The Father’s Day Hater
June makes me grouchy.
I know that’s really stupid. A whole month? What in the actual hell kind of sense does that make? Well, here’s the thing. Ever since I became a single mom, the month of celebrating dad simply pisses me off. Now don’t get me wrong…I love my dad a whole lot, but this post isn’t about him; it’s about me. And I have made some pretty awful choices in the areas where my babies’ daddies are concerned. They each have one common denominator: my complete lack of good sense and judgment.
For the most part, I don’t really even talk to Rat Bastard on Father’s Day. To be honest, I don’t know if Kylie talks to him either. I pretty much wrote him off completely several years ago, and as long as he stays in my rearview mirror where he belongs, I am content. However, Captain Douche is another story. Mind you, he hasn’t bothered to see the girls in almost four years. He will go weeks and months without calling or texting unless there is a birthday or a holiday coming up, but I assure you that every Father’s Day since their birth, he has managed to make sure that he sends a text. It’s like he is just itching for me to tell him Happy FD. Screw That. He is a terrible father. After he texts me and I ignore him, I spend the rest of the day irritated because I just know that he is playing the “poor me” card in regards to how he doesn’t even get to talk to his kids. Why do I care? I did not make his choices for him, but it still affects me. Moreso, it affects my girls, and that makes me mad. I wish that Hallmark made a “You are the worst father ever” FD card, but alas, they do not.
Last year for Father’s Day, the twins’ preschool teacher did an art project with the class to give to dads. This is nothing new, but I made a point to mention that I didn’t want anything on their art to say “dad.” It could be generic all day long because I would happily send it to my dad or my brother from the girls, but “dad” was not an option. Of course, you know exactly what happened, don’t you? (Otherwise, why would I be telling this story?) The project said “dad,” and when I asked the school’s director to intervene, the teacher was pissed. She simply removed the part of the project that had the word on it (which was one of the main parts if I recall correctly, and she made a snide comment when the girls asked why their project was being defaced. Something along the lines of, “Your mommy didn’t want that part anymore.” I haven’t stopped hating her since. It was just so uncalled for. In this day and age, teachers should understand that all families are different, and who is she to assume that all kids have a mommy and a daddy and that there are no exceptions? My girls already wonder why they are different; do they have to have their noses rubbed in it, too?
I probably wouldn’t be such an FD hater if Douche had just stuck around. If we shared the girls at least somewhat, or if he were close enough to at least visit them and give me a short break, I could probably be civil. But that didn’t happen. I think I am grouchy because I am tired. And ‘tired’ is really the understatement of the year. I spend almost all of my time away from work caring for other people. Making meals. Cleaning the filthy bathroom. Tripping over laundry. Wiping noses. Picking up random miscellaneous crap off the living room floor. There is no helper here. It’s just me, and I am over it. People tell me on occasion that it will get better; these are the hard years. But will it? It didn’t with Kylie. It just got worse. I think that her younger years were the easiest to a degree. Then she got a little bigger and she hated me because I was all that she had, and I simply wasn’t good enough. Is that what I have to look forward to, only times two?
I was in a funk all day because while I was getting ready this morning, I decided to throw together a quick salad for lunch, a task that should have taken me ten minutes max. Thirty minutes later, I was still trying to finish up, and I was unsurprisingly going to be late for work because the twins would simply not leave me alone. They had dragged every blanket and pillow from the living room into the kitchen and had made a huge mess and they simply would not get out from under my feet. I was constantly being asked to get them a drink, then socks, then panties, and I ended up yelling at them a lot. My patience was gone, and it wasn’t exactly stellar to begin with. I felt bad about it all day, but good freaking grief, enough is enough. There are a lot of days that I just don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be a mom; I just want to run away and do cool things and enjoy myself. But I am not that girl. I am the girl who wipes noses and dreads bath time and secretly chooses the shortest stories to read at bedtime because I am just exhausted and I want the girls to go to sleep so I can eat a dinner that isn’t cold. And then I feel guilty for thinking those things. I will probably never know what it is like to do this with help. I should be at least somewhat happy that I don’t have a giant man-child to take care of, too. That would probably put me over the edge.
I love my kids with all of my heart, and I catch myself looking at them a lot of times and thinking of how lucky I am that they are cute and usually sweet and that they love me despite all of my many faults as a mother. I just wish that I had some breathing room here. And I also wish that I didn’t hate June so much.
