House of Mirrors

The weather is beginning to change and a new season starts. I’m starting to see the leaves fall and even change color. Of course, the foliage is nothing compared to states that have REAL seasons. Here in SoCal things tend to stay round the 70’s all year-round. Still its nice to see the change. I tend to get rather nostalgic during the transitions. My head fills with memories and it offers an opportunity to look back on the year and reflect.

My father re-married this year -or so I heard. It’s hard to keep track of  his activities and quite frankly I don’t really bother. This is his second or third marriage. I don’t remember whether or not he actually married that woman from Texas. I have a half-sister from his first act of infidelity, then two-half brothers from the Texas woman my father eventually left my mother for. Last I heard this new wife is expecting; this will be half-brother #3!

Did I mention this girl my dad married is one year older than me? (Probably looks like page 6 of the MidLife Crisis catalog)

I haven’t talked to my father since my birthday. It was our last conversation, a very cold conversation about his needs for technical support. He wasn’t kidding either but actually called in on my birthday real early, not to wish me a happy birthday, but for help on his PC. Three months prior he called because he had purchased a new laptop. A month before THAT (Can you guess?) he called me for PC help as well.

Dad and I have never done small-talk. I have such terrible memories about him that I’ve forgotten the good ones. I’m sure there were moments when he wasn’t being an absent-father, jerk, cheating on my mother, or setting me up for disappointment, but the bad memories must have covered them up. It’s sad no matter how you look at it.

It didn’t hurt that I decided to stop talking to my father, that I removed him from my life. It hurt that I didn’t miss him. It hurt to realize he was never there to begin with!

When people hear that I don’t have a good relationship with my father they immediately think, “Oh, its cuz you’re gay.” No. It’s not. It’s just cuz he’s a jerk. He still doesn’t know I’m gay. I stopped really talking to my father when I was 16. The pivotal moment was when he took me to meet his “friend” from Canada. He kept passing her off as just a friend. But, “friends” don’t kiss, hug, and sleep in the same bed. Yes, this was while my father was still married to my mother. Lovely right? I lost a lot of respect for him after that. Dad was no super hero, he was just a man. Dad was no dad, he was just some guy.

My little sister, Ema, and I keep working on our strained relationship. We were pretty close but as we grew older we sorta drifted apart and began to head in our direction. (We’re 7yrs apart in age too). Its normal I suppose, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to drift so far away. It all comes down to an argument we had a year ago. I noticed she had been sleeping a lot after school. I knew something was bothering her and I asked what was wrong. It was bad timing. She blew up in my face about it, which prompted me to go into ‘authoritarian’ mode and I grounded her; taking her cellphone away since I paid for it and the service. Words were shot back and forth, no cursing or anything like that, but a lot of hurtful words.

“You’re not my dad!” Ema barked.

“You’re right, I’ m not,” I tried to laugh off. “But I’m still your older brother and you can’t’ mouth off like that.” I had honestly never heard her snap at me like that. Even in our usual sibling arguments I had never taken away her phone.

“I’m so sick and tired all this.” Perhaps the first indication that there was so much more going on in her life. “Just take the phone I don’t care! You’re nothing to me! You’re nothing!”

Those last words were the ones that hurt me the most. We didn’t talk for almost a year after that argument. My mother came in as mediator admits the argument and tried to patch things up but it was too late. The words had been said. My mother pleaded for me to return the phone and instead I changed the phone to one that could only dial 911 and 4 other numbers. She was being grounded.

Soon after that I learned Ema was pregnant and dropped out of high school. It was a big shock (perhaps explains all those naps, right?). My mother went into a deep depression, saying she had failed as a parent and felt like dying. I never shed a tear in front of my mom about this, but I did do my share of crying. I feared most for my little then-6-year old brother because I had just moved out. I was tormented by the many nights my mother cried when my father was cheating on her. I could only imagine how they must have been for my little brother.

It was a time of many changes. I think the argument was mostly to blame. I moved out shortly after the argument. I wasn’t a father and felt I had failed to keep things together. I felt the environment began to get toxic with my being there; perhaps I was a control-freak like my father. My mother moved out and my sister moved out to live with her boyfriend after being kicked out by my mother. Not the greatest move, I know. But I didn’t learn about her being kicked out for months. So, for my brother, within a span of 3 months, he saw the family split in many directions. I recall my mother telling me he used to look at old photo albums and cry, remembering when we were all together. His favorite picture was one of all three of us holding our ‘baby blankets.’ Yeah, I still have mine but I swear I don’t sleep with it 🙂

Ema and I work hard at keeping in touch. We call each other every other week. The conversations are uncomfortably short. There isn’t much to say and we’ve really changed, having little in common anymore. We sorta talk about the old times the most, laughing at old pranks or funny things our parents used to say/do. It’s so much easier to gang up on our folks and talk about them behind their backs.

My nephew turned 1 this year. That little guy is growing fast! I come to terms that Ema’s not the ‘little sister’ I used to torment so much growing up. But, in my eyes she’ll always be the little sister. She’ll always be that little girl who couldn’t pronounce juice; putting too many ‘ooo’s in it. She’ll always be the 7yr old sweet-hearted girl who took my mother to Trader Joe’s for her birthday 🙂

Things are always changing. We all change, people come in and out of your life but you never expect it to be your family. Family is family, they’re the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

We all blame each other for my Ema’s situation; father, mother and I. It doesn’t help that a while back when my mother told a friend about Ema’s pregnancy they immediately turned to me and said, “Where were you? Aren’t you supposed to be watching out for your sister?”