Day 24: A letter to your parents
Been staring at this computer screen for the past 11 min trying to figure out where to start. Partly because I was eating sunflower seeds and it’s hard to type and take them out of my mouth (haven’t mastered the art of “eat.spit.be happy.” yet), but mainly because this is going to force me to become emotional. And when I say emotional I mean going so deep into my feelings that I end up crying. It’s rare, but still hate it when it happens. I was thinking that maybe if I was emotional more often then it wouldn’t be such Sweet 16 when I am. Well watev, that won’t be changing any time soon. My goal is finish writing this without even having to barricade a tear. Hey a girl can dream right?
Sidebar: When I really want to write a blog post and I’m home (with no internet…which I am right now) I’ll write it in my notebook. But this one I’m typing in a Word document so I can delete it as soon as I post it. I don’t want to be able to stumble upon this one day. I want no recollection of it. There might be some typos too because I definitely won’t be reading this over. When I write a meaningful (to me at least) post I’ll advertise it (crazy right? Advertising) on Twitter. That will absolutely not be happening today. If you happen to be a usual reader consider yourself lucky. You have just entered the deep world of Brittanee Monee’ Charles and successfully snuck past security.
Hey Daddy,
Remember the “Greatest Dad of All Time” award we gave you last year? That wasn’t my idea. Don’t get me wrong, if we were counting from when I was 14, then yes, you deserve it. If we were counting from birth, then you don’t . Uncle Dario mentions every once in a while how you weren’t around much when we were younger and how we wouldn’t remember it. Well I don’t know about Tiff, but I do. Honestly, it didn’t bother me then and it still doesn’t now. My only issue is you act like you WERE always around. I don’t know if you’re in denial or you just think we don’t remember but I would really appreciate it if you would stop. I should probably correct this. When I say you weren’t around it makes it seem like you were an absent father and I never want anyone to think that. I really mean you weren’t around as much as you think you were. I remember you not living in the house anymore since I was seven, and I mean officially. I remember you staying at grandma’s for months at a time since I was four. Crazy how kids notice the things you think you’re hiding from them. I’ll keep that in mind when I have my own. Now that I think about it, that might have been the beginning of me adopting the “I don’t care” attitude. I always blamed it on mommy, but now I’m realizing you played a small part too.
I was only 11 years old when you changed our lives forever. I remember it like it was yesterday. You came over around 8 that night and you brought Tiff and I into Mommy’s room. That’s when you told us Gina was pregnant and that you would be living with her and we’d be staying there every other weekend. I’m not going to sit here and act like I thought you and mommy were going to get back together or that I even hoped for it, but I for dang sure wasn’t expecting this. You have a pregnant girlfriend? We didn’t even know that you had A girlfriend. But what’s really crazy is I really didn’t care much. Ok, that’s not fully true. I did care to an extent. I care about if it would break up our family, but even by then I learned to keep in my emotions. I cried though. You want to know why? Because Tiff was and I didn’t want you and mommy to think something was wrong with me. I don’t know when or how I learned to do this, but I just turned it into something good for me. I saw it as chance to finally be able to do normal kid stuff since we couldn’t do that with mommy. But then we started coming over and I didn’t like how Gina treated Tiff. Yall excuse was always that Tiff acted out and that she didn’t have to do it because I wasn’t. Correct me if I’m wrong but Tiff was effin 9! She was a little kid! With the situation at hand how do you expect her to act?? And don’t try to use me as a model. Like I said I kept everything in so you weren’t going to see me “act out” anyway. Besides, she wasn’t acting out. She would argue with Gina, and normal arguing at that…that’s it. And Gina acted like she couldn’t be bothered with Tiff. And you know what, if she really couldn’t then fine, but she would put up a front once you came around. Next to the way she treated Tiff in general, that was my next main issue with her. Don’t sit there play pretend because now you’re watching. Even to this day, no matter how many times I’ve told you that you didn’t listen. Then to make matters worse, you always tried to force us into being a “family”. Ish was and is never going to happen, so you should’ve just left it alone. Instead you tricked us into having a “family meeting” and that’s when everything turned upside down. Gina asked me if I liked her and I said no. You wanted us to put everything out there Daddy and we did. Be careful what you wish for. Eventually everybody got over that day and now Tiff and I are completely indifferent to your situation. But you need to understand that we’re never going to be one big happy family. I think the sooner you realize that, the sooner everything will be fine; because the more you push her on us, the more we’re going to push away. You say you’re trying to make it easier for us, but we REALLY don’t care, so all I hear is “I’m trying to make it easier for me.” Honestly Daddy it’s not our fault this might be the first time after Tiff was born that you decided to be faithful.
