BilLee and myself had two months left on the lease of our apartment back in Athens. Because we couldn't find anyone to sublease we asked the managment if they could try and find someone to lease the place earlier. As early as june 1st, so that we wouldn't have to be paying rent on a place we weren't living in. Of course we knew that if they were not able to find anybody we would have to pay rent the last two months. Well we sent our rent check to athens for june about a week and a half ago. Figuring it might get there a day or two late we included the late fee in the check. Unfortunately it seems that the check still hasn't arrived (thank you U.S.P.S.), also our other roommate who happens to be my twin brother went ahead and paid his part of the rent on time. We actually left him in charge of taking care of the final apartment stuff. Check out, cleaning, getting the rent to the office etc. He's doing fine with that BTW the problem was that we hadn't realized that the management did not have a way of getting in contact with him since he had changed jobs. That's right we forgot to leave them with a current number. We even talked to them the day we moved so that they would know exactly what was going on, and that the only thing that would be left in the apartment was Alliene's stuff. But we forgot to give them a current phone number (BilLee and myself didn't have one yet). So when our apartment managers succeeded in finding someone to pre-lease the apartment early, and also had not received all of our rent for June they called the person listed as one of our emergency contacts and left a message on his answering machine. My father. I certainly didn't put him on the emergency contact list, but apparently he was there because they did call him. All they wanted was to get in contact with us, they weren't asking for money from my father, they weren't asking him to take care of it. They just wanted a way to talk to us and find out when the rest of the stuff could be moved out of the apartment and the rest of the rent would be paid. This is actually good news. It means we won't have to fork out an extra 500 dollars in July for an apartment we are not living in.
So here is what my dad sent me in response to the message on his answering machine:
Sounds like you have moved. Sounds like you did not exactly follow procedures with your apartment manager when you moved.
I got a call today from Trivoli apartments saying that they have pre-leased your apartment and the new renters want to know when they can move in. They want you to do something about the stuff you left behind. They also would probably like to have some rent money, but I suppose that is why you left the way you did.
So I was a little offended, okay very offended that my father's automatic assumption is that we consciously and intentionally skipped town and left our obligations just floating out there. So I wrote him an email back explaining the situation and adding that "he may have been the kind of person that skipped out on leases when he was our age but that we were not." Since I was fully aware that he had done as much when he was our age, the statement was probably in poor taste. I was just really really upset that he couldn't even give his own offspring the benefit of the doubt. He immediately sent back a really really nasty email to me most of which doesn't bear repeating. Basically he attempted to offend me and hurt my feelings in every way he could think of. Including a little diatribe about how the only time he had ever "skipped out" on rent was when he was caught between the antics of my crazy mother (no he wasn't even that diplomatic with his phrasing) and her crazy parents who were demanding money for "your support." Of course by "your" he meant the 4 kids he had given to the crazy in-laws. He followed this by saying that once he was free of "that insanity" he built up a good credit rating and bought a house. I'm glad he was able to build up a good credit rating while someone else was paying for and raising his kids. Thanks dad for reinventing the term "dead beat."
That was one of the "nicer" parts of the email. The rest was carefully personalized insults crafted for my benefit, and him justifying not giving a damn about my life by the fact that I only contacted him over the past year when I needed something. Other than the reply he sent me when I requested he mail me my birth certificate he didn't contact me at all. I responded to his email with only this: "please don't email me anymore. Rainbough"
Have you ever heard one of those testimonials by a crack addict or a heroine addict where they say that they are "clean" but that they will still want heroine everyday for the rest of their lives. And they know they can't have it. That's how I feel about my dad. I feel like I am going to want a real relationship with him for the rest of my life, and I know I can't have it. If I could not care, I wouldn't. I don't want to care. I've long past stopped caring what my grandparents think of me (the ones that raised me)(that's a long story that I am not going to share).
Somehow I do care though. For some reason I can still be hurt and offended by someone who I have long known was pitiable at best. Someone who didn't raise me, doesn't know me in spite of the 4 years I lived with him, and who has never in my opinion warranted the title of "parent." I really want to not care anymore.
Thanks for listening.
1 comment:
Dear Rainbough,
Sorry about your pain. As a parent, I know that parents don't always do or say the right thing. Perhaps your father had and extremely bad day and jumped to the wrong conclusions.
If it were me (and I truly understand that it is not) - I would wait a little and then give him a call and try to get him to laugh. Since you lived with him four years you should have a idea on how to do that. He may be too proud to call you first.
Laughter seems to help a lot in tight situations.
It is obvious that you want a relationship with him and that is normal. Congratulate yourself on being normal then think of a way to turn things around.
Remember no one is perfect - that includes parents as well as yourself. Things may not improve unless you try to reach out. After you contact him again, if dad is rude to you, you will at least have the opportunity to ask him, "What's up?" instead of just cutting off communications.
E-mail is impersonnal and doesn't convey emotion - lost is the opportunity to hear concern or anger. I can read a paragraph when I'm angry and take it one way and when I'm not angry - take it another way. I'm not saying that you misunderstood him but consider that perhaps he misunderstood something you wrote.
And finally, Good Luck. I wish I had found my father in time to communicate with him to know what he sounded like or hear him laugh. Don't deny yourself those things.
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