someday again

Someday again we'll run free
We'll sit by the fire, drinking wine and sing off key as they play guitar
I will travel with you and make a fight over things that don't matter
You will laugh and make a plan when things go wrong
You'll call me those nonsensical names like petal and peanut and find a sense of awe in my creative talents
I will wait while you ride motorcycles up big hills
We'll be the life of the party and everyone will love our dumb jokes
Everyday we'll have a plan for saying goodbye to the sun
Someday again we'll run free
While we will wait desperately for the day they return to us for a fleeting visit.

Bright Eyes "First Day Of My Life"

The Break Up

With words typically reserved for ending a short-lived, romantic endeavor, my father broke up with me. I was ten years old. I’ve never forgotten his exact quote, “I think it would be better for everyone if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

Perhaps he expounded by saying things like, “it’s not you, it’s me,” or “I only think of you as a friend,” or “it was fun while it lasted.” I don’t recall any of those statements, but I will never forget the aforementioned rejection.

My stepmother, Bobby, a diminutive for Roberta, rode with him to the break-up meeting. They drove the quintessential 1970’s vehicle (this did not take place in that decade), a station wagon with wood paneling on the sides. The inside was always in a state of perfect squalor. It was their weekend to pick my older sister and me up for a visitation that , truth be told none of us looked forward to.

Bobby and my father had been married for about 2 years. They did not invite us to their wedding; a fact which did not offend me as much at the time as one might think. At my age, I did not know anything about proper etiquette. After the wedding, we began spending weekends at Bobby’s trailer in Illinois instead of at my dad’s apartment in Missouri, near where I grew up. It was a long drive and the trailer living conditions were disturbing even to a shell-shocked kid like me who knew nothing about etiquette.

We typically went to their house every other weekend, alternating holidays and one god-awful month during the summer. I say this typically happened because every so often there would be some kind of scheduling conflict which would erupt into screaming and cursing matches, ultimately ending with police officers at our door and late night trips to my grandmother’s house to hide away.

Bobby made me feel uneasy. She always reeked of cigarettes and I got the impression that she did not bathe often. Her hair was greasy and her clothes were never stylish like I considered my mother’s to be. Sometimes she would be extremely affectionate to me; which was awkward because we didn’t have that kind of relationship at all. To add to the discomfort, I never knew when her “nice” mood would sour and transform into loud and often violent exchanges with my father because she believed that he “favored” my sister and me over her six children from her previous marriage. Yes, I said six.

Eventually, they moved back to Missouri and into a "normal" house. I preferred the house to the trailer for all the obvious reasons. The trailer park was filled scary and strange people and space was an issue with six children, two adults and the occasional two visitors added to the mix. The house, however, was no picnic. There was always dirty laundry and toys piled as high as the eye could see in the kids’ bedrooms and the bathrooms were filthy. I often waited the whole weekend to get home to shower.

On this occasion, they arrived on an early Friday evening to pick us up after a particularly hairy confrontation had transpired between the ex’s regarding where we were to spend our Easter Holiday. Although it was my dad’s holiday, my sister and I expressed preference to spend our time off school at my mom’s brother’s house with a favorite cousin. When negotiations between estranged mother and father started; the arguments without fail soon ensued. The uncle lived six hours away and after the phone was slammed down on its receiver one final time, we went anyway.

On that spring evening, Dad arrived right on time to retrieve us for our bi-monthly weekend. My sister and I, poorly equipped to handle this awkward situation, got into his car and acted as if nothing had transpired during the Easter holiday. There was extreme tension in the car as we drove to the park across the street from my house. Strangely, we did not immediately question this maneuver and demand to know what why we weren’t on the road to their house for our weekend visit. Like small robots we got out of the car and sat on a bench nearest to the parking lot. Bobby and my father faced us in a unified-front sort of way. That’s when they broke it to us gently. I don’t recall either of us saying anything. Perhaps we were stunned. I, personally, know that I felt something near to relief and shortly afterward, guilt about that feeling.

I wish my memory was sharper to recall how a ten year old girl got out of her father’s car after hearing this news and walked back into her house to explain the “break up” scenario to her mother. Unfortunately, the only thing I can remember is my mother telling me that, “perhaps this is for the best.” I never saw my father again.