these trees have nothing to do with it

I thought I found one of my many half brothers the other day. Every once in a while when I see a father & daughter I get really bummed and then go online and start doing Google searches for my father and siblings. The other day I found his third wife and the store she owns and then I thought I found one of my half brothers from that marriage. I emailed him but it was the wrong Alex. I gave him a succinct 4 sentence response when he wanted an explanation to my email but he never wrote back again and it made me feel a bit vulnerable and regretful that I even tried explaining anything to him. I'm not sure why it's bothering me. I guess because I'm usually secretive about my life...that is until I started this blog which I still have mixed feelings about.

My dad took off and left my mother with a newborn (me) and my 2 older brothers. He left her for a young rich girl who drove a fast red sports car and then married and had two boys with her. Before he met my mom he had a son with his first wife. Last I heard he was on his fourth wife and family (that was 14 years ago).

He wanted to meet my brothers and I when I was 10, so I saw him a few times over the course of about a year and a half??? The last time I saw him I was visiting his city doing a swim meet and staying with another family at a hotel where he was supposed to meet and take me out to dinner. He was very late and the family I stayed with very sweetly invited me to come to dinner with them instead and made up excuses for my father's apparent absence.

We put on our jackets and descended to the lobby in the elevator, and once the doors opened, there stood my father. He brought his 17 year old "babysitter" with him because supposedly his car broke down, so she gave him a ride. "You don't mind, right!" he told me.

He then gave me $5 to go and get quarters and play the pinball machine. I obeyed even though I didn't want to play pinball, I wanted to be with him, so I hurriedly played the $5 worth and ran back to the dinner table to find him kissing this young girl. He was about 40. I walked slowly to the table and sat with my head lowered the rest of the meal. I didn't understand at the time why it made me so ashamed to witness that.

One day, 6 years ago, a friend of mine basically kidnapped me and drove me out to my father's city and pulled her car over to a pay phone once we reached downtown. She asked me my half brother's names and I told her a bit reluctantly, not knowing what she had in mind to do. We found one name matching the older boy so she put her coins in the phone and dialed his number then handed me the phone once it started ringing. Fuck. It was the answering machine and I was about to hang up but she grabbed the phone and pushed it back to me mouthing "leave a message". Ugh, you can imagine how that went.

After that I hung up and we walked around the corner to a church and although neither one of us is religious we entered it and leaned back in a wooden pew and talked for some time. Sitting there in the calm of that building with her made me so happy suddenly, because having a friend like that far outweighed the sadness I had felt that day over my father. The whole reason she took me there in the first place was because we were driving home from the Renn Fest (where we worked at that time) and I was telling her about a dream I had about him or something that bummed me pretty severely that day. She asked if I wanted to go and see him and I said of course....I think I do? She turned the car around, peeling out in a gas station and started heading in the opposite direction.

Anyway, these trees pictured have nothing to do with my story, they just feel like home as they are right outside my apartment. I needed something comforting to go with this entry.