I promised myself I’d write more frequently and even tried to set a schedule, but then I thought about what I was writing and wanted to write about and realized I didn’t actually want to go through with it then. Instead, I went from one plan to another, on a trip here or there, hiking with friends, sometimes just playing video games, but always living in the moment and participating. I knew I was running away from the people that bring problems into my life, but I didn’t think it was a bad thing. I was out looking for people and things to enjoy life with, I’ve worked so hard for this why not bury the past and enjoy the present.

It wasn’t that any of the childhood pain had really gone away, rather, I no longer needed to acknowledge it if I was never around any of the triggers. I had blocked my mom and grandma so they, especially my mom, could no longer directly reach out to me. I had worried it would put additional labor on my sisters, but my mom only acknowledges it indirectly, making the mildest of comments such as “Oh, I can send you that pic if you want.” Meaning, if I unblocked her. How absolutely benign compared to her tone when I was younger. How respectful compared to the last things she texted me before I blocked her.

My father was in Mexico and it was truly, out of sight, out of mind. Yes, when a cousin had come by and prodded about our relationship, I snapped at him, because I carry around so much anger and hatred at him. What he did to me and how normal he wants things to be annoys me. I hate him so much and I let it burn through me and refuse to let it go; I see it as a source of comfort, in its familiarity, but also strength, in the way the anger propels me on a swim, at the gym, on a run. So when he called to ask if I had time to see him, I quickly said no.

And that would have been that if not for his sister, my aunt, meddling. She asked me directly if I would make the time to hang with him and I couldn’t say no to the aunt who took me in when my mom kicked me out. My brother-in-law, and my therapist I’m sure would have agreed with him, said that I could absolutely have said no and not offered an explanation to my aunt as to why it disgusted me to be around my father. But, as much as I hate my father, this was the aunt who stepped in when I was a spiraling youth, reeling from what my parents had done to me, and offered a loving home, a place to stay and recover. So I made plans to see him for breakfast, agreeing to pick him up from a different aunt’s house.

I knew I was anxious about seeing him so I set an alarm to get my up early for a swim and, because I wanted to run from what I was feeling, I stayed up late playing video games in an attempt to escape from reality. It was too late to get up that early on a normal morning but I was up the next day before my alarm, snoozing it out on my way out because I couldn’t sleep. A quick swim, deliberately wearing extra layers over my clothes and under, boxers, shorts, pants, and then I headed to my aunt’s house.

Until I parked my car, I was thinking, any little thing from him and I’ll take off. If he greets me wrong, if the breeze happened to blow a certain way, if any of my aunt’s neighbors had said anything; I was praying for a reason not to see him as I walked up to my aunt’s house. I knocked on the door and he opened it. He went for a hug, I raised a shaking hand, and then settled on a quick hug, trying to be polite. My aunt came out of her room to see who had come in and I was relieved, a warmer hug. It’s not that I was trying to slight my father with the contrast, it’s that my body was yelling at me for letting his come into so close contact with mine. Every cell in my body was working overtime to alert me and I was fighting with equal parts numbness and distress, mind over matter, breathe in and breath out.

We had breakfast together, a place recommended by my aunt. The conversation was short, cordial. I think there were times my dad delivered lines that were punchlines, he would pause expecting laughter. I no longer had it in me to perform those reactions for my parents and least of all my father. He mentioned how large the chickens he is raising are and paused, saying, again “mis gallos.” I repeated it “tus gallos,” indicating I was listening then looked back into my coffee cup. As much as possible, I avoided eye contact, something that I have to conscientiously remind myself to do with friends but was not going to fight to do for my father.

We got through it though. He didn’t say anything shitty and I tried to ask follow up questions sometimes. I picked up the tab. He talked about his finances and I told him I was happy to hear he had enough to fund his lifestyle. I didn’t elaborate that I have been worried for some time that the day will come when I’ll be asked to help him out with money and I’ll have to communicate that he never once tried to help my mom and I with our financial situation. Hell, he fought not to give me money for school programs or the like, things that contributed to my position now, but that he opposed then. What could I owe him? But what was the point of having that fight now.

