maarmie's musings

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Nice things

I've been feeling guilty all day at work thinking about my blog and the things I've been writing lately. After all, like my brother says, my dad could have given us up for adoption after biomom left. He didn't go that route, as don't the millions of women who go it alone after dear old dad gets up and goes, and here we all are.

To recognise my dad and stepmom for their good deeds, I will list the nice things they have done for me since I moved out of the house in 1990.

  1. Let me move back home...twice...however briefly.
  2. Take me out to a fancy dinner for my 21st birthday.
  3. Pay for the removal of a wisdom tooth when I was 21. I was a poor college student with no insurance.
  4. Transport me home from community college one night a week for one term because one of my classes let out after the buses stopped running.
  5. Pay for tuition during my time at community college and textbooks at FSU. They also gave me $200 a month when I started FSU so I wouldn't have to work but stopped that one year into it when my stepmom retired.
  6. Let me stay at their house one summer when I didn't take summer classes at FSU. The one thing I remember from that drive home with dad was that he refused to hug me when we got back to Largo and stopped at a shopping plaza that contained the bank at which he was working. Why? He said he didn't want anyone he knew or worked with to see and think he was having an affair with a young college student. Huh? It still boggles my mind, and I never got that hug.
  7. Attend my college graduation. But they didn't clap or cheer when my name was called. Complete silence. Dad later said I wouldn't have ever finished college if it weren't for him. I quickly and angrily corrected him.
  8. Pay for several dinners out during several visits home.
  9. Loan me $1,000 when my boyfriend and I moved to NYC. Dad forgave the rest of the loan after I had paid back half of it.
  10. Let me stay at their house a few times when I would visit home. The rest of the time, they wouldn't let me stay, so I'd have to get a hotel or stay at my brother's house or at my brother's office in a scary deserted industrial park. After awhile, I just stopped visiting.
  11. Come to my wedding. And dad only complained a little about the inconvenience of it all. I'm a lucky girl!
  12. Come to Tallahassee to see me one last time a couple of weeks before I moved to Scotland. My idea was to visit them for a long weekend, but they didn't go for that option as their schedule was too jampacked. So I got one night and one dinner, instead.
And the nice deeds end there. Since I moved to Scotland five years ago, they have phoned me only a dozen or so times. They have been sending cards for Christmases and birthdays, but that's about the only contact they have with me. I have phoned them a lot in the past, but they don't call back. Stepmom told me years ago that they didn't have an international phone plan so they couldn't call me but that we could certainly e-mail to keep in touch.

I'm wondering why I can manage a good international calling plan but they can't? I'm also puzzled because my brother told me that he told them how to dial me for free using his Internet? If money is the barrier, it's not adding up.  I'm also wondering why I would write long, detailed e-mails and then receive nothing in reply until weeks later when I'd get one sentence asking for photos of Elliot.

I really, honestly am not sure what they are expecting but it seems like they want me to make all the effort while they keep treating me like shit. Hm. That doesn't really seem to be working for me anymore.

2 comments:

Ellen said...

They are the ones missing out. I have read the last several of your blog posts and I am furious with these people...it truly boggles my mind how they have treated you. Praying that you will somehow heal from all this. Concentrate on your sweet Elliot...she will give you the love you always yearned for.

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