springhaven

I’ve trained myself to ignore the shitty things my dad does, and I fucking hate it.

Tonight - we were about to watch TV. Mom had just hit play on the movie (an old western - we’d all seen it about a hundred times), and she headed back into the kitchen to grab the plates of dessert for her and my dad. He walked into the den a moment after - his entrance was marked by immediate heavy breathing, an aggravated huffing and puffing as he rushed over to the TV. He started muttering to himself, fumbling with the DVD player in an attempt to eject the disk.

Mom walked back into the room and saw what he was doing. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I don’t mind missing the beginning,” she said, trying to stop him from restarting the movie.

He did it anyway, getting visibly angrier. “What do you mean, don’t worry about it? I can’t understand what’s going on; I missed the beginning!”

“Oh - sorry,” said Mom, a look of realization crossing her face. “I didn’t know that you missed the beginning, too. I thought you were restarting it because I wasn’t watching yet."

He scoffed, responding without a second’s hesitation. “Of course not!” he snapped. “I couldn’t care less about that.” Completely serious, without a hint of joke or apology.

Mom sort of laughed, mumbling, “Well that’s very nice of you,” but of course not loud enough for him to really hear or deem it worthy of response. Dad hit play on the remote, took his dessert from Mom, and sat down to watch the stupid movie. And I… for an instant, I felt a spurt of rage, infuriation, burning indignation for my mom, for us, for this fucked up situation. I got up and walked away, heading for the kitchen so that I could at least fume to myself and to those slightly more forgiving walls.

For a few seconds, I was angry. And then the movie started, and Mom sat down next to Dad in the other room, and everything continued on. Just seconds later, my anger had already faded, and I was left to walk back into the den, sit down, and carry on as if nothing of note had ever happened in the first place. It didn’t feel like it had.

But it fucking did. It wasn’t the worst - the things he said and did were usually so, so much worse, and this tiny comment was positively charming in comparison to some. But, so what - it’s still totally fucked. I was furious, for a second there; I really felt it, for a moment. And obviously, that’s exactly how I should have felt - when someone says something so fucked up to your mom, and when that someone happens to be your asshole of a dad, you should be angry. But something should happen, next; someone should respond, call out the asshole for what he is, and there should be some kind of consequence moving things in the right direction.

All my life, my mom’s let him get away with shit like this. She almost never calls him out or refutes him; he could say anything to her, and he’s said just about everything to her during his worst outbursts. He calls her an idiot, a “filthy Russian”, a useless bitch - and she politely asks him to stop shouting. He doesn’t. It’s what she’s allowed to happen, in a way; it is her relationship, as simple as that sounds, and she’s watched it consume her entire existence. It’s complicated, but it’s still true. She’s let it dominate her life, and she’s let it change mine too.

Since as long as I can remember, me and my siblings were taught to just ignore all the terrible things my dad says. Don’t make him mad. Don’t set him off. Just ignore what he says - you know it’s not true. And, of course - we listened to her. None of us wanted to be the target of his outbursts. None of us wanted to let the shit he said get to us either. So, it didn’t - or, at least we thought it didn’t - we learned to just witness his fucked-up behavior from as far away as we could, and to just shrug it off later when it was over. He could say anything to us, do anything at all, and we’d never dare question it; my mom certainly wouldn’t, except on the most extreme of cases.

I remember hiding in my closet in Murrieta, age 8 or so, listening to him screaming at my mom downstairs. The occasional sound of objects being thrown, crashing into things and shattering, broke up his never-ending, screech-like shouts. I couldn’t even understand what he was saying - it just sounded like weird, guttural noise coming from some kind of insane monster. It seemed to last forever - more so than usual, because I was so scared for my mom. I was only a kid, and while listening to that fight I genuinely thought that he was going to kill her. I remember the dread, the shock and numbness - the feeling of trying to process it as if it had already happened. I remember the guilty, horrible fear that went deeper - because as scared as I was for my mom's safety, I was even more scared for myself. If she was gone - we would be left alone with him.

And why was he mad? I think it had something to do with dinner. Maybe he didn’t like the way my mom had cooked it for him. Or maybe it was about the mess in the living room, or the yard work he hadn’t gotten around to yet, or the fact that he couldn’t find his favorite sweater. Maybe he’d stubbed his toe.

I think he ended up driving away in a state of uncontrollable fury, and later my mom came up and told me that everything was fine. I was still scared, more scared than I’d likely ever been at that age. But she said it was fine, so… things must be fine. I managed to forget the fear. I shrugged it off.

And here I am today, watching him treat my mom like shit, and - my only reaction is a few seconds of anger, followed by… nothing.

I hate it. I want that feeling back; I want to react, and lash out, and be consumed by righteous rage for once. I want to throw caution to the wind and tell him that he’s the worst person I’ve ever known, and that I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anything. I want someone, anyone, to stand up to him for once, and tell him that he’s full of shit; I want that person to be me.

But my mind tells me to calm down, to keep the peace and ignore it, and everything I know I feel and want just falls away again, disguising itself as a prematurely faded memory.

He’s robbed me of a lot, so far; now, I’m starting to realize, my own emotions are on that list too. The numbness that life inspires is because of this.

I fucking hate it.