Compliments are as rare as precious gems, often shoved between passive aggressive comments regarding bulge and the future. When they do come, they are cherished and savored as one would savor a mirage in a desert. It exists, but barely and most of it lies within your own imagination.
There has never been a time that the words you are beautiful or you are precious, worthy, loved have left my father's lips; never on a special occasion, Girl Scout dance, and definitely not at my wedding. The praise he gives to everyone else, my sister, his so-called friends, or the potentially former drug addict he has informally adopted as favorite amongst the three he already has. I do not even know if he considers my brother his child, though I know genetically he is not.
Compliments about my appearance stopped when puberty hit. There were no more how cute/special/sweet are you. Instead, more passive aggressive fights. More ignoring. More prodding to stop being so fat, so weird, so ugly. Me growing up was not something my dad had ever considered.
Now I feel as though he believes I abandoned him for pursuing my own life. I no longer am at his beck and call, because my husband is my family now. The incessant calling to check on Mom daily for over six months, the nagging on sorting through their possessions as well as my forgotten ones, the disgust at my physical appearance. This is not melodrama, this is my life.
I do not feel attached like I once did. My view of God has changed because it is too closely related to my earthly father that belief in a celestial one becomes difficult. I voted for Obama and believe in gay marriage and I'm pretty sure my father knows but denies. He is in denial about life.
When I was a child, my family went furniture shopping. Mom and I went to the restroom, while Dad, my brother and sister were out looking at things. I told my mom, at age three, that my dad did not love me as much as Tracy. My mom looked at me, shocked, and this is probably why I still remember this. I could feel a trembling in my tummy and from the look upon her face to the he loves you, too, he just doesn't get to see her much, this was when I realized he did not love me as much as my sister and never would.
No matter how much he said he was proud of me after winning basketball championships four years in a row, nor when my drawings were accepted into an art show. He acts excited when he sees my commercials on TV or I tell him about my plans, but I don't know if I can trust that he really cares. This is the man who, upon my telling him I said yes to marrying my then boyfriend, he had to stop and tell me that Tim Curry had a heart attack.
Tim fucking Curry.
Ever since then, I realized my earlier suspicions were true. My mom loved me most, and while my dad might I certainly could not tell you if I believe it or not. He says I love you after we have conversations on the phone but sometimes seems embarrassed by it. Its not my choice that I don't have Mom to talk to anymore.
I miss her.
Though he comments often on how my sister should have went into modeling and how gorgeous, lovely, and wonderful she was, and how she could have been somebody, I realize I am already that somebody. His approval is the last thing I need because I never even had it. I am somebody; I am a model, I am an actress, I am a writer, I am a wife, I am a daughter and a damn good one at that.
I do not need the approval of a man who calls himself my dad but who acts as a cowardly lion.
