First Time I Met My Dad – pt.3

I still had a few days left in America but started to get this feeling, I just wanted to be back home again. 

*I had to find a way to leave early, if not, I’ve been told I get this obvious look on my face when I’m not happy and well I didn’t want it to get to that stage. 

And It was obvious at this point me and my dad had not much else to say to each other. So, I lied, I got my mentor at the time to message me saying we had an urgent football meeting coming up and I had to be there, I showed the message to my dad and I stressed how urgent it was that I be there, and it worked, about an hour later he called up the airline and got my ticket changed and told me I’ll be leaving the next day. I was so relieved, I thanked him and walked away back to the guest room, and he went back to watching Tv.

When my dads wife got home, he told her about my important meeting back home and he’s had to change my flight and ill be leaving tomorrow,  so came up to the guest room, told  me to get ready and she took me shopping and yes, we bought near enough a whole suitcase of American skittles, fruits loops and various other sweats enough to rot the strongest of tooths within a week.

When we got back to the house, my dad came into the guest room and placed a bunch of random designer clothes; true religion jeans, Gucci tops etc… on the bed. I’m not really a designer type of person, I like to keep everything simple, white top, a decent pair of jeans and my vans, that’s always been my style, but I said thank you and I accepted the clothes, really I wanted to turn them down but that would’ve been rude I’m guessing, so I thanked him and proceeded to pack my bag.

When I finished packing, we all went back out to a Chinese buffet restaurant and had the last supper. It was good I enjoyed it,

like I said before, anything to do with food I enjoy very much.

I was excited to be heading back to London. I was dropped off at the airport, everyone was there to see me off, We did the whole hugging thing again and I said thank you for having me and I headed off to my terminal, with my suitcase full of sweets.

I arrived in London early in the morning, got on a train and headed home. When I got home I messaged my dad and his wife to let them know I arrived safely and I’ll message them later because I was off to bed, the jet lag was kicking in already.

Arriving back In London I kept in contact with my brother, I added him on Xbox and we would talk often if not every day and I also spoke with my sister on WhatsApp regularly. I didn’t know what to say to my dad, so didn’t message him much and sometimes I wouldn’t message him until I received a message from him.

So I had been back in London for a few days now, me and my siblings spoke regularly but me and my dad didn’t.  Personally I thought things were fine me and dad didn’t speak much but that was no different from me being in America, then he messaged me something really pissed me off – I cant remember the entire text word for word, but the long and short of it was he was calling me ungrateful because I didn’t seem appreciative, that he had flown me out there and I barely spoke to him, let alone spend anytime with him getting to know him. The message was long but to sum it up, that is what he said.

I felt like I was under attack and I had to reply, so instead of doing the smart thing and taking a minute to calm myself down and prepare a politicians reply, I instantly replied, telling him, that coming back to London I was very tired and I have been asleep most of the time and trying to catch up with football, that’s why I haven’t messaged much but I was very appreciative for all he had done for me for, those two weeks but that doesn’t change 21 years of me being alone crying for a dad to rescue me and making me feel like I belong somewhere and belong to someone, and I told him he just can’t expect me to be all fine and act normal with him during those two weeks when I barely know him, it’s going to take some time, I need to be comfortable around him, we need to see each other again, I need to know he’s not going to be like my mum and just leave again because every time she did that it hurt and somewhat damaged me but I learned to grow up and get on with it, or so I thought until now I see the effects it’s having on me. A few years back I would’ve loved to have stayed with him and never leave, because back then was when I really needed a dad.

And I ended it by apologizing if anything I said was hurtful but this is just the person I am and how I feel, I thanked him so much for coming back into my life and flying me out to him and allow me to meet the rest of the family but two weeks doesn’t change anything – I would love to get to know him and have those father and son moments I thought I had missed out on, its going to take some time but I hope we can get there…

He didn’t reply…

We haven’t spoken much since, I always message him and wish him a happy Father’s Day and merry Christmas etc. he replies and says thank you and that’s about it. I have tried in the past to apologies for some of the things I said, and I asked him if we could start fresh, he replied saying it was up to me and I should be the one trying to fix things, that did annoy me a little, as it was both of us in the wrong if anything, but I felt like he was trying to pin it all on me and now his telling me I should be the one trying. He clearly doesn’t understand me at all and yeah since then we haven’t spoken much at all, it’s almost gone back to me not having a dad at all.

My brother went funny on me as well and he doesn’t speak to me at all, anyway conversation we have is almost forced and is no longer than four or five words, whereas before we would always talk about games or anything really. Me and my sister still talk regularly, she’s currently in south Korea studying and discovering her self and I’m really proud of her.

I don’t know how things between me and him will ever be normal, but I guess we’ll just have to see what happens in time.