But I always say, “my dad’s not a good guy, but he’s a great father”. If you didn’t step in as many times as you did I think me and Mommy would’ve gotten into way more arguments than we did. There’s plenty of times you could’ve done a better job but I can tell that you genuinely tried so I wouldn’t tell you that you messed up. I know you can’t help, but you shouldn’t feel bad about how our life was with Mommy. You didn’t know and we didn’t tell you (cuz we didn’t know any better). Although I would have liked for a lot of things to be different, we were fine. I remember you saying to me once that sometimes you had to play the mother and father role. I would definitely say that you did. I would and still will talk to you first about any situation that a girl would typically talk to her mother about because I feel like I can talk to you about anything. So dad I appreciate you being both parents at times when my other parent was always (physically) there. Honestly, I don’t want to marry a man like you. You’re not a gentleman and in the words of Grandma, you’re a bum. Haha. You even said yourself you wouldn’t want us to end up with someone like you. But if I could marry a man who’s would be as good as a father as you that would be perfect.
Love, Britt
Dear Mom,
I’m actually glad that I’m writing this instead of telling you face to face. Just that sentence alone you would have stopped me and tell me I’m wrong and then I’d never get to say what I really wanted to because we’d end up arguing over how you never listen to anyone and you always think you’ve right. I don’t care what you say, it’s true. Apparently everybody knows this but you so that must mean something right? No…not to you. Because you always think you know how everyone is feeling no matter what they tell you. And this is the main reason I can’t talk to you about anything. But don’t feel bad for me (not that I really think you would), I learned at a very early age that you aren’t the parent/family member to talk to so I didn’t miss it. Remember when Daniel broke up with me? I was so extremely heartbroken and all you could do was yell at me. Did you ever stop to think that that was not what I needed at the time? I needed someone to console me. But crazy thing is I already knew you weren’t the person for that, so I didn’t expect it out of you. But I also didn’t expect you to make me feel worse either. After Daddy had a talk with me that’s when you wanted to act like a mom and have your own talk with me. Honestly though I didn’t want you too. When I think of you I think of someone that doesn’t have any feelings, and you’ve proved that to me time and time again.
But I think the worst part about it is that you’re selfish. You’re selfish and you won’t admit it. Excuse me, no, to admit something means you are already aware of it. You have no idea that you’re selfish…and I really don’t know how not. I didn’t realize how bad you are until I got to college and starting talking to other people. Until then, I didn’t necessarily think how you raised us was normal, but I didn’t realize how bad it was either. Seriously, the way I ate in college was about the same that I ate my whole life. I probably ate Ramen noodles more in high school than I did in college. And it’s not because you weren’t home…you were home, just wouldn’t cook. When we did go out to eat with Uncle Dario or Daddy you got mad that we didn’t bring you any food back, then eat our leftovers that we had planned to eat for dinner the next day. But never did you once bring us back food when you went out to eat without us. Honestly, if I’m not at the restaurant with you I don’t expect anyone to bring me back food, but by the way you complained about it when me and Tiff did it you would think that you would bring us back something at least once. I was talking to Daddy the other day about how much money me and Tiff would get for lunch in high school. He said he would give us at least $25 a week. I said no you gave Tiff money and Mommy gave me money, and I was only getting $20 every TWO weeks. He said “No that can’t be right, that’s $2 per day”. I said “ I know, that was a bagel and a water”. Funny thing is he asked why didn’t I tell you that…but I did…plenty of times.
