Father's Day

So, it's Father's Day, I suppose? Yeah, I guess it is.

Eh.

Those of you who know me well know that I don't have a relationship with my father; he and I have not spoken in twenty years, though that wasn't of my choice (obviously). My parents divorced in 1987, my father remarried in 1989 and had three girls with his new wife -- only one of whom (my oldest sister, born in 1991) am I in contact with, and only via Facebook. I love my sisters, even though they've never really known me, but as for my father? Eh. He's never really been a part of my life for 2/3 of it at this point, for reasons pretty much unknown to me. I used to resent, when I was younger, the fact that he cut me out of his life, but over the past ten years or so I've become mostly indifferent to it. I'll probably never know truly why he did, nor does it really matter to me -- I still grew up, I still became a respectable, well-rounded, normal guy with no real issues and no real need for him to be in my life anyway -- though there are multiple, myriad reasons for that.

My "dad," the man who raised me, has been my mother's partner for almost twenty years. The two of them have never married, but he took on the father-figure role in my life early, though that was never his intention -- in fact, he's told me that he never tried to be a father to me, never set rules with me or made waves because he knew he wasn't my father (and more than likely, didn't want me to see him as domineering or actively trying to fill that role), and that's true. He really didn't; he didn't see it as his "place" to do so. Instead, I took him on as a father figure, as a dad, because I wanted to. I looked up to him. I admired him. I still do, very much. My "dad" has been more of a father to me than anyone else ever could have been. It is from him who I have garnered my sense of humor, my love of comics (and continued love of reading in general) and my interest in music -- as well as my interest in playing it. He taught me how to build and fix computers, and taught me the ins and outs of the internet in its very early years. If I ever had a "guy problem" I could ask him about it, and always receive an honest answer. He taught me how to be a good person, a caring person, and an upstanding man just as much as my mother did, even if he doesn't think so or is supremely humbled by that thought when I've told him that's the case. I have more love and respect for my dad than he, or most people, will ever know. I've been lucky in this respect; many others have not had it so lucky if their biological father hasn't been present in their lives. I could've had it much worse. I will, of course, be calling him this morning to tell him happy Father's Day.

Father's Day also fills me with other thoughts as well. I'll be turning thirty this year. It is not something that I particularly look forward to. Most people have some sort of dramatic life shift when they turn thirty. I always thought (or at least, always hoped) that by the time I was thirty I would be married and would be a father myself. I never thought that was too lofty of a goal, though by my mid-twenties I realized that it would be -- my girlfriend in my mid-20s (now ex, obviously) never wanted to get married, and absolutely never wanted any kids, ever, everever. Because of this, and because I loved her, I put aside both of those desires for the duration of our relationship. It was the only thing I could do, really, if I wanted to be with her -- and at the time I did. This was, perhaps, a mistake on my part. Not staying together for as long as we did, of course (I don't really assign blame there on either party, really), but trying to lie to myself that these things weren't important to me in the grand scheme of things. It was only later, after we broke up, that I realized what I'd suppressed for the more than six years I was with her -- especially once I saw my friends getting happily married and happily having children. Instead of feeling happy for them, feeling congratulatory, I just felt depressed, sad for myself that I'd wasted so much time not doing what I wanted to do with my life, what I really wanted to do.

That part, of course, is my fault. My ex once asked me the question of why, if I felt the way I did, why did I stay with her?

Because I loved you, I replied.

Love will make you do some really strange things. It'll make you sacrifice a lot of things you once held dear, or put those things on the back burner and not think about them in favor of looking at all the positives of a situation. Despite being a borderline pessimist about many, many things, I've always been an optimist when it comes to relationships. The good outweighs the bad in most cases. In the case of that ex, there wasn't a whole lot of bad (when we were happy, that is), so I focused on the good and overlooked or ignored everything else.

When it came to Lady? I thought I was going to marry her.

