Back to the Beginning

I want to start off with saying I’m sorry.

I’m sorry if I worried anyone because I have been gone so long. For some reason I have not been able to long in until TODAY, and my facebook account was deleted so I could not tell any of you that I was okay. I’m not depressed as of this moment per-say, I wasn’t off somewhere committing suicide (like some thought), and I certainly wasn’t already dead.

No, I’d have to say that my sudden bout of absence was caused only by technical difficulties and by no emotional difficulties. Just thought I would clear that up.

Anyways, I didn’t mean to bore you with my longer then needed explanation. I’m sure you’d much rather here what has been going on with me since I’ve been going on. Good, because I am going to tell you.

It’s the summer again, which means that I have chosen to go back to my father’s in Wisconsin to spend time in the middle of nowhere. Why is that? Well, for a lot of reasons. For one thing you can find the best places to write in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes I just need to be alone for a little while, to sort through all of my thoughts, because believe it or not there’s a lot of them running around in there. I know why my father asked me up here, since last year he had a stroke of guilt and thought that we should reconnect, at least that’s what I figured. He didn’t give a reason for wanting me here, and I didn’t ask. In all honesty I was much more interested in visiting Jimmy then I ever was in visiting my father.

That was until yesterday, when my father decided to sit down and have a chat with me.

“Violet, can we talk?”

I paused, my hand about to grab my coat off the the rack. I had to meet Jimmy soon, he’d wanted to take me to the old theater we used to play around in as kids. Back in the day it used to be something to see, with the bright lights and the old popcorn maker that at one point, made so much popcorn on accident that they had to give it away for free. For the past couple years though it had been completely abandoned, due to some “paranormal activities” going on there. If there was one thing about me that no one else knows, it’s that I’m a sucker for ghost stories, and no one knew that better than Jimmy.

“Sure”, I sat down slowly in the big armchair across from where my dad was sitting on the couch. I didn’t know what to expect, he never said more then a hello to me in the morning before he went to work, and barely another hello when we’d sit down for dinner together. I had never felt like he wanted me here, and I was never sure why he kept asking me to come back, but then again I wasn’t doing this for him to begin with, I was doing this for me.

My father sighed heavily, folding and unfolding his hands, obviously nervous. I couldn’t see what he would have to be nervous about, it’s not like I was the one who walked out on HIM for all those years, not the other way around. Shouldn’t I be the one nervous about being with him again?

“Look Vi, I know that me asking you up here was a big surprise but I just wanted to you to know that I want us to…reconnect”.

I almost laughed, that’s what this was about? What did my father think, that he could just say a few little words and I would fall into his arms crying “Daddy I’ve missed you!” NO, it wasn’t going to work that way, he couldn’t expect me to just want a relationship with him again after all this time. Maybe I did, but I wanted something else more, an apology.

“It’s not like you talk to me much”.

“I know, and I’m sorry for that, I just can’t seem to think of anything to say when you’re around, Violet. You know, it wasn’t easy for me to leave you and your mother the way I did, I just want you to know that it hurt more then anything else in this world”.

My father tried to place his hand over mine but I snatched away as fast as I could, suddenly overcome with such a rage that tears were brimming my eyelids. Damnit, and I had spent so much time putting on my mascara too.

“Then why did you?! You didn’t have to go, don’t you think I could’ve used a father more then anything after what happened? Where were you when I needed you, not being my dad!”

“I am sorry Violet! I thought I was the reason it happened, I thought I was the one who’d completely failed you. I just thought you’d be better off if I wasn’t around anymore, that your mother was fully capable of seeing that you grew up normal”.

There was that word again, normal. I hated that word, more then any other word in the whole English dictionary.

“I’ve never been normal, I never will be. You call growing up without a father figure normal, or being afraid of other men all your life? Being suicidal is normal? Well, I guess you’ve all succeeded then haven’t you?”

My dad’s jaw seemed to drop an inch. A wave of regret washed over me, I shouldn’t have said that, it wasn’t really all my parents fault that I’ve never been happy, it’s mine. And my mother doesn’t understand why, she has done her best to give me everything and I am still depressed all the time. But it’s not her fault, I know she thinks it is, but it’s not. It’s ALL mine.

I started to really cry now, “Dad, I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t want to come up here because I wanted so much to still hate you, but I don’t. I don’t think I ever really did, I just wanted you to come back and take care of me like nothing had ever changed, but it would all be different. I’m different, and I can’t change it, I can’t take back the things that make me…me”.

my dad had tears in his eyes, now, “Violet, I would never want you to change, not for anyone or anything. I’m just glad you finally started calling me Dad again, I think I missed hearing you say it more then anything else”.

I laughed through the tears running down my cheeks, for once I didn’t care that it was probably ruining my make up, Jimmy would just have to deal with the raccoon look I’d be sporting tonight.

I wrapped my arms around my dad, for the first time since I was eight years old, and just stood there like that for awhile, my face buried in his shoulder. I had missed saying it too, more then he could ever know.

“Do you think we could just start over?” I asked him, sniffling.

Dad wiped the tears from my eyes with gentle fingers, “That sounds like a great idea”.

So, here I am. Starting to post things on here again, beginning a new friendship with Jimmy (and maybe something more?), a new father/daughter relationship with the man who left me so long ago, and starting up a brand new summer, sure to be full of surprises, and I can’t wait to tell you all about them, good and bad.

Maybe going back to the beginning is a great idea after all.