Dad.
Dad. Supposedly a major role in many people’s lives, right? The word itself sounds foreign to me as it passes my lips, merely a title; it makes me feel uncomfortable, you know, the same feeling you get when you’re walking around all day with a hole in your sock. That sort of uncomfortable. He is very absent from my life. Though when I look at myself in the mirror, I see him; same eyes, same lips, same nose… a stranger staring straight back at me. I speak to him very rarely, and see him even less. Today he called me, after a year without contact. He’s had a throat operation in the past, so when we do speak, I can never understand a word he’s saying. So I just agree, and say “yes”. In the past when I’ve seen him, and he’d give me a kiss and a hug, I’d always hesitate, and reluctantly put my arms around him. It’s sad, because I am proud to be his daughter, but there is no connection whatsoever bar the whole DNA thing. He is a professional Thai boxer, (google Grand Master Woody, he’s famous in Thailand, and a very very successful man) but with a double life. He lives most his life with his family; his wife, his son, and his daughter. The other 2% of his life, he spends sneaking about and hiding in stupid places to secretly call me to say hello, and very rarely (and when I say rarely, I genuinely mean rarely, once every two years kind of rare), manages to escape his other life to come and see his own flesh and blood. His wife doesn’t know that he is still in contact with me, and I don’t think his children are even aware that they have a half sister lurking about. I once walked past Jade (my dad’s daughter) on the street. She doesn’t know that at that very moment in her life, she’d walked past her half sister. I am a secret. I have been all my life, and there’s nothing worse. It is the worst kind of knock to your self esteem, makes you feel so shit about yourself. As I’ve said in other posts, secrets are shameful things. It is a horrible thought that someone wants to hide you away, especially when you’ve done nothing wrong, none of it is your fault. You’re just automatically cast away into the “secrets” section amongst other things like “affairs”. I always crave people being proud of me, I’ll do what I can to make myself into something more than just a beating heart. I always seek that warming reassurance through other sources, to make up for how belittled I’ve felt all my life. It drains me, and I’m tired of it. I spend my life trying to please others, and it’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to feel like this. I’ve realised that the main thing is that I make myself proud, because at the end of the day, I am the only person who will always acknowledge and notice my efforts. And I’m happy to say that I am proud of myself, and that I’m glad my hard work is finally being recognised. I think it’s okay to think of myself every once in a while, it shouldn’t have to matter about anyone else.
Just be happy, Chi.
