I often wonder...

While at Auntie's house, we came across pictures of my Mother and Father.
My Mother kicked the That Girl flip hairdo... I always thought that was funny.

My father looks very young. I think he was fresh from his tour of duty in the Vietnam war in these pictures. I think they were both only 20 or 21 at the time of these pics.

I soon realized that there are no pictures of us together- none of me, my Mother, and my Father together.

They divorced when I was a year old. I never got to know him well. We always went to his house for Christmas, which I dreaded. I didn't like having to go see this man that I simply did not know. My mother noticed how exasperated I was over all of it, and I think around the age of 10, the visits ceased. I saw him again when I was 21, at the funeral of his mother. His father died when I was 22. I went to the funerals, didn't sit with the family, only sat in the back of the church. I remember him yelling at me later, mad because I didn't come by his house.

I wanted to say... "I don't even know you."

That was enough for me to go the other way. People who know me know, if there is the slightest whiff of drama in the air, I disappear into thin air.

Here it is, some 15 years later, and I still don't know him.

When I bought my house in Downtown Atlanta, one of the first things I thought was "My father lives on the east side, less than 10 minutes away."

Shoot. Wish I was bold enough to stop by.

But I often wonder...

Who I would be...

If I was raised by both my mother and father all these years.

I have so many quirks and idiosyncracies that I can't even keep count. I often wonder if many of those would exist if I was from a "functional" home.

You know, I wonder if I would be a "normal" person.

I expressed to my Aunt a couple of years ago that I wanted to call my Father. I didn't want anything from him, just wanted to sit down and have dinner with him or something, and go on about my business. I called, but he was so shocked to hear from me that not many words were said. I took it wrong, I suppose, and haven't called back... losing his phone number since then.

I often wonder...

Has he thought of me?

Would he be proud of me?

Would he be proud of who I've become?

I often wonder if I will ever muster the courage to find out...