UNWIRED

Today, Facebook reminded me of this.

Text:

Earlier this week, my biological dad texted me after having read the post I'd linked, of him calling me ouzo: like an acquired taste, essentially unique. He was testing the waters, seeing whether I was okay with him, after half a year has passed. I was in no mood to entertain him, and then he said "maybe you're not ouzo after all", insinuating that I was hardened, that I was like anyone else who has not forgiven him. It irked me even more.

I forgave you when you strayed time after time when you and Mum were still married when I was a toddler. I forgave you when I was barely in grade school and you and mum fought so badly at the mall, you both somehow lost me and I made my way back home, about ten bus stops away, surprising everyone and even myself that I found my way back. I forgave you when you smashed the windscreen of the car Mum rented, despite the car having nothing to do with you. I forgave you when you harassed my maternal grandparents to let you into their house on account of some monetary issues with mum: my dear old late granddad who doted on myself and Adik and to my knowledge never spoke a word against you, and Nyai who, despite everything, tells us to acknowledge you because "no matter what, he's still your father." I forgave you for all the times my sister has low self-esteem and no trust in men because you were never there for her.

I forgave you time and again and allowed you into our lives and love my stepmother and four half-siblings but last year, when I was 25, I was approached by a man telling me to advise you because you had solicited for sex from his fiancée. Instead of showing remorse, your response towards me was that you didn't think I'd find out about it. The onus is no longer on me to forgive you, the onus is on you to change.

It's not that I'm not big enough to forgive you, you just haven't shown that you're big enough to deserve it.

My family members tire me out a lot. In the past three years, I got strung along by a man who was unfaithful to his soon-to-be wife, I found out my father was doing the same to my stepmother, I took a break for myself then got pregnant, then my mother chose to be really hard and unforgiving that I got pregnant.

Yesterday, I spent a bit of time with Mel, she was filling me in on where she is currently at with Gilmore Girls. My sister also said to me, the eldest child of my mother's four kids, and the eldest of my father's six (why do people have kids when they have no money or emotional capacity for them? religious people have the weirdest motivations), that my drama days are over.

You know, a lot of people have gone through less than I have, and they retaliate by doing the weirdest things physically, like they take out their anger onto the world. I just absorb things, and I write. All I ever do is write. Everything I feel, I channel into writing. Anyway, as I was saying, my sister says my drama days are long gone, which is a good, good thing.

I mean, I sort of feel it within myself, but to hear it from my sister is a good thing, because I guess she knows me best, besides myself.