letter to daddy dearest

Dear Father,

I’m sick of this.  Every time something small doesn’t go just your way, you take it out on the rest of us.  I’ve put up with your shit for the last 17 years.  Do you think I even care anymore if you leave?  The answer is simple—of course I care.  For whatever reason, I still love you, much as I can’t stand you.  I know that in a week or so, whatever was bothering you won’t be bothering you anymore, and you’ll stay.  Then in another month or two, you’ll have reached your limit, and we’ll all have to go through hell and back… yet again.  But like I said, I’m sick of it.  Of course I don’t really want you to leave, but rather than making idle threats and having the rest of us walk on our tip-toes waiting for you to go off like a time-bomb; just get out.  I love you, and mom loves you, and Corryn and Amanda love you.  Hell, even the dogs love you.  But when you’re angry, none escape your wrath.  But nobody can live like this.  You say we do nothing around the house—that’s what makes you angry.  You threaten to take away my extracurricular activities if I don’t do more chores, because being busy all the time leaves little time for housework.  At the same time, I know you’re proud of me; I hear you brag to everyone you meet.  Do you know that I wouldn’t have even been able to get into that school without my activities?  I think a slightly cluttered bedroom, vacuuming that gets done not as often as it should and laundry that gets done a bit too slowly is a small price to pay for a degree at one of the best schools in our nation, don’t you?  Is that really a good reason to threaten us with leaving?  Oh, but you don’t like it when we argue with you either.  Because of course you’re always right, aren’t you?  Even when we try to tell you, give explanations, apologize, you turn it around, so that what ever we said or did was wrong.  You’re angry about everything, but it comes on so suddenly; this afternoon you were fine, but all of a sudden… I think I’ve almost got it down to a science.  No sleep + dirty laundry + one too many beers = hell for a week and a half.  What bothers me the most is that Christmas is in only 4 days?  What is going through your mind that you would want to put our family through this at the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”?  Know what I got you for Christmas, Daddy?  I got you a coffee mug that says World’s Best Dad on it, because I know how much you like your coffee, and your other mug broke.  And except for times like these, you really are the world’s best dad.  But then, you have your “fits” as I like to call them—because really, you remind me of a kid having a temper tantrum when you get angry like this—and you send us all into our own fits of tears.  Tonight, with my chest heaving, and tears streaming down my face, I wrote a poem for you… do you want to hear it?  I don’t care if you want to hear it; you’re going to hear it anyway.  You never care if I want to hear you rant, so why should I care if you want to hear this?  It’s a lot shorter anyway, and a lot more honest.

 continued…