You know how sometimes something really big happens in your life and you know it is going to have massive consequences but at the time the whole thing seems pretty ordinary? I got that feeling when I graduated (both times….yeah, I’m a sucker for punishment!) you feel nervous beforehand, but when you are actually doing it you realise it is pretty mundane, but it’s like a new stage in your life, an evolution.

Today I spoke to my real dad for the first time in over 16 years. Now, I reckon alot of you would be pretty surprised by this for two reasons - firstly because if you know me in the real world, you wouldn’t probably know that the guy that I call my dad is actually not my natural father, and I think that that actually sums it up for the readers who only know virtual little h.

Let me tell you the story. The beginning is that my mum and my natural father married very young. Looking at the situation through adult eyes, they weren’t compatable and their lives were pretty grim. They started off with pretty much nothing and they scraped together what they could. Me and my sister were born pretty early on, which probably added alot of pressure as well.

My childhood memories were yelling, shouting, mum packing me and my sister up and heading to Newcastle to stay with her parents while things cooled off. It was a scary time and as a little kid I didn’t really understand what was happening. My mum, who is prone to melodrama at the best of types would always be in hysterics and as such my sister and I would freak out too.

When I was 9, my dad came to school and took me out of class and told me that they were getting a divorce. I didn’t ever expect that that would happen. My world stopped. I remember the day clearly, especially as my dad took me into the girls toilets to get some toilet paper cause I was crying… funnily, I remember thinking that boys weren’t allowed in the girls toilet and that if he was allowed in, then everything was different, and of course it was.

We moved. Mum, my sister and me. I didn’t have my toys. I missed my strawberry quik coloured room and my barbies. We went to Nanas and it smelt funny. My grandpa had just died and I was scared of his ghost getting me in the night. Mum took us on car rides to theme parks on the weekends and slept all the rest of the time. We saw dad on the weekends, but they’d still fight when he’d pick us up. Dad would take us rollerskating and buy us bon bons, but my sister and I weren’t really happy.

Gradually the fighting got worse. Mum got a restraining order. She also got a boyfriend. They’d take us swimming after school and buy us beer battered fish. Her boyfriend became associated with ice cream spiders, sand and salt. Mum got happier and smiled more. Dad got angrier and asked strange questions about where the new man slept and then would get quiet. It wasn’t fun to see him anymore. Mum would always be cross when we got home too.

I don’t know when I decided, if you can call a nine year old’s choice an actual decision, not to see my real dad. There was pressure everywhere, from mum, from nana, from the new boyfriend. Even mum’s friend, my beloved “aunty” was against it. He was bad they said, he smoked and drank too much…. he hit your mum (a lie), he’s violent, he’s no good. Then the crush came. Dad got angry in the car. Said I was just like my mum and I was suddenly petrified— I’m like her. He hates her, he hurts her, now she’s not around, he’ll hurt me. My last words to him…. ” I love you dad, but I don’t want to see you anymore” were so final. I felt grown up, I felt like I had made a decision, The best decision, and mum was happy. The boyfriend, she said, could be your new dad. A better dad, and we can have a new family. So I tried to make it work — for mum.

My real dad was frantic. He called, he tried driving past the way I walked to school, he sent presents…. the more he tried, the more scared I got until the very thought of him made me feel sick enough to vomit. All the while I was fed a string of subtle misrepresentations and negativity. I became a virtual recluse, hiding away trying to avoid meeting him. Then the gifts stopped and I thought that he had forgotten me. That hurt too. There was no right answer. I wanted to feel loved, but I didn’t want a connection. Life passed like this until I was 18, and I left my hometown to go to Uni. It was liberating to not feel scared, but even so, I got a private number and tried to keep my whereabouts a secret, while at the same time, keeping a photo of him, which I looked at from time to time trying to see a family resemblance.

6 months ago, my quiet little life was disrupted by a thin, carefully addressed letter in a flowery patterned envelope, no return address. Two paragraphs that changed my life. He was proud/ he loved me/ he thought of me. By this point, my relationship with my mum was rocky, my stepfather was distant and disinterested and I was longing for a parental figure who would just simply care about what I did in my life and appreciate me. It came at the right time and I wrote back, an awkward, clumsy letter. Thus started a slow correspondence, with months in between of ramblings between two people who really didn’t know much about each other.

So, two days ago my sister - still in touch with my natural father all these years (to the detriment of our relationship) calls me and asks if he can call me. I was panicked. Calling and writing are very different…. writing was safe, impersonal. I could write what I wanted and not answer awkward questions. But a part of me, a very small hidden part wanted to take the step and move forward, which is what I did an hour or so ago.

How does it feel, you might think? Well, I was stressed beforehand, but slept surprisingly well last night. I was a little worried at work, but not more so that I would be for a job interview. The doubts were there — will he like me? will he ask questions that I don’t want to answer? will he be angry? but I kept pushing them down and got through the day. The actual call was hard for the first 5 minutes — a long lost voice can shock a little, but after a while it seemed so normal. We talked for about an hour, and promised to again.

I can’t say I love him in the whole sense at this stage. I love him for being my father and for the years of childhood that I had, cause there were happy memories there as well as bad. He is familiar, but a stranger at the same time, and it will take a while to learn to love and trust. Years have passed and our roles, that of father and daughter, have to be defined to suit our changed situations and needs. But we have time, and I think that we will sort things out. I guess that just leaves my issues with my mother, who encouraged the original separation and that is the area that I am really dreading……

People who have been in the same situation might find literature on the area useful. There is a phenomenon called “parental alienation syndrome”, whereby a parent either consciously or subconsciously (or both) influences a child to “decide” to cease contact with the other parent. There are also support groups for adult sufferers of the syndrome.

I’ll keep you all informed.

little h.