I used to blame the yelling, irrational man on the
alcohol. I could separate the person
that broke my heart day in and day out with the father that loved me more than
life itself. But now, it’s
different. Now my dad is sober. Being able to say that single line was what I
prayed for every day, what I thought about every second, and what consumed my life
for 18 years. But now the scapegoat is
gone. Now it is simply my dad without
his alcohol. There is nothing to blame,
no handle of bacardi rum, no hidden mixed drink, just my dad. It is my father, alone, who is yelling at me
for no reason and not caring enough to fix things that are so obviously broken. I don’t know what is worse: a drunken father
telling you you’re not welcome home anymore because he would rather drink
instead, or a sober father telling you to get out of his house in the heat of an
argument. I wish you were still drunk
because then I wouldn’t have to admit to myself that my sober father is so far
from the superman I always believed him to be.
I want to tell my dad that he can never yell at me or make
me feel bad for even a second ever again because his alcoholism did that to me
my entire life. I want to tell him he
lost the right to reprimand me when I had to be the adult for 18 years. He can never tell me to do the dishes because
my after school activity was cleaning him and his apartment up until I could pretend
his disease did not consume my life. I
know it is unfair to throw his guilt back in his face, but it was unfair to me
to go through what I did. It is unfair
that I can become hysterical at night, haunted by what I saw in this apartment. But it wasn’t so much what I saw, it was the
feeling. Whether I was sitting in class,
laughing with friends, or racing to my dad’s apartment, I never knew what I would
find next or if I would even make it in time to save him. I no longer live with this fear, but when I do
remember the feeling, it rips through me like a claw digging at my
insides. He must at least have an idea
of how I feel and that a few “thank yous” scheduled into his path to recovery
will not heal my pain. If he cared
enough to ask me what was wrong and really wanted to listen, I would tell him
these things. But he hasn’t and he doesn’t,
so why waste my breath?
