Entry 01 - The wrong thing for the right reasons

Quinn,

 

Naturally I have people to protect and so will not use their or your real name. I always called you Quinn, though I had many other names for you because you had so many personas. You were my Fredrick when you were cheeky, my turtle when you were playful, my Quinn when you were curious and only when you were naughty did I use your real name. We were naughty together of course; the wave and tongue game was our favourite. Sitting on the bus we would wave at passers by, if they waved back at us we got a point, and if they did not we would blow them a huge raspberry. It may have seemed a childish thing and rather inappropriate game for a father to teach his child but there was method. You see son people in life have issues, all of us its part of being human. Yet if we cannot bring ourselves to wave and smile at strangers then you deserve to receive a raspberry.

 

I wanted to raise you with clarity on the outcome of your actions. So I taught you crazy things like jumping of from walls, jumping over couches and sliding around the floor on cushions. Why, well why not. Life is to be lived and we care so much for following rules that we forget the joy of being alive. Everything we did I made sure was safe. Every jump you made my arms were there to snatch you before any uncorrected landing. You hated me catching you so much that you learnt to land on your feet quickly. I made sure that you learnt manners and respect, I nearly laughed when you thanked a football referee after watching Eastbourne Borough F.C. We would both stand up on buses to let women or the elderly sit. I loved every moment of our five years together Quinn. We were best friends and father and son. I was blessed to watch you grow into the most amazing human and every step of our journey was priceless to me.

 

I have said though that every human has issues, I am not different. I have dramatic issues with acceptance, love and self worth. I can be honest because I have spent my life attempting to repair the damage of my youth. A vital lesson I learned in life is that truth is relative to the individual. The way we are built can make us perceive, feel and react to the same event in a unique way to everyone else involved. So we may never be able to agree with one another but it is important to not be stubborn. If we can learn to understand that difference is what makes this world beautiful then we can come to see that people need to see things in a different way to ourselves.

 

So I am not going to speak to much of your mother and anything I do say is not an attack on her. I love her Quinn, even now. I feel so much pain every time I look at her photo. If she had only loved me then we may well have been a family. Here, you see I say she did not love me and I do feel that I was used to help raise you. I was proud and honoured to help raise you and even if she had said she did not love me I would have stayed. It was the lies and deceit that I could not bare. Please remember this is my view and understanding and may well not be correct. I cannot speak for your mother, she may well have loved me but just not in a way that I could understand. I put up with it for a very long time and it caused me to do stupid things in an attempt to get her attention. Those stupid things laid the path that forced me to eventually walk away. So here we go, I will attempt to lay down the cause and reason that I am no longer by your side.

 

My issues orbit around love and acceptance they have caused many frictions in my life. I had been travelling alone for nearly ten years before I met your mother. At 26 I had no stable friends and only ever had one girlfriend, a relationship that lasted maybe 8 months when I was 23. I wanted something more and I have found that if you make genuine emotional calls to life things can happen. Your mum happened. A cold night sat at a bus stop and then she came towards me. Dressed in matching Burberry chequered patterned coat and hat. I thought she was looking into my eyes but then I realized I was sat in front of the bus time table. We started talking and I fell for her, about a month later she told me she was pregnant by her ex. He had abandoned you both and made it clear he wanted nothing to do with it. I tried, Quinn, to get him interested. I lost my father at 6 years old and the step father that came in was cold, hard and unloving. I wanted you to have your father.

