I don’t know how to feel about growing up these days. It’s exhilarating to feel independent and alive for once in my life. But as time goes on, the rose tint of reality starts to dim. The world isn’t the sunny place it used to be. I am forced to hear the truth, see the truth, and speak the truth of what is around me. For all the people who said that “growing up sucks”: I can attest to that.
The moment I realized I was no longer a child it had felt as if the very fabric of my being was ripped from my chest. The invisible weight on my shoulders became heavier. I could practically feel the lines being drawn on my forehead at the hand of Father Time. I felt as if in that moment I had held my hand over the Bible and sworn my life away. In some ways, I guess I did. For a brief second, I felt orphaned. As if my parents were not my parents, but rather just regular people I had no connection to – that was the independant, but rather, separatist feeling I felt.
I have learned that being young and independent dangerous. I must be all too careful in everything I do. There a lines that are still too freshly painted to be crossed, and others that are too worn out to go back too. This stage of adulthood is all kinds of middle. Not quite old enough to vote, or drink – but old enough to drive and decide my future. When I realized I was forced out the door of my youth and into the throes of maddened society, the wave of disconnected feelings I shoved away long ago nearly crippled me.
I hadn’t truly realized that money was the blood of society. We, the people, were the heart – the massive engine of everything around us, fueling the body we call society. The money, like blood, is existential to our existence. And in truth, I feel as though money has become far more valuable than our blood itself. Though it is not a belief I am choosing to believe in – it is one that I realized is very prominent and real.
To some people, money is all that matters. Money is the key happiness. Money is the ultimate sign of love. But when a person ruled by money and a person ruled by love exchange their feelings, there are so many ways it could end. The majority of the endings, though, are not positive.
It was a conflict that was all too familiar with me and my father. And as they say; familiarity breeds contempt. He was a man of values, and little money – who turned into a man of money, and sometimes little values. It felt, in those brief years, that it was a radical change. However, looking back I realize that it was not rapid, but gradual.
I was too young to notice the moral and ethical changes in him between the time he left and the time he returned. He did that a lot. He left for months on a job, and came back months later. To me, he was the same man as when he left. Yet, as I grew older, I knew that he was not the same person as when he left my mother.
It brings to mind a memory of a Christmas Eve many years ago. For once, he was home during the holidays and he had a decent place to stay. He had graduated to an apartment closer to my school, it was an upgrade to the mattress on the floor of a house I don’t even remember. I hadn’t spent a Christmas Eve with him since before I could remember when he and mom were still married under one roof. It was near midnight and I was crying. I was crying because I was so hungry, and even then, I could feel the weight of my dads conscious for not being able to provide the essentials, such as food, for me. Still, in that moment, he compensated it with love. That was before he got the job. The job that suddenly paid more than my mothers. It was a stark contrast to the way life was before. He wasn’t always on the road for minimum wage. He was in an office doing well for himself. That was when the splurging started.
All kids ask for things. Yes I want that, or that’d be cool to have. But these statements are merely that – statements. They’re not demands or questions. But yet, my father felt as if it was his obligation to fulfill these statements. I was continually stunned by these transactions because I didn’t need the things he bought. I didn’t ask for them. But here they were in my possession. As I grew older the words became harsher – branding me with titles of selfish and lazy and ungrateful. He had bought me all this stuff and what does he get out of it? It was then I realized.
Oh.
Oh.
I suddenly had a father who was trying to buy my love. But by that point, I was on a road too far travelled to turn back. I couldn’t handle the burden of false love and affection. I couldn’t snuggle up like a small child with the same man who once called me selfish… ungrateful… unthoughtful. Horrible. The man that was supposed to protect me from the very hell he cast me into. He said it was to pave a better road for my future. That he had sacrificed so much for me. And that I needed to repay him for that. But is that not the job of being a parent?
From there on out, I saw through his act to the selfish motive behind every call, every favor, every purchase. He wanted to buy me. He wanted to physically pay off his guilt. It felt as if he was trying to out bid the love of my mother. He could suddenly provide more for me; nicer house, the latest console, new clothes for school, a laptop for University. And what could she provide? Nothing if you asked him. What was all the child support money going too? Smokes and gas if you asked him.
So he decided that he was done giving her money as soon as I turned 18. He believed that the money he was giving her wasn’t going back to me because he was always the one paying for new things. He didn’t see beyond that.
The money he gave her went towards raising a child. It went toward medical bills, heating bills, electricity, mortgage. It went towards bandages that cleaned up the cuts from falling off my bike, it went towards the hundreds of tissues I ruined with the flu. It went toward keeping something constant so that I could be raised on love and integrity, not something material. It all went toward creating a bond between my mother and I that is much stronger than anything he could ever do now. And he gave up that privilege when he left for four years. Four years when my mother was a single mother. Four years when she was a single mother financially and emotionally. For that reason, my mother is the person I hold in the highest regard. Any insult to her is an insult to me.
When my mother told me that he was done, I felt a twist in my heart. A flash of anger. Of betrayal. Resentment even. As if my heart was saying You wanna leave us in the dark? Fine. Go for it. We’re better off without you. I felt as if I now had to prove that not only I, but we, could manage without him. I felt like I had to prove that I was not something that could be bought, no matter how he tempted me with a car or with these material things he believed I needed.
I will not say that I don’t love my father, because I do. But he does not see the big picture. He doesn’t “get it”. Love isn’t about the things you can buy someone or what you can do for them. It’s about how you make them feel. At the age of 50, I doubt that he will ever understand the way I feel. He is too old and rooted in his ways to change.
But after all this time, it breaks my heart knowing that he doesn’t realize I didn’t need any fancy new toys – I just needed a father.
The Infamous Generation 