When we got back to my aunt’s place, her boyfriend was there. He commented that I had grown, was even greeting him differently and in a more mature way. I laughed and my aunt was confused a bit by what he meant. I caught on right away but I let him elaborate and then said, “Hey, it’s nothing personal, it’s just usually when I see you it’s when I’m with my cousin and that’s always a little awkward. It’s nothing against you and I’m not trying to interfere or anything, but you know my cousin and well it’s easier to just keep some distance.” He was cool, wasn’t surprised, and then my aunt let us know that’s why she’d had tears in her eyes when we came in, they were having issues again, her kids, her ex, lots of anger still swirling around. She was in and out of our conversation as she had to get ready to leave for work, then she did leave and her boyfriend kept talking.

He talked and talked, his issues with his kids, his side of the story with my cousin, how he knew my cousins blamed him for the divorce even though my aunt and uncle had split long before their first date. They were business partners and already knew each other though, so it was easy for my cousins to see him as the cause rather than a symptom of my aunt and uncle’s marital problems. That part was good, relieving, lots of laughter, he’s a schmoozer. I could ignore my own feelings and just relax, not having to carry the conversation for my father, who was once just as quiet as I am now. At some point he discussed a therapy lite program he had been to, some sort of 6-month self-help, emotional wellness program. Well, he mentioned a woman who had gotten up and told the program how her dad used to come home drunk and get in bed with them, in the morning excusing himself as saying that he’d been to drunk to tell it wasn’t his wife he was sleeping with. She said she never recovered from that. And my usual stone face broke, because I felt my eyes dart to my side, where thankfully my father no longer was.

I left soon after, too many feelings, too close to home that end. Except the poor woman said she had developed certain feelings there, the lines between father and lover more blurry because he’d actually raised her. Perhaps that has been the silver lining in all of this. I can hate my father for what he did without any feelings of guilt for the typical ways fathers support their children. He did none of that and thus freed me from obligations to his feelings, his well-being. None of that belongs to me and so I can go off the rest of the day and relax. Lift weights, catch a nap, go out with friends and return to the bachelor lifestyle without caring for him. But perhaps too, it is time to let go of the rage. I don’t need it anymore.

The sad old man who sat across from me at breakfast is not the same man who molested me. If I could go back in time and kill him then and there, fight him at that moment, perhaps I would experience some satisfaction. But beating up the pathetic senior from this morning… It’s not that I’d feel guilty, it’s just that it wouldn’t be much of a fight. His life has already worn him down, as it wears us all down.

I went out hiking with a guy I have a little history with, not a casi algo but a todavia nada complicado? Like communication is spotty and we’re both happy to drop each other at a moment’s notice but we’ve also been fucked up and naked together. After hiking and dinner we went out for drinks, although before leaving we’d smoked some of his pot. He had told me he’d preferred indicas to sativas, the sleepy stuff to the fun stuff. I preferred the opposite, the fun stuff. We very quickly drank a lot and I got to the moment where, had I been with my friends, I would have been wrapped around them, “I just love you guys so much! You’re so great.” Yes, I am that friend when I’m around the people I hold dear. But I wasn’t in that moment so I started texting them instead and his friends noticed. When they asked why I was so distracted I let them know that I missed my friends and was telling them I loved them, didn’t feel like I could tell them that. In fact, I told one of them, I thought this guy would react very poorly if I started saying I loved you to people around him. He self-described as cold and carried that energy even into the gay bars. He reminded me of my parents, not surprisingly, they had been raised in the same country. As cold as ice, as brittle too and quick to shatter.

I left the bar soon after, I knew I wanted to be around people who could reciprocate on the emotional front too. Not just fiery passion and anger but love and light. I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t find anything different that night than what my parents have always given me, burden without comfort, responsibility without reciprocity. I could always depend on my parents asking me for things, but I could never depend on them letting me have a moment of comfort with them.