what's mine is mine.

Oh, what The Great DR Purge is bringing up.

As we go through our things and decide what goes and what stays, it brings out a lot of memories to relive.

Good, bad and ugly.

... i will have to scan and post my 80's hair for ya!!! ...

One such memory, is a picture of being reunited with my dad in '99.

It saddens me that I have a deadbeat dad who is a manchild.

Since that reconciliation, I've tried to have a relationship with him, but it's not possible with someone who doesn't know how to do it, or give back.

Having said that, I understand a little bit more about him.

He got a girl pregnant at 15, and I can envision how sad my dad must have been to always know there's a child of his out there that was taken from him at such a young age.

I sympathize with the feeling of grief.

I more than perceive the feeling of guilt.

I can picture how it stumped his emotional development, and even when I popped up as a mistake only two years after he let go of his first child, he didn't take that as an opportunity to work on himself.

Instead, he threw himself further into the abyss of drugs.

When I saw that picture last night, it flattened out my heart.  I had to put it down to remember why it is I can't have a relationship with him.

If you want a friend/family, you have to be a friend/family.

It's so hard to know I can never expect a birthday call from him, or for that matter, a belated congratulations on my wedding.

He can't be there for anything in my life that has importance to me.

There's nothing to share with him, because he's an empty shell.

Seeing it in that picture crushed me.

I could see the wanting of a father in my little girl in my face.  I was hunched over, shoulders turned inwards and was as small as I could possibly be, with the greatest smile I could ever muster.

He was my dad for that small girl who didn't have him to grow up with, if only for that moment.

I have a visual to remember that.

Having lived a life of a fair amount of loss, this photograph is another example of why I am responsible to fill myself up, because I could never count on anyone else to do it.

Certainly, he can't, won't and never will.

He abandoned me when I needed him most, which has made it very difficult to trust anyone as I grew to a woman.

Well, I have a brother out there who probably grew up in a wonderful 2 parent home, with so much love that he may never have had to feel this loss.

I found out his birth mother's name.

My aunt was gracious enough to give a phone call to my sperm donor to find out her name so that my baby sister and I can start on the journey of finding our big brother.

I've known of his presence from a young age, even if nobody believed me all these years.

I feel like he may be searching for us as well.

He's out there.

That little missing piece of our family.

I wonder what he's like.

Healthy?  Happy?  Successful?  Perhaps, none of the above?

It doesn't matter to me, because all I need to do is find him for whatever reason, because I've been psychically connected to him since I was a young girl.

As for dear ol' dad, I have so much love for you, but it's sad to say, love just isn't enough.

we have to accept that some things may never be ours, and learn to appreciate the things that are only ours and ours alone.