I sat this morning when I got up (unwillingly ... again), and thought about how lonely and miserable I've been lately. I think I've got it figured out ... maybe not fixed, but I'm almost sure that I DO have it figured.
Much of my anger and annoyance is over a promise that is broken but should never have been made. A label that was most likely taken in ignorance. The Daddy Label.
You can take a combat boot and put it in the oven. You can even tell everyone that you are baking cookies. But when you take the boot out of the oven ... It won't be a cookie. It won't be chocolatey and chewy and warm. Well, it'll probably be warm ... but not good and chewy and sweet. You can give anything a label, but that doesn't make that label really fit. Likewise, you can take a label just because it sounds good and feels good, and you can put it on yourself. But if I put a duck label on forehead ... I still wouldn't be a duck, would I?
When Ryan and I got together, everything went so fast. I think he expected things to go differently with Joey. She was around twenty months when they met and she was still sweet and lovey. It was before the "terrible two's", which are indeed TERRIBLE. He had only a very fragile bond with her in the beginning, and that was okay, I didn't want him to be pressured to feel something for her that he just didn't feel. The two-year-old child who replaced my sweet one-year-old drove a wedge between them ... a big one.
The trouble started when he said to me that he thought he loved her. That he couldn't imagine waking up in the morning and not seeing her. That he couldn't imagine something bad happening to her. The trouble was already growing in intensity when he was up all night, miserable for her because she was sick and coughing in her fevered sleep. It was multiplying when he talked about adopting her, and how much he hates Richard for being a loser dad. But the trouble really came with The Daddy Label.
He said he wanted her to call him Daddy, that he was planning to be around for a VERY LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG TIME, and that he was in love with us. That we were everything to him, that he couldn't imagine being without us.
How did I feel about this? Come on, you guys. Every girl, no matter how shattered her heart, still hopes for that crazy love that surpasses everything. The romantic love ... the one that comes with a love that is just natural and you don't have to work for it, you don't have to earn it. The kind of love that is just there, but is still more powerful than any force in the world.
I was THRILLED! I thought, "Now your talkin'!"
But now? Now I am just disappointed. Not in him, but in myself for hoping and getting shot down again. After all that Daddy talk ... He still talks like a Dad. He still helps with making the rules, and he still enforced them like a Drill Sergeant. But he used to play with her ... he doesn't play anymore. He used to read to her ... he doesn't read anymore. He used to hug her and snuggle her ... but no more.
What does he do? Well, I told you ... he helps to make the rules and make sure they are rock-solid. No exceptions to rules, no bending the rules, and they are unbreakable. He goes to work faithfully, when he isn't sick, and he brings home the money for groceries and bills and stuff. But all the little things that really count? Nope.
No coming home from work with a smile, and a "Hi guys, I've missed you." No, it's "Leave me be for a damn minute, I had a bad day." He doesn't even notice when I've had such a bad day that my eyes are swollen from crying. Maybe he does notice. Maybe I just tell myself that he doesn't notice, and maybe the truth is that he no longer cares.
I remember when we first got together, several times that Joey would bring him a book, and beg him to read it to her, and he would, smiling because she is irresistable. But now, she doesn't even bother. She knows better. And she gets so little from him, that when he wakes up in the morning and glances at her for the first time, she is so happy, just because he looked at her. And most of the time, it isn't even a happy look. It's the grumpy 'I-just-woke-up' look. But her whole face lights up and she runs to me shouting, "Mommy, Daddy see me!!!!! Daddy see me!!!!" Then she gets in trouble with him for shouting.
I remember when he did real dad stuff, just for the fun of it. One time I wasn't feeling too hot, and we took a nap together when Joey was taking hers. When she woke up, I was sleeping so soundly that I I didn't hear her. So Ryan sneaked out of our bed and went to get her. He got her some juice and took her in the living room to play until I woke up. He kept her quiet so that I could rest. How considerate ... What happened to that guy? The one who carefully and skillfully won my heart from me, even though I'd been guarding it so very fearfully?
Another time, he took her to the potty because she said "potty," and he knew what she wanted even though it sounded nothing like potty at the time. She was just getting the hang of it, and he took her, and he cleaned her, and he praised her. Now? If she shouted in his ear with a bull-horn so that he couldn't possibly ignore her, he'd yell at her to leave him alone. And he doesn't understand her Toddler-speak anymore anyway. They live together, and he is her favorite person to talk to, but he doesn't understand her. Because he doesn't take the time to listen.
She doesn't watch closely for him to get up in the morning anymore. She still runs to him when he gets home from work, but less enthusiastically than she did before, and someday soon, she will stop doing that too. She is a different kid when he is there. She is quieter, she is more guarded. She glues herself to my side because I will stick up for her when she is in trouble and shouldn't be. She doesn't beg for his time anymore ... she knows she won't get it.
It makes me doubt my choices, myself. What if I chose a new version of Mr. Wrong? I can't even really talk about this with him, like I would've before. When we would fight before, or when one of us was less than happy ... we would talk it out. Always. Now? When we fight, it is a silent thing that sits between us until we get used to it. But it isn't solved, we just get used to the new wall between us. It is killing me because it is killing the relationship. I can't be with someone who only wants to silently co-exist. To live with someone and to have a healthy love for each other, there should be openness and companionship. As for Joey? I don't know how much longer I can go on like this ... But so far, she still loves him, so we will see. It always rested on her anyway ... I will do what's best for her.
We are planning a trip in a few months, so this trip (it was a three hour drive, I think) provided Ryan and I some "road trip practice". It gave us a chance to see how our trip later on might go. And it gave us new reassurance that we were taking our next trip AT NIGHT, while Joey is sleeping peacefully in the backseat, instead of giving us her version of "Are we there yet?"
I had to stay out on the porch alone for a while, and I was pretty deep in thought, just trying to gather myself and keep from crying. I couldn't stop smiling. It was really a lovely day ... till we got home.
