Daddy Issues

So I don't like to call it that but, if I'm being honest with myself, that is part of it I'm sure.

My biological father died when I was 7. He was 23. Yes, that math is right, he and my mom had me when they were 15. Don't worry...they were married. They were divorced a year later but stayed good friends.

I honestly don't have a ton of memories of him. I would go there to visit but he worked a lot and I spent more time with his fiancé and her daughter...who my mom and I remain somewhat close with. He was not a major part of my life.

When I was 9, my grandfather (mom's dad) shot himself. That was a life altering blow for me. He was a huge part of my life, my mom and I moved in with him and my grandmother when I was 1 and he was very much the father figure in my life. He did it the day my mom and I moved out to go live with my step-dad and his kids...his note said because now he felt like we'd be taken care of...ugh.

I struggled to accept he was actually dead because when my dad died we got to see his body but with my grandfather, for obvious reasons, we didn't. My mother (we'll get to her more) was so consumed with her own emotions that mine were "too much" for her and so I needed to "knock it off" because my being so upset was just upsetting her all the more and she couldn't deal with it.

Eventually I had an "experience", I don't know what it was, but at the time what I remember...was my grandfather coming to visit me. I remember everything about it still, us going out into the living room and looking out over the valley at the house we'd all lived in...I was spending the night with my grandmother before the house was sold. We were watching the sun come up and he didn't really want me to look at him...he was wearing like a pumpkin head mask (he shot himself in the head). But I knew it was him and we talked and he made me accept he was gone. Then I was good.

Which freaked my mother out.

So THEN I was put into counseling.

Not a whole lot came of it. I was really bothered by the fact that there weren't headstones for either of them. My grandfather was so distraught over my father's death that he couldn't bring himself to get a headstone and my grandfather's ashes were spread on the property in the pet cemetery we had (he asked for it). In the end, I ended up using my Social Security money to buy a headstone for my father and I made one for my grandfather and drug it up the hill into the woods myself.

So for a while, things were okay. My step-dad was rather closed off from me. My parent's sort of raised us on their own even though they were married and we all lived under the same roof. My mom parented me and my dad parented his boys.

When I was in 5th grade, we got a new band teacher. I don't know what it was about him...but I so wanted to please him. He was just this short, passionate, enthusiastic little man and he was HARD to please. But I set about it.

I played clarinet as my first instrument and then taught myself how to play piano on a roll of fax paper when I was sick with mono in 6th grade. In 7th, I picked up the flute and LOVED it. He refused to even entertain the idea...he said I was too good on clarinet and that's what the band needed.

By the time I was in 8th grade, every single study hall, I spent it in the band room practicing. I practiced every day, hours a day. He appreciated my dedication.

Eventually he bought me a practice book for the clarinet...still unwilling to entertain the idea of me as a flutist. He also helped me get into a month long music camp in Maine.

That next year...I think I was in 9th grade, he heard something coming from the practice room and came to see. He was expecting to see his first chair flute player...and instead he found me. He was STUNNED. Because he wouldn't ever entertain the idea of me on the flute he didn't realize I was actually very good. At that point he broke down and agreed to let me go to All-County on the flute.

Flute and clarinet translate well into saxophone and so he invited me to join the jazz band and helped me get a great deal on an amazing tenor saxophone. He nurtured everything I did with music, he became that father figure in my life, my sophomore year we made plans for me to go to All-County on bass clarinet (which I'd also picked up) and I was going to be a drum major for the marching band as a junior and 1st chair Tenor in Jazz Band. He gave me a piece to practice over the summer on the bass clarinet for the following year along with the 1st chair tenor music.

Then I was at piano lessons over the summer and my piano teacher asked me about the band director job opening. That's how I found out my mentor had left. To say I was devastated was an understatement. It was yet another voluntary abandonment.

So then I went on the offense and said fine...I'm not going to let any other man in my life who I might remotely become attached to...and I began "messing around with" this jock who I thought was a conceited asshole, he had a LT girlfriend, and so I thought he was safe. However, it turned out that he was just wildly confident in areas where he was justified to be that way and he was very "heavy handed" with me in terms of demands he made of me...he was also very into sharing me with his friends.

I honestly think that is where those pieces of my sexuality formed. He wanted his friends to envy what I was giving to him on a regular basis. He never shared me with anyone more than once (I think 4 friends in total over the course of our "relationship"). He knew what he wanted and he wasn't afraid or ashamed to ask for it and he made it okay for me to enjoy the things we were doing. I gave him a lot of head!

Despite my best efforts, I became hopelessly obsessed with pleasing him on the one hand and terrified of the craving I had for his approval. Ultimately, the fear won out and I got attached to the insecure asshole and moved across the country. Right up until the very end, I continued to mess around with my jock...it was around two years that we were "together" and it took me a long time to get past the pain I felt in leaving behind what we'd had.

I tell you this so maybe you will understand my fear of you a bit more, I accepted my father's death as a fluke, but my grandfather chose to leave, then my band teacher chose to leave...and then when I tried to find someone I couldn't care less about if they left, I ended up instead with someone who I thrived under and ran from as a result.