 

I made the decision to stand by your mum (Lets call her Jane) and raise you as mine, a decision I have never and will never regret. The night you exploded into the world and I held you I felt something I never thought I would, connection to life. I knew my issues could complicate the relationship between your mother and I but having talked extensively to her I came to trust her. Over the five years we were together though our relationship was cold, un-passionate and essentially it was more of a friendship. Many excuses were offered to me, she claimed to be gay or non sexual or both. Some people are addicted to drink or drugs, I am addicted to being wanted. My youth has left me with those scars and they led me to do something that gave Jane the perfect excuse to blame me for the coldness of our relationship. It is a very rare thing in my life for women to show interest in me, but I met a lady who wanted me and I took the opportunity to feel wanted. I cheated on your mother, I am not proud. Suddenly the fact that I had cheated became an excuse for the lack of intimacy in our relationship. Everything was suddenly my fault. We broke up about three times over the 5 years and each time while we were separated Jane had an intimate encounter with a man. Then we got back together things were still cold. I found it hard to believe that a women claiming to be gay and non sexual could be with these guys for one night stands but not have any feeling towards me at all for 5 years. When we broke up for the last time she had another one night stand and is now pregnant with another child. This is not the actions of a non sexual and gay female, this is the action of someone not telling me the truth, in my opinion.

 

This issue though between Jane and I was not the only reason I left. We both had very different styles of and attitudes about being parents. We treated and raised you in totally different ways. Your behaviour towards your mother was appalling and getting worse. You would hit her, shout at her and refuse to do anything she asked of you. I am not sure why but for me you were a little diamond. This caused you mother great distress and we talked about the reasons a lot. Jane did not like hearing other people’s opinions though and my life was made very hard for suggesting certain things. The environment was becoming unstable and I did not want you exposed to this like I was in my childhood. I left so that you would only have one set of rules to live by, your mothers. I knew that my pain would increase with every new man Jane met. The look of love she had in her eyes for one of them stabbed me with so much hate and agony I felt my knees buckle. I knew if I stayed around that pain would increase and you would feel it, no matter how hard I tried to hide it.

 

I sent your mum letter after letter, email after email and text after text but never once got a response. I attempted to sort this but she could not be bothered to respond. I walked away hoping that by removing myself the relationship between your mother and you would improve, it has been nearly a year now. Your mother and I have shared words twice but every time I ask for answers still nothing offered. I know this may not answer everything Quinn, I am truly sorry. I hate that we are not together and I miss you so much. I was just in too much pain to be around your mother. I hate that I still love her, still miss her, still need her to love me and still feel like it is my entire fault. Your mother is amazing, like me though and every other human she has issues. The combinations of our issues led to this terrible decision, the wrong one for the right reasons.

 

Sharing blood means nothing my son, its the emotion and love that flows that gives relationships their meaning. You may not be my biological son but in every other way, both conceivable and non conceivable, you are a son to me and I will always be proud to be your dad. All I can do is write these words, to fill the space in time and distance between us. You may never find these words but it ensures that I am always reaching to you. I have no anger or regret towards your mother and please see the person that she is. We are not just the titles mother and father, we are humans too. Take the time son to see the person inside everyone and love them for their complexity, faults, talents, opinions, mistakes, failures, successes and efforts. We are human and perfection is not in our nature, it is just our destination. Everyday all of us do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons but no two people will be able to analyse them in the same way. Life is magical only if you allow it to be free and unrestricted.

 

Love Daddy,

x
29th October 2012

From my Facebook page, When I found out Jane was pregnant again I sent Jane this email. Penny was the girlfriend of 8 months some 4 years before I met your mother, I got no response. Names have been changed:

• June 22
• 

  2:39pm

  Human Voice

  When Penny and I broke up, I sat at the train station for over seven hours. Missed every train on purpose hoping that she would come running to the platform and tell me she made a mistake. I waited for you for over 6 months. To reply to my emails, texts, phone calls or letter but nothing came. Every time I have left you I was hoping you would come get me to show that you loved me, wanted me.

  I am so sorry that my issues were commitment and love, I needed to feel attractive, loved and wanted and this drove me to other women like a drug because I could not get that fix with you. You told me you were non sexual or gay, yet we break up and you’re in bed with Andy, we break up again and your with John, we break up again and you pregnant. Something about that just does not add up. You cannot blame my affairs Jane as it was the lack of intimacy that caused me to find wanting elsewhere. Being wanted is my drug, I am truly sorry for the pain this caused you. When I was with another woman I would wish it was your arms.

