Father's Day

I'm so excited that Brandon gets to celebrate Father's Day this year!  This has never been a great time of the year for me growing up.  My dad doesn't receive gifts well.  He is very stoic about it, which can and was very upsetting to me and my siblings.  We've since stopped giving him gifts because we believe they aren't appreciated.  And truly mostly they aren't.  Last year my mom had my brothers buy him some clothes, which he proceeded to ask for the receipt so he could take them back, not because they didn't fit or they weren't his style.  He simply didn't want them.

I've recently learned that my dad has Bi-Polar disease and a less intense form of Schizophrenia.  Growing up with him was a roller coaster.  I remember times when he would promise outlandish things that I knew he'd never follow through on.  One time he told us if we could run 7 miles around the track all in a row (no stopping) then he would give us $200... we were poor, he didn't have that money to give us.  So many lies, that is what I remember most about growing up with him.  He finally drove me away at 19.  He always made me feel inferior and like nothing I ever did was good enough.  Even when I worked my way up to management at my company, becoming manager at 21 it wasn't good enough.  It was then that I vowed to never expect to live up to his expectations because I never could.  It was killing me to try.  When I was 22 my parents got divorced.  At this time my dad wasn't working, he wasn't taking his meds, and he wasn't even trying to be a father.  My mom did the best thing for our family by divorcing him.  He'd been dragging us down all our lives and after 23 years of marriage she had to say no more.  I go through spurts of time where I'm so angry at him, and others where I feel sorry for him.  Right now I am both.  I am angry because he was supposed to be my dad but instead he threw all of that away because he couldn't get his act together, and I am sad that my baby doesn't have a real grandpa, and also because I see how my dad is with my baby and I wish he could be that happy all the time.  He's been estranged by his family, pushed out like garbage and for that I pity him, no one should be treated like that (except rapists, wife/child beaters, and pedophiles because they are garbage).  My dad shouldn't be treated like that.  I really do love my dad, but I don't like who he has become.