Nobody ever really talks about the good times. Sometimes even I like to believe they never happened. I’ve been away from my abusive and narcissistic father for about 4 years now and sometimes those good days still haunt me. He’s the one that taught me how to hunt and how to fish. He took me all over the south to different states, fishing, hiking, seeing things. He’s the one that took me to Disney world and the one that brought me back all kinds of cool stuff from his trips to Thailand to visit my stepmoms family. He helped me build my retro video game arsenal. He had so many cool guns and always knew how to fix things.

But,

The dark parts remain.

Every time we had those memories I dive deeper into them. Remembering how when I was lost at Disney world and when he found me, the only thing he was concerned with was how mad at me he was. No emotions, no affection, those things were for women not for men. Every time we’d go hunting or fishing it’s like I found a new way to disappoint him. When I couldn’t drag a deer or Turkey out of the woods I was a disappointment. When I didn’t understand how to drive stick at age 11 I was a disappointment.

The bruises, the slaps, the boot prints in my ribs, they all hailed in comparison to how awful he made me feel with his words and the look of shame in his eyes.