Daddy Issues

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess from the kingdom called The Bronx. Now this was a rough kingdom but the princess was smart, so smart that she was asked to study in a fine university far away. There she met a handsome prince from a nearby kingdom. He was brilliant, charming and came from a much nicer kingdom. They fell in love; but when it was discovered that the princess was expecting a royal visitor, the prince was not interested in fatherhood.

Years past and the baby princess born of their union, heard tales of the charming prince who sired her and of his beautiful kingdom but never met him. In time they made a new life with another prince to be the little girls father, but he was a religious man and a random comment on religion made by the princess at a young age, created a rift made larger every passing year. So great was the rift that there became a noticeable difference of treatment between her adopted father and how he treated his actual daughters. All this just in time for the delightful teen years. As a form of coping and relief, the princess spent much of her time dreaming of her birth father and his beautiful kingdom, wondering why he left and if her life would be less difficult if he had been around.

20 years later the young princess has had some rough times but made it on her own, with little help from her mother and no help from her adopted father, unlike her many sisters. Her mother the princess has remarried and finally gone on to fulfill her own dreams but not before a fated 50th birthday made her nostalgic and convinced her to find the missing prince so her daughter could meet her father.

Still brilliant, she found him and asked her daughter to meet him. He was everything she had hoped, kind, charming, intelligent and very wealthy. After their first meeting, he offered to be a father and help her to go to university as she had always dreamed of but never had been able to afford as her financially painful 20s had ruined her credit. But she had already joined the military and volunteered to deploy over seas to pay her own way, as she had always done her whole life.

He seemed worried but offered again to help with tuition when she did finally get to university. As she was overseas, sitting in a desert, an idea came to the princess, maybe instead of tuition which is already paid for, he could help with the cost of living so she wouldn’t have to work 2 jobs while going to school full time.

Once home she asked for this amended help since he was so quick to offer his help and so very wealthy (they actually went to Africa on vacation this summer, I stayed with family a few states away and winced every time a kid decided to eat from the adult menu)… And his wife said no, which meant he said no. When questioned as to why, they said the offer had been for tuition only.

Fast forward to today:

Two years later, going to community college full time 12-18 credits a semester, maintaining a 3.7, going to more events for the kids than their father, working part time at a home improvement store, and still in the national guard with 6 soldiers that I look after, I’ve gotten into a real university with amazing scholarships and grants for that 3.7 so that even with the tuition going up by $16,000 a semester, there is no bill for it, but with a better school I knew the demands on my time would translate into more work. Plus my recent surgery has put working on a back burner and the bills are piling up. So last night I filled an email with my every thought on the matter, I mean everything! How I didn’t understand last time, how I thought he would be proud of how I’ve done so far and how if he really want to help his daughter he could help with bills. I even threw a random number in there.

Of course I realized I was emotional from my surgery and had my first drink in a month while I wrote it, so I decided to save the rant, come back tomorrow sober and edit out the crazy. I reached for the save with my mouse and accidentally clicked send! I hadn’t even finished the letter. After a few minutes of Oh Shit! I wrote an explanation/apology  and basicly told him the truth.

Haven’t heard back but I’m willing to bet that bridge has been burned and I forgot the marshmallows.

Fuck