Let's talk about Jim

I have abandonment issues.

This ones a doozy so get ready. People are going to get a little angry at what I'm about to write but all I can say is wait till I write the book. 
It's REALLY going to piss you off then.

My father is an asshole. Has been this way for a very, very long time. He is one of the most narcissistic people, if not the most, I've ever had to encounter.
Endure.

He left. He took everything I had as a small girl and left. My faith in men, my trust in humanity, my belief that there were other people out there not like him.

Just like Jim.

I've always thought I am an alien. At first, adopted. I had this feeling like something just didn't add up but then I found the prints of me coming into this world. Ugh.
I'm definitely my parents' child.

But things shifted as I got older and began to read more. The  possibilities of me maybe being from another planet began to sit inside me. 
It's never left.


I love my dad. I used to love him a lot more. I used to be his go to  person when he ran out of adult resources. I always ran to him because I thought 
He needs me.
He loves me.
He will change. 

This time.
This time.
This time.
This time.

Never.


I spent the first two and a half decades of my life trying to fix him. He's broken. I failed. Well, he failed. I gave up.
He has drunk, drugged, abused and used himself into a pit so deep that he's convinced himself he's a good person. 
He's insane. No doubt about it.

My brother and Christopher went hunting with Jim once. Chris had met him before because despite my feelings towards my father, every daughter should introduce the man she's about to marry to her father. 
Father.
Our Father. 
I've always been terrified of that prayer. 
The repetition. The abandonment.

Jim had no idea who Chris was. Chris even told him that he was married, with a son and in the Army, stationed in Kentucky.
Not a fucking clue.
His children don't interest him unless he benefits from it. 
He called me the day we were leaving for Mississippi. I was enduring Christopher's unit memorial at Fort Carson, about to drive across the country because my life had just blown up and I missed his call. 
Except I didn't know because his number is blocked on my phone. It wasn't until a couple weeks later when I heard the voicemail say, 

"I told Dee you wouldn't answer the fucking phone."

That is the first thing he's said to me in almost 3 years.
I have it saved if you want to listen. I have to keep it because when I tell people, it's so unbelievable I need proof. 

I found love though. And now I'm going through all of those same abandonment issues again.
Fun fucking times. 
There's been more than just this. 
Way more. 
Christopher's death was just the grand finale.
And I'm just getting started.

Beam me up, Scotty.