bad photos and tattoos
10:52 p.m. - 05.05.02
i hate when i get like this. i came down here immediately to write down the sadness i am just feeling. grandma and i are watching a hallmark special (little john) with ving rhames and the woman from er. plot:she had a baby and left unwed and ashamed. she did not know that her father adopted her son - so after 12 years they go to find her.
god, it wasn't even my situation exactly, but i couldn't even watch all of it. i told grandma why and we both started crying. i told her i had to go downstairs and write.
uggh, but now i don't want to. then i do. in one second i feel that i want to stay down here all night and never take my fingers off of the keyboard. then the next second i feel sick and see it as pointless - why do i need to write all that stuff down about dad after he died? as least right now?
when i was watching the movie all i kept thinking of was the afternoon at delores' house. apparently, dad did not leave town in '95 the last time mom put him in jail. anyway - i know i should write about this total delores experience another time - it will do me well, i know -- but not right yet. anyway, i was at delores' house for the second time, and it did not get easier the second time. it was finally sinking in that dad did leave us a long, long time ago - and in those 20 years he got married again, separated, now with delores.
that damn movie made me remember delores showing me photos of dad holding some boy on a camping trip. that boy was NOT my brother. apparently these photos were taken about 10 years ago when dad was drifting up and down the west coast. he was with a buddy of his and his family.
the photos made me sick. there he was in all of them with this 12 year old boy - both smiling.
dad never took us fucking camping. my brother (in agonizing, 7-year-old tears) got laughed off of the t-ball field because mom signed him up and he didn't even know how to put his glove on. much less swing a bat, because dad was too busy drinking.
god - i forgot what i was going to say now - and god i can say so much - i don't know what to do. i'm crying. i am so angry, too. i have never seen a picture of dad with any of us that he doesn't look bored, restless, uncomfortable, aloof, drunk or hungover.
oh, and dad was bipolar, too. that makes me feel real good about myself. it's going to be 2 years in june that everything exploded. i think back to any of the photos taken of me during this time, and i see myself looking bored, restless, uncomfortable, aloof, stoned or hungover.
now i'm thinking about the tattoo i saw on his arm in the hospital - "no one has lived my life." i was so, so angry when i saw that on his death bed. and now i look at my diary, and i look at my stats page to see if anyone else is reading, listening, understanding, whatever. i look at my diary now and all i can see now is my own "no one has lived my life tattoo" all over it. it feels like the tattoo is right on my ass and i'm just showing it off to everyone.
one thing i want to write down that was inspirational in the movie. ving rhames remembers what the nun told him when he had doubts about adopting his estranged daughter's son. she said that the chinese symbol for crisis is made by two things - risk and opportunity
bad photos and tattoos - 05.05.02
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