him up was not being successful. Still for some reason I thought I was winning in some way, he had wanted me to get mad about all this, and instead I had kept my cool throughout it all. All I could think about was that he was not turning down the money I was asking him to leave as my inheritance, which was a slim piece of nothing compared to the whole loot.

“Okay, whatever.” He said this sarcastically, but I knew he had gotten my point. He got sarcastic with me, the same way I did in return, whenever he was uncomfortable.
Yulp, there it was, he was ready to go, conversation over. And I made out without ever having to spill any of my own news that day, let alone explain my goals for my doubtful future, he continually questioned me about. I thanked the high heavens for that small piece of victory.

“Well I still think your crazy, getting married is unimportant, after five years you get a common law marriage anyhow, and a baby seems a little odd too. But do what you want dad.” I said this as if to say, ‘I don’t support this, but I am not gonna stop you, how could I?’

“Yea well it’s the new plan.” He said.

O dear lord, how would I make it through this one? If that was even possible. Maybe me going off to college, and now graduating, was tearing him up more than I knew. He liked me being dependent on him, more than I appreciated, even though he complained about every little thing he ‘helped’ me with. This new plan would either be a bonding experience, or the end of a very long and painful father daughter relationship. I couldn’t help but not like any of the conversation we had just had. And yet a part of me gave myself a high five for being more mature and grown up in the conversation than the old me would have ever been able to accomplish.

My First Blog

There is a moment in your life when you realize you are being broken up with. I am 22, and I have never been broken up with before. I have always broken up with boys before they could break me. But in that moment, in those few moments, as he spoke to me, I realized, I was being broken up with. For the first time in my life, I was learning what it felt like to be told ‘I don’t love you anymore.’

That’s not necessarily what the man sitting across the table from me was saying, but it is definitely what it felt like. I don’t know what the worst part was abot it either. Maybe it was the casual way he addressed the conversation, or the way he refused to look me in the eye as he told me, or even the sheer fact that he told me at lunch in a Super Subby’s. Instead of looking me in the eye, he took bites of his stupid sandwich and stared down at the basket it came in. With a mouth full of food, he told me over and over.

He has been that way my entire life. Casual, and unresponsive, absolutely detached from the situation. Completely unaware of the way people around him are feeling. Or maybe it is just plain ignorance, and he chooses to pretend like he had no idea of what the words he is saying may feel like to me. Maybe it’s his way of never having to accept the consequences of his words and actions. He can just ignore it all together and pretend like I am okay when I am not, and have never been, okay. The way he told me was as if he had come out of his room on Christmas morning and decided to wear green instead of red this year. That was the worst part. And then I realized, after a few seconds, and a mere sentence or two, I was being told I wasn’t good enough, that he had to have more. That was the way it had been my entire life, and this was just another heartbreak I had to deal with, I told myself.