I hate Father’s Day

As I sat in Shavasana at the end of a Father’s Day Yoga class with my favorite instructor, I cried. I cried for the entire minute and beyond. Father’s Day this year was harder than others. I didn’t think to text a single person. I was with my nuclear family, said ‘Happy Father’s Day’ to my husband, after my mother-in-law said it to my father-in-law. I also said it to him too. The yoga class was on the Tuesday after Father’s Day and while laying listening to Cat Steven’s Father and Son’s followed by John Meyer’s Daughters, I cried.

I always cry when I hear Daughters. “I know a girl, She puts the color inside of my world…Fathers be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do.” Really the whole song, but these few lines are the ones that always get me. I’ll never know if I am the color inside my dad’s world. I mean, how could I be? If someone is your light, you let them know. I’m so glad I love bigger than my father.

I remember thinking on Father’s Day how much this day sucked. My husband thinks father’s day is stupid, and so does his father. So that helps me not feel all the feelings on that day.

At the end of class, Denis talked fondly of his father and how he is so grateful for his love and support throughout his life. I realize I have zero idea what that feels like. My father did not nurture me or support me in an emotional way that makes me feel like I am the light in his life or even that I matter in his life. My reaching out is why he knows anything about my family and me. I find this exhausting and a bit like a child who needs attention, which at my age feels pretty darn ridiculous. And at the same time, I guess we never really stop wanting love from our parents.

My stepfather is enthusiastically a father to his biological daughter. Even though he loves me, I was never his daughter, so he never treated me that way. I see the difference. I feel the difference. It’s clear that I was part of his wife’s life and never really brought into his family. I knew his parents before I knew him, that’s a whole different story. I was never their grandchild, though I did very much enjoy time with his father. He was such a warm and kind man to me. Mushy loved to tell stories, and my kids loved to hear them.

Essentially I’ve never had my own real father figure. And that sucks. I think it sucks more to have had two opportunities and that led me to many years of thinking I wasn’t enough for them to want to be my dad. I am so glad I have witnessed what a great father figure is in my friend’s families. I am pretty awesome and have made my own pretty awesome family, I know it’s their loss. It still sucks.