The father I never had.

This is a story about the father I never had. It's really simple, but all too complicating to be explained in a few thousand words. The amount of hurt and disappointment throughout the years can never be written down or explained to you if you have never been through it. It all started yesterday night.

  It wasn't a competition, but it soon became a conversation that seemed as if it was. A night out with two friends became a 'therapy session'. As we sat down at a MacDonald's Restaurant, the word 'dad' soon became our topic of discussion. What started out as brief descriptions of how useless our dads were, became excruciatingly explicit detailed happenings of our lives with them. But among us was my friend, lets call him 'J', whom, have never experienced a bad night with his family couldn't understand a word we said because it was never part of his life. As my second friend, let's call him 'H', poured out his heart to us, I was awed at how he has managed to give me the impression that his life was never a troubled one. 

  My dad's drunken nights and H's dad's abusive actions were shared and discussed lengthily. For every disappointing actions my dad did, H came up with a better and more jaw dropping story of his dad's action. I wasn't backing down either, upping the tempo of the stories by adding older and clearer details of my dad's crazy actions. As the stories came pouring out like water out of a running tap, both of us came to the same exact point of asking our parents to get divorced. The words continued to jump out of our mouths as the food got gobbled up. A full stop soon came as our stories ended. It was surprising how our lives, seemingly similar, turned out to be so different. I told J that he was lucky to have such a sober minded family as we got off our seats, and hopped into the car and drove off to our next destination. 

The sequel to the first reason for this post happened just a couple of hours ago.
My dad was high on beer again, and he called back home to ask if we wanted dinner. To cut short the conversation I had with him, he didn't want me to get a hold of his location, but wouldn't tell me what he could get for me at where he was at. And when I told him of the food I wanted, he claimed that it was too much of a hassle because it wasn't sold at the location he was at. So, to make his life easier, I told him to get me a packet of flat rice noodles. After shouting into the phone for three times, he hung up on me because he 'couldn't hear me'. I know this is a really pathetic reason to get so upset with your parent. But it's not just this instance that caused me to curse at will, in front of my very demure mother, with vulgarities that were not tolerated in this household. It's his actions and his words that made me disappointed and angry at the same time.

These were my initial reactions, "Fuck you man, do what you wanna do".

  My mother was clearly upset at my sudden outburst at my dad. She never encouraged us to get mad or cuss at my dad behind his back, and she's always asked us to treat him with utmost respect despite of all his wrongdoings. I needed to post this up, I thought to myself. -Because I had just finished reading a paragraph in "I'm Sorry You Felt This Way". It was about the author's own invention of the dad she wanted to be the child of. 

  I thought about stuffs, and went back down to confront my mother. My first words to her were "What are your reasons to not agreeing to divorce him?", I didn't even address him as dad or father as I normally would. We chatted and she told some stories. She gave reasons and she gave examples. And finally, I was convinced. She said,

Her mom, my grandmother, used to be worse than my dad. She would drink and get drunk, throw fits and chided my grandfather, whom I've never met before, till no end. My mom, like me, said she wanted to have nothing to do with my grandmother. But after my mother got married and had my sisters, my grandmother changed for the better. Way better than she ever was. She did some stuffs that are better left unsaid on this blog, that made my mother forgave her every actions for they were in the past. There's no point bearing grudges because you might live to regret them one day. Don't let your anger make you do stuffs that you might come to regret when you're older. 

It was actually the story of my mom and my grandmother that moved me. Made me change my perspective of things and how to deal with them. Before you do something, think of the future and picture it.

-Is what you're doing going to change the looks of your own future? Are you sure you're okay to live that life? These are the questions, find the answers yourself.

The father I've invented for myself. 
  
  The father I've invented for myself is sitting at the dining table, shirtless, with a cup of hot coffee. He reads the newspaper as the rest of the family crawls their way down early in the morning. Warm milo and coffee prepared for us, he comments on the news article he has just finished. 
  It's 6pm of 2000, and he drives into my school in his van. I hopped into his van and he greets me with a smile. He traded a few words with the disciplinary master while I gazed upon the orange sky. He drives us home, and talks to me about sports. 
  Upon reaching the doors of my home, he says, go take a shower and come down for dinner, in the mildest tone. 

I thought this post was a little too serious, lighten up a little with EMT.