This past 27th of September was my birthday. I don’t really care about the ceremony of it as I’m no longer a child who receives gifts. To me, yesterday, tomorrow, and today are just days. Turning 33 doesn’t change anything for me, it’s just another day. However because of the cultural expectations I wanted to spend this day with my daughter. I have fleeting glimpses of hope for what my life can be and I’m still figuring it out, but what I want above all else is to be a good father.
I promised my daughter I would take her to the zoo and eat berry dessert with her. Since my divorce I can hardly eat or sleep but I couldn’t betray my promise to Zelda. For several weeks I only slept four to five hours at most and I thought about not being there. Instead I woke up around four, drove two and a half hours north, picked up my daughter and spent the next four-and-a-half hours at the zoo with her, her friend, and her friend’s mom.
Afterwards she slept for a bit, but woke up with maybe only 30 minutes of sleep. I had asked my Ex to pick up some berry-tarts from a local bakery, which she did. Thank you X. Afterwards Zelda and I shared one, though Zelda ate most of it. I don’t like sweets but I promised we’d eat it together.
Afterwards I spent some time playing with Zelda and just doing anything to spend time with her. When she wanted to sit on my lap and replicate my pose I felt really happy.
Later her mom came home from what I can only assume was a date, we prepared a dinner for Zelda. I helped as best as I could as I don’t spend enough time with Zelda to know what she likes now (writing that line makes my heart bleed, I wish I knew but her mom makes it difficult to spend time with her). While she did like the broccoli I made her, she really was invested in eating it when I promised to read to her. People are always amused when I say I can keep a toddler’s attention for an hour with books, but I use onomatopoeia, different voices, and engage her with questions.
In the end Zelda went off to do her own thing and my Ex and I spent some time talking. It was the most civil conversation we’ve had since she declared she’d started a divorce. It still hurts but I realized something recently.
I’m better off without her. She is selfish, non-empathetic, hyper-focused and apathetic to my plight. If I criticize her she gets angry. If I tell her she hurt me she plays UNO-Reverse and says its my fault. When I expose my vulnerabilities she just gets angry with me. So I just drank my pain.
She’s not a bad person inherently just selfish. As I’ve come to understand this, the love I’d held for her for over decade has started to fade.
I’d known she was like this the entire time, I just hoped she would change. It was during a trip in China to visit her family for Zelda’s first birthday I realized I didn’t mean much to her. I felt so alone and ignored. She didn’t understand when I said wanted more time with my daughter as everything was following Chinese traditions. I don’t know those, I’m not a part of them, I just felt like an outsider. It was just months of pain being an outsider, and she didn’t try to help. I even told her but she didn’t understand or care.
It’s this accumulation of apathy towards me I’ve realized she’s just not worth loving. I hate this. I hate that I feel I have to write this, but she ignored me and I loved her with everything I had. In the end it’s just a sad story.
ooglykraken 