Moving On

Someone once asked me what the hardest thing I have been through and overcome was. At the time I didn't have an answer, but now I do. My answer is…. My Dad. I have grown up since I was little with just my Mom. My Dad wasn’t in the picture and still to this day he isn’t really. My Dad left my Mom and I when I was young, he had the choice to stop drinking or leave and he took the beer out of the fridge and left us. He left my Mom to be a single Mom and he left me to be without a Dad. Now if you fast forward 13 plus years here I am now 14 almost 15 with no Dad. You see not much changed in all of these years. Well, why don't I tell you the whole story from beginning to end. You might want to sit down, maybe even grab some popcorn because this is a long one. 

    It all started when I was little like I said and he left my Mom and I for beer. In case you haven’t figured out yet my Dad is an alcoholic, but won’t admit to himself. After he left us my Mom filed for a divorce and it was just her and I. She raised me and taught me pretty much everything I know. She taught me how to be respectful, how to wear my heart on my sleeve even if someone hurts you, how to get back up when I fall down, and most importantly she taught me that I don’t need a Dad to be the best me I can be. I only need her. My Dad taught me how much it hurts to have him leave, how much he doesn’t care about me, and most importantly that he loves beer more than his own daughter. I promised to myself once I got old enough to know what he did to us that I would never, NEVER do that to my kid. 

After that I don’t know when the next time I saw him really was. I know I went for supervised visits at his parents' (my grandparents) house for awhile. We did birthdays and family dinners. It started to feel like he cared about me again. He still drank during all this, but I thought he had set aside some time from beer for me. I was so happy that my Dad picked me over beer, but I was mistaken. My little five year old brain was wrong. Soon after all that he got a girlfriend and that was rough, we are just going to say that. Awhile later they broke up and he drank heavily again.Then my dad got another girlfriend and his drinking seemed to be under control. Then he was dumped again and drinking was back to being the only thing he did. Then we arrived at the last and final girlfriend Katie. Katie has three kids of her own and was super nice, most importantly I really liked her.I would go over there instead of my grandparents and it was fine until I got uncomfortable around her son. I learned some stuff I needed to know, but didn’t want to. After learning this information I stopped going to the visits. I wasn’t comfortable near him anymore and that kind of finished it for my Dad and I. 

He didn’t make any contact with me for a while. I would get a “hi” every few months and that was it. After my Dad and I drifted apart I was spending more time at home with my Mom like normal. I then realized that it was finally time for me to do what I've always wanted to do, change my last name. My last name was Messier until a few weeks ago, I have always wanted to be Dewey ever since I can remember and it finally happened. This started even more problems with my Dad. I called him up a while ago saying that I wanted to change my last name to Dewey. I was hoping that by calling him he would see that I was giving him respect and not just sending him the papers. He unfortunately did not see it that way, on the phone he called me a liar and he told me I was under my mom's words. He said she was brainwashing me and that I didn't really want this. Well needless to say I ended the phone call in tears. My Mom continued with sending the papers because that is what I truly wanted. 

My Dad stopped talking to me and told my Mom that he wouldn't sign the papers unless he didn't have to pay child support anymore. Well let's skip forward a few months…During those months it was really just sending out papers and finally getting him to sign it. Then we had a court date 2 weeks ago. My Dad never showed and the judge granted my name change to Dewey. Just yesterday I received the papers in the mail of the official name change. I haven't talked to my Dad in over a year just about except for once concerning the name change. 

Now you see everything I have gone through with him and I didn’t even tell you all of it. I love my Dad because he is my Dad and he made part of me but, I do not love the man my Dad is to this day. He is not the man my mom married, he is not the man my mom picked to be my father, and he certainly is not the father I always dreamed of. That is life though. People change, things change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. My Dad changed for the worst. I wish he would get help but, he won’t ever so unfortunately, this means I lost him in my opinion.

  My Mom is my everything though, I don’t need him. She is my Mom, my Dad, my Best Friend, my shoulder to cry on, literally my everything.  I overcame this by realizing that he isn’t worth my time anymore. He isn’t worth all the effort I put in for him to want to be in my life for him to do nothing. I can’t keep getting heartbroken because he doesn’t want to be a Dad. I learned and became stronger by accepting that he won’t change, so I need to move on and live my best life possible.