…Confusion broken hearted woe
7 years ago I was sitting in Slave to the Needle, a tattoo shop in Seattle, right down the street from my studio apartment. It was Mother’s Day. I think I was the only male customer, everyone else seemed to be part of a mother – daughter combination getting matching tattoos that day. I had been in for a few appointments before this one, my best work at the time was all done by this shop, and I had been planning to come here today for quite some time. I’m big into symbolism and dates. I just have always believed that if something is of a heightened significance to you, make it stand out. This was the first Mother’s Day since the birth of my daughter. She would be thousands of miles away in Florida with her mother, spending a family holiday that would not be including myself. The tattoo I was getting on my wrist was “Mourn”.
I distinctly remember having a conversation with my mother at a cafe down near the Brooks Bridge in Fort Walton Beach right after Cali was born. The fallout with her mother was still something I was trying to process, and I had just found out she was seeing someone else. The line I can remember saying was “I’m going to end up one of those broken burned out guys sitting alone in a bar at age 45 with a million “what ifs” on his mind.
This started off a chain of very empty holidays whenever I was not with my child. I don’t know how other single parents handle those first few years of spending Christmas’, birthdays, and other special days away from their little one. There is nothing that prepares you for those, at least not to my knowledge. I really wish I had reached outward to my family members, but instead I was very introverted in my grief and anger. I totally skipped those holidays without Cali, refusing to even acknowledge them at all. The people that cared about me the most were the ones that felt the wrath of my self imposed isolation. Meanwhile my baby was happy and taking in the love of her mothers side of the family. I should have been thankful for that, she could have been in a much more grim situation.
This past Mother’s Day was just as bittersweet as those other doomed holidays, if not more. I am going to look at it as proof that this journey is incomplete, that if I want to truly keep growing as a person and get better, then I need to handle these situations with far more grace and acceptance than years past. There is no point in making myself miserable. This is a self destructive activity totally in line with what my alcoholism was. I think that there will be several more bumps in the road similar to what just happened. Its up to me to recognize them as being detrimental and how I did things in the past, and change how I handle them so that I can get better. Just because I don’t drink anymore, doesn’t mean that I still don’t think like an alcoholic. The mind is something that takes time to rework, and has to be approached with much more caution and care. If I ever want to have the privilege and joy of having a Mother’s Day with someone who has made the decision to spend our lives together, then this is the work I have to do before that can ever happen.
No one ever asked me about that tattoo until I met Angelica. I think it was the first one she ever noticed. She has a tattoo, in the exact same location, with the exact same red to black colors. Hers says “Father” and has almost the same story as mine.
