it's 4am
Actually it's almost 5am now and I accidentally swiped back on my phone and lost like an hours worth of angry word vomit and now I'm a little less angry cause that's just kinda comical. lol I can't believe my losing an hours worth of ragey phone tapping has calmed me down what the fuck lmao
But let's try again now that I'm a little less unhinged but I still can't sleep. Last time this happened, early November - I unpublished the post because I was so embarrassed. It felt like an angsty teenager's journal. I wrote a post about missing my mom because it was the anniversary of her suicide. But really it was a message to her displaying my utter anger and disappointment in her suicide. It was raw and ugly. It wasn't a cry for help. I just needed to exhaust myself with word vomit until my brain was so sick of me and my elementary school writing that it wanted to sleep.
So here I am again. My phone's light blinding me and my hands cramping cause I hate typing on my phone but I don't want to wake up Andrew.
I'm so glad November is over. Fuck November. If anyone is reading this - I'm sorry your birthday month sucks. It's also the rarest so unlikely anyone reads this I guess. But fuck I hate December too. I hate the holidays. It reminds me that I have no blood family. Blood family is a weird term there's probably a better term but whatever it's officially 5:01am.
I'm just so angry. I'm mad at my dad right now. And my mom's side of the family. My cousin committed suicide during the pandemic. Nobody told me. I found out a year later while searching for him on Google cause he was MIA. I saw his obituary instead. None of my cousins or aunts told me. Only one of them confinded in me once I asked her. I get why they hid it. They were trying to protect me. But that's so fucking dumb cause hello??? I went through my own mom's suicide. I could've helped THEM. But suicide is taboo in my mom's culture so we just all act like it never happened! Cool. Whatever. I no longer talk to them cause I'm angry. I know it's immature because I know they love me. But I'm just so fucking angry.
So here I am, unable to sleep. It doesn't happen as frequently as it used to but when it does it hits really hard. Every repressed emotion just bubbles up. I was crying earlier, trying not to wake up Andrew. He has an important interview tomorrow so this is how I'm coping. Fuck my hand is cramping
I'm so mad at my dad. I don't even know if he's my dad. I know he's my biological dad but I mean I don't feel like he's my dad whatsoever. He hasn't been in my life at all. He doesn't know anything about me minus the surface level things and even then he doesn't know much. He emails me once a year on my birthday. Small talk. I haven't seen him in 7 years now. Just like when I was younger. But back then he blamed my mom. What's his excuse now? Last time he emailed me I told him about my cousin. I told him how I found out. He didn't console me. I don't even think he realizes how broken I am.
So tonight I did what I told my last therapist I didn't want to do. I shut the door. I told him I don't want a half assed relationship. I told him how angry I was with him. I don't understand how you can have a child and not want to get to know them. I can't fathom it at all. My mom loved me so much. So what's wrong with me that my dad doesn't show any interest in me?
I appreciate that he paid for my rent when she passed away while I was taking out loans for school. I appreciated him flying out to Toronto when she passed away and bringing me to Poland with him. But I felt so fucking alone. He barely talked to me. My relationship with him feels cordial at best. It feels obligatory. But I feel so fucking conflicted. I wanted to leave the door open, hoping he would reach out and want to get to know me someday. But the more time passed the more it hurt. The only time I felt loved by him was the last time I saw him. I broke down telling him I'm scared I'm going to end up like my mom. He held me and said I'm not going to. I felt loved for the first time by him. That was 7 years ago.
But that didn't last long. The cadence of his emails became longer. Always small talk. Everytime I replied with paragraphs of life updates. He wouldn't reply or would reply with robotic small talk. I felt like I put my heart out for him, I gave him a second chance to be in my life and he didn't take it. And so I emailed him tonight out of ambivalence. And then a few minutes later I regretted it, googling how to unsend an email.. knowing all too well that's not possible. So I'm stuck with my actions not maybe it's just my anxiety that prevented me from this all along. The what if? I told my last therapist that I wanted to hold on to that what if.
But I don't think I do anymore. I don't know. I wish I had a mom, but she's dead. And I wish I had a dad but he's alive. I don't know what's worse. How fucking dumb is that. I just don't get it.
I think the hardest part in all of this is knowing I'm losing my mom even more. I'm losing the chance to get to know her from my dad's perspective. Over 30 years of her is just gone. But I don't think he would've ever given me any of that anyways. The silver lining in all of this is that I mustered the courage to reach out to her friend, someone I stopped talking to 5 years ago.
It's funny, I've done this twice now. A year after her suicide I reached out to him because he had reached out to me before. He knew her since she was 21. They dated and then they were friends and then in the last year of her life they were together. I re-read the stories he emailed me. He sent me so many. This was the first time I learned about my mom as ..not a mom. The person who got married at 18 and ran away from home with someone addicted to drugs. The women who then left him and he died from overdose. Who then married again and then divorced. And then married my dad and had me. And then shortly after it was just the two of us.
But then it hurt. Hearing those stories. Knowing I'd never hear them from her. So I stopped replying and slowly he stopped reaching out. It's sad to say but he felt more like a dad in that short time than my dad ever did. He asked about me. He remembered things I would say and would bring them up again. He'd offer little words of wisdom but in the most gentle way. Talking to him made me realize everything my dad is not. So selfishly I emailed him tonight a few hours after my angry email to my dad. Apologizing for disappearing but saying I might again. Asking him if he'd shared stories of my mom and telling him I'd share stories of her too.
I start therapy again next week with a new therapist. She has her work cut out for her. When I first wrote this blog, it was so much angrier and hopeless. I don't know if it's because I'm completely exhausted now, but I feel a little more hopeful that earlier.
Thanks for reading my slightly less unhinged post. I know I'll be okay. I want to be better. As my mom's friend told me "she hated being sad". I know my sadness would break her heart. So I'll try mom, to be less sad and angry. I love you.