After my parents divorced when I was a teenager, I didn’t see my dad for six months. I guess he was too busy, and he couldn’t stop by to pick me up or have me for the weekends despite living two miles away.
When I was in college, he never came to see me. He never called. He never asked if I needed anything.
My mother and I drifted apart around the same time. I finally told her that her father had been sexually abusing me for as long as I could remember. Instead of protecting me, she was in denial.
I did the best with what I had, but something turned off inside me around that time. Looking back now, it’s almost like a bond was broken between me and my parents. I liken it to falling out of love with someone.
I stopped looking at them in the way my friends looked at their parents. While my girlfriends went to their moms for advice, or got support from their dads, I decided I didn’t need anything like that in my life and I turned off all the feelings I had for my parents. I needed it to be my decision, not theirs, although that’s not the way it went down.
I counted the days until I could leave home. I worked hard to make my own money and never asked them for a thing. I bought my own clothes, shampoo, and walked to the grocery store if I wanted something that wasn’t in the house.
They were proud of that. They marveled at my work ethic and independence. They were happy I didn’t ask them for things like new jeans and rides. They had no idea that I felt they failed me when I’d needed them most, so it was easier for me to cut them off completely.
When I had children, I never asked them for help. They came to visit here and there, but I never had that kind of relationship a lot of women have, where their parents come over and help with housework, cook them a meal, or take care of the older kids.
I had friends who wanted their mother in the delivery room with them, and I wondered what that would be like: to be so close with your mom that you wanted her at your side, holding your hand while you gave birth to her grandchild.
When I hear things like, “I just need to talk to my mom,” or “My dad is coming over to help us with the yard work,” or “We are going on vacation with my parents,” I long to have that in my life, but it's not something I try to have or talk to them about. I’m hyper aware that it's not something we will ever have, so I’m better off leaving things as they are.
I’ve become bitter since my parents split, I know this. In my mind, they seemed too involved in their personal lives to be good parents, and I guess in my younger years, I wanted them to pay. It was hard to shut them out, but it was my way to survive because I knew they couldn’t give me what I needed.
Over the years, it’s become easier to bury the mourning of what I don’t have when it creeps up. The scary thing is, it’s become easier to do it to other people, too. As soon as they cross me, my guard is up, my feelings dull, and it’s not hard to say goodbye. How sad is that?
I watch my siblings still struggle to get something from them — that close, healthy parent-child relationship. They are always disappointed when they ask them to come over to see their kids, and they can’t. Or when they invite them somewhere, and they can’t make it.
I can’t lie — I’m glad I’m not them. I’m glad I’ve stopped trying.
But just because my mother wasn’t in the delivery room with me when I gave birth, doesn’t mean I don’t feel a void.
Just because my dad doesn’t acknowledge my birthday, and hasn’t for at least a decade, doesn’t mean I don’t notice.
Just because my kids don’t really have a relationship with their grandparents, doesn’t mean I’m not sad about it.
I can’t try to force something that I know will never be. That would hurt even more.