I'm not kidding when I say that. We'd talked about it. A lot. We'd planned our future together. I'd planned where I was going to go and what I was going to do with my life after grad school around the best places to go, work, and start our family. We were both all for it and couldn't wait; I wrote about those possible moves/places here on the blog. I did not, of course, mention anything about why I was making those plans, though to most people who knew us (like Andrea and Shainna, and more than likely my parents) it was pretty obvious that those were the reasons behind my/our plans. I was planning to propose shortly after the new year, and we'd already gone to look at and price rings twice; once in West Virginia when she was there with me over Spring Break, and again on Easter Weekend. Again, not kidding.

When the relationship with Lady dissolved, obviously I was heartbroken. It was incredibly hard for me to process; I was in shock more than anything else. And not shock like "wow, that came out of nowhere, I'm surprised!" No, the kind of shock people's bodies go into after a grievous injury. That's why I waited so long to really talk about it or write about it here. I didn't know what to think, or even, really, how I felt aside from suddenly sad and directionless. Something like that really messes with your psyche whether you want it to or not. It makes you question everything about yourself, makes you wonder if there's something wrong with you. Lady and my other ex were the only two serious relationships I've ever had in my life, and both relationships ended because the women involved left me, decided that they were done with me. Therefore, I can't help but wonder if I am somehow fundamentally flawed or broken in a way that I can't see myself, but others can. Those are the kinds of questions that will keep a man awake in the middle of the night.

I know everyone goes through stuff like this, though -- I'm not in the least unique in that regard -- especially by my age. Most experience it at a younger age, though, and can easily shrug it off or forget about it by the time they find someone else to begin dating. I'm so inexperienced in dealing with real relationships, though; I've only had two when most people I know have had five, ten, or more by my age (unless they married their first true love). Does it build character to have experiences like this? Possibly. Who knows. Most would probably say yes. But do I want to build character from horribly depressing experiences? No, of course not. I'd much rather build it from positive ones. Wouldn't most people?

That's not always how it goes though, is it? And that's the sad part.

Again, in a perfect world, in my mind, by the time I approached age thirty I figured I'd be happily married with children, and I figured that my kids would be waking me up this morning with some goofy/sappy homemade card and an attempt at breakfast in bed. That's why days like Father's Day are a little bittersweet to me. I know now that I'll at least be 35 by the time this may actually happen (y'know, to give the kids time to actually comprehend actions like this), and that's if it started now. Which, despite my optimism and hopes, I don't think it will. I tend to leave the past in the past as much as possible and not dwell on it, but it's days like today where I think back and wonder how different my life would be had I found someone in high school, married her shortly thereafter, and started a family then. My kids would be ten or eleven now. Yeah. I'm old. I am officially old.

That's also reasons why my profile on OkCupid says things like this:

My last two relationships made me question a lot of things about myself -- namely who I truly am as a person, and what I want out of life. As I am rapidly approaching 30, I worry about whether I should even try "dating" again, or whether I am getting "too old." I created this profile in hopes that someone would be able to help me figure that out.

That's the truth, folks. I don't think I could be more honest than that.

That being said, I have started a conversation with a sweet, interesting girl on that site within the past day or two. Apparently some people do still reply to messages on there. Amazing, no? I am incredibly intrigued and fascinated with her, which is good. I like intrigue and fascination. The problem? She is about 200 miles away to the north (I don't remember how far, to be honest; I try to ignore the "miles" thing on OkCupid because most of the time it's just fucking depressing; there's really nobody around here), which would make, well, actually meeting up really difficult, especially since my car would most assuredly half-explode before it got across the Kansas state line. I love my Monte Carlo, but as you folks know, she's not in the best shape, and that's putting it mildly. Said girl also lives with her parents (but has her reasons) and she works a lot as well, so that makes things a little more difficult too. Despite all of these odds, I still remain optimistic.

On that note, most of the rest of my day will be spent grading my students' papers, as I need to get those done before class on Tuesday night (I told them I'd have them graded and back to them then, which may have been a mistake on my part). Oh well. Part of my job, I suppose.

I will, of course, keep you folks updated on my life as it progresses.