My first winter break in college I was home for a month. You didn’t cook not once until the day I left. You ate well though. I was depressed that break too….lost 10 lbs. Now before you say I could’ve cooked for myself, cooked what? Next to rarely cooking you didn’t teach us how to. That might’ve have helped in our situation. But not feeding us that winter break, not giving me enough lunch $, and never bringing us back food isn’t the point. The point is, in a nutshell, we didn’t come first. It was either the church or you over your own children. You always act like you’re the greatest mother in the world. You did the basic motherly duties, and most of them at a minimum. When it came to us, you were cheap. I hated going shopping with you because we always had to go to the discount stores and you always wanted us to use our own money, our little pocket change. Honestly, if we didn’t have then I could understand that. But Mom you have four cars, three closets full of clothes, and have been building on to the house for 11 years now. In other words, you have no problem spending money when it comes to you. Remember that time I asked you if I got a refund check? You said “no, but even if you did that money would be going to me.” Either way you look at it not it wouldn’t. First of all that money is from student loans, which you told me before I even got to college that won’t be helping me pay those off and secondly Daddy paid for the tuition balance. As many times as you talked about paying you would think I didn’t know that but I did. I know you paid a few times, but not nearly as many times as you make it seem. Everybody that knows you says I’m just like you, even your flaws. I can’t remember the exact day, but I remember realizing that I was selfish and that I didn’t want to be like that. So ever since then genuinely tried not to be. Don’t get me wrong I believe I still am, just not nearly as much as I used to be. And that’s because it’s just in me. But the difference between me and you is that I acknowledge it and try to better myself. I feel like you think you’re a complete angel.
I go out of my way for people a lot more than what I used to, and it might not be acknowledged as much but that’s fine because I didn’t do it for the recognition. When Aunt Wanda died her funeral was on my birthday in North Carolina. I never make a big deal out of my birthday, but this was the first year I actually had plans...it was my 21st. Then to make it worse it was in North Carolina. You know I extremely dislike going down there. You only needed one of us to go down so I did. Even though you didn’t even look like Aunt Wanda’s death affected you (aside from us finding out from Aunt Marcia even though we were with you the day she died and the day after) I went to give you support and I didn’t want Tiff to miss her first days of college. But of course you found a way to make that the worst decision ever. You were going around saying “yea it’s Britt’s birthday, so what. She wants me to take her out to dinner. For what?” You were right though. For what? Why would I want to go to dinner with you? For maybe the fourth time in my entire life I tried to tell you how I felt, but as usual acted like I felt any type of way for no reason. And I’ll never forget what you said to me. After yelling at me for being so selfish to even be remotely sad that I didn’t celebrate my birthday you said “I came down here to show face and you are upset that you didn’t get to celebrate your birthday?!!! You’re selfish Brittanee! You’re selfish!” Crazy thing is, that’s not what I was upset about. I was upset that even though I wasn’t even telling people it was my birthday (because that’s not what I thought the focus of the day should have been on) my COUSINS wanted to celebrate my birthday more than my own mother did. Aside from what I was upset about, what stood out from us arguing for a half hour was “I came down here to show face”. Your sister dies and you just came to show face. Besides that sounding crazy off the bat, you made it seem like someone was twisting your arm to do it. I already starting thinking this a few years before, but that day solidified for me the idea that I don’t want to be anything like you. As harsh as that may sound I really don’t think it’s going to affect you because you don’t seem to have emotions anyway. I already know I get that from you. It’s a survival tactic. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this. I can’t keep a tight consistent relationship with friends, I haven’t hugged my sisters (cousins included) since they were 8 even though I love them very much, and I can’t get a boyfriend for nothing. But it is what it is. At the end of the day though, if I had the choice for Tiff to go through all this I’d still take it. I guess the one thing you can say that you have successfully accomplished is you are the only person that can ever get me to my breaking point. I really don’t know why, because I know you’re going to tell me I’m wrong about how you make me feel, so in all actuality, getting upset about anything with you is pointless (hence me being void of emotion 75% of the time). I guess, subconsciously, I just hope that maybe once you would actually act like my mom and care. But like I said, it is what it is.
-Britt
If anyone is wondering I didn’t accomplish my goal.
...it's been real luvs --->DEUCES
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