Sad Girl

The last thing I do on my way to work in the morning is turn on my cellphone. Maybe a true cellphone user wouldn't turn their's off to begin with, but I do. Sometimes I like to be beyond reach. Turning my phone on is not my favourite thing to do, because I can't help but be a little afraid of what might be awaiting me. Anyone familiar with my family knows that this little phobia isn't unwarranted... having been on the receiving end of some pretty harrowing phone calls in the last couple of years makes me naturally wary. And, unlike my brother, I have given my number to the source of those distressing phone calls... our mother. I am also the only one of us who has given their number to our dad, who is another source of unrest... but for different reasons.

This morning, when I turned on my phone, I received a multimedia test message from my father. This is the first time I have heard anything from him since receiving the misspelled, uncapitalized, unpunctuated holiday wish that he texted me on Christmas Day. Oh, unless you want to count the meangingless emails he fowards to everyone in his Hotmail address list. Today's text was a picture of my 6 year old half-brother, perched on the edge of a desk and waving. Waving at... who? Me? That's not very likely. The kid barely knows who I am. I doubt that if you filled a room up with girls he could pick me out from the crowd as the one who shares some of the same genetic material as him. Though, we do have the same nose.

It doesn't make me happy to hear from my dad. It makes me sad. It digs up all the disappointment I've kept successfully buried since the last time he was in touch. It gets me feeling all those emotions that I'm not fond of feeling, the ugly ones that I like to live without. It reminds me of how badly I want a good father, and how, unfortunately, I just don't get one.