The Story of My Life – Part Three

For the rest of that first summer, my dad remained in Ohio. The situation was horrible… I hated having to live in two different houses, having to share an unfamiliar house with a person I didn’t know. I really don’t remember much from my time at that house… the things I do remember, however, are not things that I wish to remember. (actually for the most part I wish I didn’t remember any of this stuff… but how could I forget?) Every time we would gather our stuff to return back home from the weekend, Chris would start crying. He would never want to leave my dad and wanted to stay there with him. We wouldn’t return to my dad’s for another two weekends, but it would take that amount of time for him to realize that he couldn’t live with dad. This issue progressed as time passed. One incident that I remember is when my parents were searching frantically for me. I believe this is the first time that I subconsciously went out against my parents, specifically my dad. I don’t remember the reason, but one afternoon, I decided to leave school with my best friend at the time and walk to her house. I can’t remember if I was supposed to walk home with my neighbor, take the bus, or wait for a ride, but regardless I didn’t tell my parents where I was going. I don’t remember exactly how the events played out, but it ended in my parents screaming at me, me crying, and me never being allowed to do anything after school for the rest of third grade.

During the summer between third and forth grade, my dad left. He just up and left; moved 3000(?) miles across the country to Las Vegas. Las Vegas…just writing that name makes me cringe. That was my first of many summer visits to the west coast. I began to hate summer, to this day I still hate the season. I hate the break from school (yes, even now, I hate not having something to do with myself). School allowed me to escape from my family life, and with summer there comes no school. My first summers in Vegas went something like this: School ended first week of June (or last week of May), spent a week(or two) hanging out with friends and family, and packing. June 15th was the date… I hate that date. My dad had summer visitation from June 15th until August 15th. two months out of every year I spent away from my mom and my house and in a foreign place where I was supposed to be spending quality time with my dad. yeah right. Quality time? I don’t think that concept exists. That first summer, and the second one as well?, my dad was living at his parent’ s condo. A two bedroom, two bath place – during those two months, there were 5 people living there. HORRIBLE. Looking back on the living conditions I’m surprised that my mom, let alone the courts, allowed us to stay there for even another summer. My grandparents had their bedroom, then me, my brother and my dad shared the other bedroom. My dad and I slept on the sleeper sofa and my brother slept on the floor. If that seems normal to anyone, please tell me.

Those two months consisted of my brother and I attending summer camp, day camp, and not really seeing our father. We spent more time with our aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents than we did with our dad. I hated camp, I felt like such a baby, especially when we continued to return to camp over the years. That first summer began a tradition of going out to dinner with the whole damn family the night before Chris and I returned home. This tradition was one of the more enjoyable ones, until the more recent summers, which I will eventually get to in a future portion of this story. The flight home was full of emotions – excitement and relief to finally get home and return to our mom, sadness and anger for Chris, who usually spent the entire 4 hour plane ride crying. I got angry at my dad for the way he acted during those two months, telling us things about the divorce and our mom that we shouldn’t have ever heard, promising my brother that he could move out there and live with him. – this is just the beginning of why I do not promise anything to anyone and why I do not take promises from people – Anyways, my brother would be crushed for a good month or two after returning from Las Vegas. Only time would help him. Mom sent us to counselors, at school and independent counselors, but they didn’t help either of us. Counselors don’t understand anything, they try to help you, but seriously it just doesn’t help. The situation with my brother worsened over the years to a point at which it reached it’s maximum three years ago, which when I get to that year I will discuss.

My father moving to Las Vegas symbolized a major aspect of my life – the day my father left Ohio and moved out to Las Vegas, is the day that he chose to leave my life forever. I couldn’t, however, make this happen for good until I turned 18 because of the law and my mom, but regardless, looking back, I feel like him leaving said “I no longer wish to be your father and be a part of your life, goodbye” The first realization that I no longer had a father occurred the night before I was to begin forth grade, when I fell off my bike, fractured my elbow (the wrong way?) and spent the first week of forth grade in the hospital. Sure, he called and sent a card, but my dad was not there with me while I spent a week in the hospital. It’s hard to even make sense of how this affected a forth grader… I can’t even really make sense of this as a 19 year old.

I’ll leave part three of this story with that… part four to come some time in the next two weeks…

~ JenJen ~

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