Heading West

So I have been thinking. If given the chance, and I could go anywhere I wanted to settle down, where would I go?

Easy answer is I would go West. Where West? I am not sure. I am in Ohio, so West is the best place to head. East of me doesn’t seem like a good choice.

Arizona. Montana. Washington State. New Mexico. Anywhere West. Far from Ohio. Far from everything I would want to run from.

Go West, start over. Reinvent myself.  Become someone else. Disappear from here and get away from the crap that surrounds my life. Get away from the Thunder Storm and Rain that hovers over me. Where no one can find me but those I take with me.

I know I am strong enough. I know I have it in me.

Took a step

So I took that first step and called the hospital down in Texas to see how my dad was doing. Hes stable now, but still in critical condition. He responds when asked a question by blinking his eyes for yes and no. He is still not talking. his vital are starting to stable out and his labs came back good. He died on the table and they brought him back. He has a lung infection, and hes starting to recognize ppl.

I talked to a few of my Aunts down there that I have met a couple times while they were visiting here.

I am more confused then ever before when it comes to my dad. Some of the stuff they told me. I don’t know. All I can say is that I made that first step and called the hospital. I left that door open should he chose to walk through it when he gets better.

No matter what happens from all this, it will change everything. Should he walk through that door that I opened, I could end up having a dad. Should he not, then that door is closed and I no longer have to wonder about “what could be”, “what if….” I will know one way or the other.

I am not entirely sure if I made the right decision. But when I stopped to think of “it might be too late” I figured it might be now or never so I took that step and called. If I am making a mistake, I will learn in time. If I am not, then I have nothing to worry about, right? I took a chance that I might not get again. I guess I will learn in time if it was the right thing to do or not…………

My aunt told me that my dad was still an alcoholic. And that maybe now, he will go into rehab and get some help. They believed he OD’d. But they aren’t sure and not sure what it could have been.

Almost too late

So, as anyone who has read my blog in the past knows about the relationship with me and my dad… or lack thereof…..

Today I get a letter from my Tia (aunt) Rosie telling me that my dad is in the hospital in San Antonio, in critical condition. She didn’t say what happened or anything else. This is all I know.

I am torn. I am thinking in my mind ” It could be too late for me to form a relationship with my dad. It might be my last chance”. But my heart is saying ” its  been too late for too long”. Or my heart and head are switched around. I dont know.

Im not sure if I should be wanting to rush down there in case this is the last chance. To get off my chest everything I have ever wanted to say. Or to maybe get that  approving and I have missed so much look. Or If I should just leave well enough alone. My anger and hurt is genuine, and I am not in the wrong no matter what I really feel. Cause they are my feelings. But I am torn and confused and there is no where to turn to get the right answer.

In the end I will pray for him. Pray for his recovery and stay right here in Ohio where I have been all my life. Where he has known I have been. Some ppl may think its wrong. Some ppl may say I should make the first step toward him. There is no right answer. There is no wrong answer. There is just me and my life, and the lack of a father growing up. When I say lack of a father growing up, I don’t just mean my dad. I mean any dad. I have never had a dad. Not a step dad, not a boyfriends of my moms, nothing. It would have been nice to have him around when I was little, even if it was just a few weekends a year…… I’m grown now. I don’t need a dad now. I needed one then. Sometimes I wonder how life would have been growing up with a dad (any dad) in the house…. I can’t even imagine.

I have learned through these conversations with my aunt that I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters in Texas. That grew up with a dad.  I’m happy for them. So he is not alone………

hi daddy

I have a new chapter in my life, a chapter that is continued from years and years ago. Let me start out by saying, I never knew my dad. Unless you count the time i was 13 and he followed me home from school, gave me $20 and told me I had better never cut my hair again. I dont really qualify that as knowing him?? But when I was 14, my paternal grandmother got in contact with me. and we wrote for years. She sent me gifts and She came to Ohio (from Texas) to meet me. Along with her, I had contact with my dads aunt who lived in the same town as me. Me and her were close. I even lived with her for years. So I wasnt hard to find. I was in contact wtih my grandmother, my great aunt and he (my dad) had brothers and sisters that lived in the same town as me, that he knew talked to me. So really, it wouldnt have taken more than a phone call to find me.

So now, here I am 31, I have had a myspace page for 5 years and out of the blue I have my dads sister (my aunt) writing me. An aunt that I never met before and never heard from before. She told me she seen me once when i was little, and lost contact with me and thought she had lost me forever.

I am conflicted. how hard did she try? I was in contact with her mom for years until she died. I have lived in the same little town all my life. and my dad was able to find me once when HE wanted to. So I am confused as to why noone else could ever find me, though they claim they missed me and thought they lost me forever?

so here i am, this new found aunt telling me memories she has of me when I was little, stories about my grandmother who passed away a few years ago, and telling me all about my family down in texas, which I might add is so huge I can’t even keep names, relations or faces straight

I guess in the end, no matter who I ask, or how many times I ask it, there is noone who can help me. Noone that can give me a helping hand. No one can tell me what is the right thing to do. Either way its right, and at the same time, either way is wrong. In one way or another I don’t think I can go right or wrong. So I guess the only question is, what am I going to do?

Alot of ppl are probably thinking this isnt such a big deal, but it is. It is when I dont know if they are going to split outta my daughters life once she gets to know them. And I am not sure I am ready to open up my life to ppl who for 31 years, didnt care that I grew up with no money at times. That we were broke and my mom had to work 2 jobs and go to college to give us food and heat. Not once Xmas card or happy birthday. i am not using what happen to me as an excuse to keep my daughter away from them. I was my daughters age. They waited till what? why now? After 31 years the missing me got to be too much?

Call me cynical, but I cant imagine any of them, claiming to me truthfully, “oh how I have missed you and love you and want you in my life so bad” when they don’t know me. Where were they when I needed my dads family. Not for the money (which my mother never seen from my dad) but for family. To know where and who i can from me. Wondering, why am I mexican and all the rest of my family is white? Thats not an easy thing to deal with when your 5. Its hard growing up when you are half mexican and half white. I am not trying to sound racist, but I was too white for some and not brown enough for others.

I was shunned by most of my “white” family. The outsider, the outcast. The “spic” as I was referred to growing up from everyone in my family that should have been there. I didnt have that side of my dads family. How can I bring them into my daughters life when I dont know them, cause they never tried?

Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved growing up knowing my dad. And the fact of the matter is since I didnt get along that great with my mom, I would have loved to have the escape of going and living with my dad. For many years, and yes even still to this day, I have abandonment issues. I have relationship issues. I have a problem forming loving bonds with a lot of my family.

No I dont blame it on that, But i do believe it has a lot to do with it. Other than my mom, and the one aunt on my dads side that I talked to, not one person, including my brothers and sisters loved me or even treated me nice growing up. I was different than everyone. I was the only kid in a house of 5 that didnt get picked up by my moms mom for the weekend. I was the only one who didnt get presents, calls, hugs, nothing. If it wasnt for my mom, I really believe my life would have turned out different. She loved me, even if at times it was in ways I would have swore she was nuts. But I did have her love.

I am bitter in a way, I am touched in a way, I guess I am overall just confused. Im torn. And no one can tell me what I should do, cause its my decision to make. A decision I would have loved to be able to make years ago. But its here now, in my face, I can reach out and grab it if I want it. If I want it…….

And although i may never find an answer.  i may never take this another step, and maybe no one will ever read this that matters, I at least poured my heart out, scares and concerns and got it all out. And now maybe, just maybe this is what i needed.