Starting Over

                       I appear to be happily on an episode of Locked Up Abroad.

This picture has nothing to do with what I am writing about because that would be way too predictable. It's me in a jail cell at Alcatraz. I love vacation photos and I hope you have been enjoying them as well. If you haven't, then I will stop posting them. Ha!!! No I won't....I do what I want.

Today is kid day. I don't even remember what we started calling it when I sold out and named each day's blog, but who the fuck cares now. Here we are. Without slopping through the murky history of my childhood and parental situation, let's agree that I have a bio dad, a step dad, a mom and a few step moms. I grew up with my mom and step dad and had very little contact with my sperm donor. I always called him my sperm donor growing up because it felt a little less formal. I felt like I needed an evening gown and English accent to say "biological father". Neither of which I ever possessed. My lifestyle growing up was completely different from the lifestyle my sperm donor was living. My mom stayed home, my dad was a cop and we lived in a lower middle class neighborhood where everyone drove shitty, used cars. We camped a lot and rarely ate out at restaurants. My sperm donor, on the other hand, was living what looked like from the outside, the good life. He always drove nice cars, had expensive houses and the few times I saw him, was throwing cash around like it was Monopoly money. He knew very little about my life and I couldn't understand his.

Fast forward twenty-five years and we are reconnecting. He came back into my life a sober man who willingly apologized and seems ready to move forward. I've realized an interesting dichotomy to our relationship, not only do we get to know each other as we are today but he doesn't have a clue as to what my upbringing was like. While we were having dinner recently, I was talking about my mom and how talented she is. I was sharing with my half-sister that my mom had sewn most of our clothes growing up. He looked perplexed and asked "Why did she make your clothes?". Part of me wanted to be a dick and tell him that it was because he never paid child support. I chuckled to myself and told him that we never had a lot of money and that it was the cheapest way for us to have new clothes. I wish I had a photo of his expression, it was complete shock. I don't know what he thought my life was like growing up but I gathered that it wasn't at all like he imagined.

It's a strange place to be in, getting to know someone who gave you 50% of their DNA. How could they not know every last detail about you? My husband is one of the most involved fathers I know and I can't imagine him being out of the loop in his own children's lives. He wouldn't stand for it. It doesn't piss me off anymore that my bio wasn't there for my childhood, it makes me sad for him. The smallest and most beautiful details of my life are a mystery to him. My first bike ride, getting my tonsils out, learning how to drive a stick shift and getting my first apartment. I can't imagine the pain of loving someone and not really knowing them at all. It's a life lesson that is best learned through someone else, so you don't have to live in the sorrow of it yourself.