conversations with a (middle) woman named connie

i wanted to give my father all the smoke yesterday.
i wasn’t done with him.
he got an earful when we violated,
but i chose chaos when i woke up the next day.
no one gets to hurt my feelings and thinks thats okay.
nah homie.
i wanted to bring all the smoke to his yard.
yesterday,
i got fully caffeinated with an ice coffee with a shot of espresso.
it would be the battery for his destruction.
my spirit told me to call connie from the messages first tho…

connie and i spoke for 2 hours and she revealed all.
she has a special relationship with my father.
fwb,
it seems.
she told me that my father loves me but he will always be a bachelor.
it comes from the sense of being emotionally selfish and wanting his own space.
i got that from him and the rebellious spirit from my mother.
in a nutshell tho,
she said he is pretty much a coward in how he has handled his relationship with me.
he talks about me all the time,
but he doesn’t do anything to forge a connection.
i literally live rent-free in his head and he can contact me.
he told her it was my birthday,
which it wasn’t,
but he didn’t pick up the phone to call.
that is why she ended up messaging me.

“He said he is a writer.” – he said.

“What does he write about?” – she said.

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?????”

in the 2 hour conversation,
connie was more interested in my life than my own father.
like my grandmother and mother,
she is the middle-woman between us.
she put in more effort to find out about me than he ever did.
hell,
she texted me this morning!!!!!!

i realized my father is just a bitter barry.
he is hurt by how my grandmother and mother treated him.
it’s weird he can say all of this because:

1 – I remember how he would leave me places and go off to mingle with his friends.
He left me at a barbershop for hours one time.

2 – When that woman called me “soft”,
he never defended me.
He blamed my softness on my grandmother and mother.

3 – My father was a popular sports star in Barbados,
but I never once went to his games or see him play.
He wasn’t “the star” to me like he is to others.

he talks about me when i was a baby and the few outings we had,
but in eyes,
it was very far and in-between.
my father wasn’t there during my development and losses.
he never taught me about sex,
puberty,
girls,
or money.
oh no,
he taught me how cheap he was.
i guess the only thing he told me that was surprising is i’m half guyanese because he is.
that still means nothing because i’ve known i’m bajan all my life.
he never called me after my mother died or to see how i’m surviving by myself in america.
he has been the standard “happy birthday” with hints of “i know you’re gay but i hope not“.

AND HOW IS HE GONNA GET ON ME FOR NOT BEING MARRIED TO A WOMAN OR KIDS WHEN HIS FUCKIN’ ASS HAS NEVER BEEN MARRIED?

excuse me?
that is the type of shit that makes me want to drag him from st. michael to st. lucy.
he pretended to want in my life,
but he decided to show me why my mother didn’t decide to marry him.
i’m not the enemy tho.

i’ve learned these last few years that my expectations of people,
including family,
needs to be much lower.
i have nothing to lose at this point.

lowkey: rejection is a trigger for me.
this is another someone who has rejected me.
that is what i learned with the help of pose showing me that aspect.

5 thoughts on “conversations with a (middle) woman named connie

  1. Ewww. Why do we all have the dropped off and abandoned at the barber shop story?

    Do you trust Connie?

  2. After meeting my birth parents I learned that anything positive from those relationships was gonna have to be chalked up as a bonus and not to be depended on. Over time I realized they were repeating the cycle of what they received from childhood. My birth father had an awful relationship with his father so he had no idea how to be a good father let alone find out twenty years later you have an adult son you didn’t know about. You gotta live for you because you can’t lean on him for any kind of validation.

  3. Jamari, I’m really sorry about all this, hun. I think it’s great that you’re half Guyanese as both my parents and all my family are too, but we can’t even celebrate that we have that in common because of all you’re currently unpacking. I wish you the best in however you choose to move forward with your father. I have the same emotional unavailability issues with mine too and I’m still dealing with him on a case-by-case basis.

  4. Lord, carribean fathers. I hate to generalize, but this statement. “1 – I remember how he would leave me places and go off to mingle with his friends.
    He left me at a barbershop for hours one time.”

    Word for word my exact experience

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