i'll take a budweiser.

i’ve been struggling for a while to finish this piece. it never felt right as i read over it countless times. forgot an important detail somewhere, too much detail elsewhere, didn’t make any fucking sense in that one part. but this morning i decided that the messiness of this piece is part of the messiness of my story. of course it’s not going to feel right. nothing about this part of my story has ever been “right” so why would my recollection of it feel that way? and why does my telling of it have to feel that way? it doesn’t, and as hard as it is for me to put something that i don’t think is good enough out there, doing so is part of the releasing process for me, and that is far more important than worrying about how it will be received by others. writing is part of my healing journey, and that journey cannot and should not be slowed down by my ever-present quest for perfection. so with that, here are my imperfect words about my imperfect life:

john is the man i sometimes still refer to as my dad. more recently i’ve been calling him the man listed on my birth certificate. we have not spoken for the majority of the last 13 years. some of it has been intentional on my part, most of it has been because he hasn’t contacted me and i decided years ago that i was done putting effort into attempting to cultivate a relationship that was never meant to be.

almost 13 years ago to the day i wrote him an email telling him all of the things that i had felt for years but never said out of fear of upsetting him. about how i had been let down by him countless times throughout my life. how i would get excited every time we would talk cause i thought that maybe that conversation would be the one to kick off us finally having a relationship. i told him that despite his suggestion of “many more years of psychoanalysis” (actual direct quote) before i transition, my transition has nothing to do with anyone but myself, and that no one’s feelings about it will keep me from being my authentic self (especially his). i told him he can think all he wants that he won’t “know [dead name] anymore,” but that the truth of the matter is he has never known me. i told him that i was done being the adult in the situation and the only one putting any effort into attempting a relationship. i told him i was done. he never responded.

the first communication i got from him was a couple of years later in the form of a christmas card with a check in it. thinking back, i think he used money to convey his feelings cause he didn’t know any other way. i called him to thank him and we caught up a bit. we talked a few times in the course of a couple of months and i felt like he was finally putting in some effort. like we were maybe on our way to actually having a relationship. we eventually got together a few months later while i was in new york. despite our very explicit plan to get brunch, he had already eaten so he just had beers while i ate. whenever he ordered a beer he always said “i’ll take a budweiser.” he never shortened it, or called it anything different. i don’t know why that stands out in my mind, but it always has.

i couldn’t begin to tell you what we talked about. i’m sure i told him about transitioning, my partner at the time, moving to western mass, moving back to baltimore and being in grad school. he never showed much emotion so i couldn’t tell how he felt as we talked, but i imagine he didn’t quite know what to do with all of the information. i always sensed that he wasn’t comfortable with my queerness, so his daughter-turned-son talking about their dyke girlfriend was probably a lot to process.

we hung out for less than an hour before he said he had to leave. i tried to hide my disappointment as he put on his coat, but i don’t imagine i did a very good job. he pulled out his wallet and handed me money, his form of an apology perhaps, and walked out. i don’t remember much of our exchange when he left, but i know that he called me by my chosen name, and i remember that because it was like adding fuel to a fire that was already raging inside of me. i don’t know how to explain why it pissed me off so much, but i was so angry. so much of what i wanted from him for the few years before that moment was just to see me. to acknowledge me. then when he finally did it just felt… disingenuous. like he was saying it because he knew that i had been on testosterone long enough by that point that he would look like a jackass if he had used my very conventionally feminine birth name. i saw it as just another way for him to string me along and make me think that we were finally getting somewhere.

after he left i had a few more beers and contemplated what the fuck had just happened. it eventually became too much to contemplate (ie cry about) in such a public place, so i paid the bill, and left. i walked across the street to tompkins square park, sat on a bench, and called my partner at the time sobbing, wondering yet again what i did wrong and why it is my dad didn’t want me. i eventually forced composure upon myself, partially because i was embarrassed to be crying in public, and partially because i just didn’t have anything left in me, and headed down st. marks place towards the subway. i stopped outside of a piercing shop and without giving it much thought, decided that’s what i was going to do with the rest of john’s money. i mustered up the ability to pass as being at least semi-sober, and proceeded to get two piercings in one sitting, using the money he had just given me. using his money for something he wouldn’t approve of was my little way of telling him to fuck off without having to actually talk to him. it’s been ten years since that happened and this whole time i thought that was all it was. a drunken fuck you. what i’m realizing now, as i work through all my shit, is that i mostly did what i did that day because i was so hurt by him that being drunk wasn’t enough to make the pain go away, and i needed to experience a different kind of pain. a kind of pain that would eventually go away. that pain did eventually go away but the pain of the situation, of course, was still very much there and continued to linger for many more years. but hey, at least i got two piercings out of it.

a couple of years ago i very confidently told my therapist that i was over all the shit my dad put me through. i’ve lied to my therapist a lot, mostly by lying to myself and then relaying those lies to her, but that time i was not lying. i was no longer going to let this man who gives no fucks about me take up so much space in my life. it was so freeing to say that out loud and truly believe it. imagine my surprise when just a couple of weeks ago i was doing work for sober school and felt all of those feelings i thought were long gone come back and slap me in the face. i was so fucking mad about it. how dare this man claw his way back into my head and take up precious space. and how dare i let him. i felt ashamed and disheartened. enough so that i didn’t even want to bring it up in therapy. but i did bring it up, and i talked about it. i sat with it. i felt all the feelings i was having. i let myself feel all of them. i didn’t try to push them down like i have countless other times before. it was hard and shitty and i didn’t like it. and as hard as that was, it was so, so important. it helped me fucking finally start to heal some of those wounds that have stuck around for so long.

john is part of my story. every shitty thing he’s done to me, both passively and actively, are part of me. they are my pain, my anger, my open wounds, my healing wounds. they will eventually be my scars as i continue to heal. no story is idyllic. every part of a story, good, bad, heartbreaking, enraging, is there for a reason. they are the building blocks that form the structure that is you. the foundation. some pieces might be broken, some might not fit perfectly, but with the right tools they can all fit together. it might take a lot of time to figure out how they all fit. it might be painstakingly hard work. but eventually you will figure it out, and you’ll be able to step back and see, maybe for the first time, the whole thing. the beautiful, strong, piecemeal structure that was built with so much love. it houses you, it protects you. it might need some repairs every once in a while but you have the tools to do that and with a little time and effort it will maintain its integrity and stability and keep protecting you.