  I cannot take the emotion any more Jane, I am spent. I am still deluded that I love you and that we could be a family. I guess what I am saying is that six months is nothing in terms of moving on from those who you thought loved you and would be in your life forever.

  Quinn was always a different person with you than he was for me, I cannot be sure why this is but I seemed to provide a balance for him as he never gave me a quarter of the ill behavior he gave you. It will take longer than six months for him to become accustomed to the fact that his balance must now come from you, this is why I left. You both need to find balance and love. In my heart I will always be his dad and will be waiting endlessly for him to find me if he chooses to in his own time. I just cannot be a part of the environment you are creating for yourself and Quinn, it draws me into a world that is too damn painful. I have a lot of recovery to do and that environment prevents me doing this.

  I do feel cheated and used by you and seriously doubt the truth of your claims in that you loved me. Walking away from Quinn is the hardest decision I have ever had to make and was thinking my decision lacked worth until I found you are pregnant again. That provided the proof I needed that you deceived me and I cannot be a part of another broken family, my life is to broken as it is. It is too damn painful to attempt to deal with the intense emotions I feel towards you. The look you had in your eyes when you mentioned Johns name stabbed me with such intensity I would find my legs buckling under the strain.

  I do not want to become a bridge or wedge of emotion between you and my son. He has more chance of stability with you and if you keep this new man around him also (I take it the father knows?, Sticking around?, do I know him?). Please just stop playing people. We could have been happy if you and I had just got over our issues and stubbornness. You would never let me in and I could never accept that. I love you so damn much and that is the worst part.

  I must say I am so proud of you for the effort you have made. I have heard that you take him to Karate now, doing things as mother and son will help your relationship tremendously. I hope that one day you will see and realise how much I loved you and that everything I tried to do was to help you become the truly amazing person I saw inside, I never intended to hurt you as much as I obviously did. I ask you to please not blame me for everything like you have to your friends and family. Quinn needs the truth. The sad truth is that we were both just too stupid to see what we could have been had we let go of our issues and insecurities. I changed my whole world to stay by your side after knowing you less than a month, I never felt any appreciation or gratitude for that, but becoming Quinn's father made it all worthwhile.

  I guess you are still talking to my sister/brother as you know I have got into University. So I am sure he / she has told you many other things too. I am half the man without my son, but now feel that this is the only decision I can make that will prevent further damage to an amazing young man. 

  I have such deep regret about how things turned out between us but would like to thank you for an amazing and life changing experience. You are a special person that is loved so much by me, I even thought about marriage and that is most definitely a huge step forward in my romantic evolution. Please let Quinn know that my love for him is and always will shine like the stars and even when clouds obscure my love will shine down upon you both no matter where I am. Come what may x
• July 24

Reviews

[Truth Seeker]

Hello Turtle,
I have questions.......may I

[Turtle]

..................um, sure ok.

[Truth Seeker]

Excellent, Ok.
1) How would you think your son feels about being abandoned?
2) Do you think your son can forgive you for abandoning him?
3) If he was your biological son would you have made the same decision?
4) You made a brave choice but what if you are wrong?
I understand if you do not want to answer, for what it is worth I understand the decision you made. I think my parents constant argument caused my relationship issues. I often wish that one of them would have just given some distance. People think violence can only be done with physical violence and directed words. Often though it can come from the things the child overhears or the emotions it feels from the interactions of those around it. Directed violence is actually easier to deal with because it you and them. The no direct kind is confusing as you only get bits of conversations and bits of emotions. It can isolate you from the world and social interactions. If I was to ask more questions I might ask if you are writing this for him or yourself, but I asked enough. I am glad I found this though, I wish my dad or mum was the one writing it!

[Turtle]

Jesus!!!!!, Wow!!! Ok, I had not expected that but fair play! I will answer all of that, just not here. Will post another blog thing / write in response. Think I answered number three in this post though. Give me time to think and I will get back to your comment soon. Thank you, I think! 'Directed' and 'Non-Directed' violence. Really like those comments mate.