Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

How important is a father to a daughter I wonder. I can't help wondering that now. Napoleon's annoying me. Do you mind if I vent a little? No one actually has to read this, it's not my normal kind of entry where I secretly hope I'll get lots of views and comments this one's just done purely for the sake of it.
For those of you who don't know Napoleon is what I call...........................my dad. Apologies for the long pause. Even my hands seem to resist saying that. It just feels wrong to think of him like that. Napoleon is so much easier to say. Don't worry, there's no underlying reason that I feel wrong calling him.....that. It's just that I don't feel he's much deserving of the title dad or father. Maybe I'm just being a selfish brat.
Come on, it's not like either of my parents are bad. They didn't abandon me in the sense that I was orphaned they didn't neglect me I was never starved or poor or short of possessions. Until recently I had 2 PC's (one of which was breaking, hence the second) I've had consecutive games consoles. Master system 2 (That was SEGA, wow, it's really old and I've never met anyone who's ever heard of it besides me, perhaps I got the name wrong, but that's what I've always known it as) Super nintendo, N64, Gameboy Colour, Playstation 2, Xbox 360, Nintendo DSi (Although that one I bought with my own money back when I had a job. I always pretended I didn't want one so that neither of them would buy it for me. It felt wrong to actually request such an expensive item) There are toys and such too but it's those kinds of items that people are most jealous of. So why do I feel neglected even when I wasn't, when I have no right to say that because I haven't really experienced neglect. There are without a doubt people all over the world who would cry out for an upbringing like mine. You spoilt brat. What more do you want? Come on, you had all that. Any other child would've killed for that kind of stuff growing up. Some were only lucky enough to have one of those things. All those things (except the last one) were courtesy of Napoleon. So how can I hate him. Surely that's a doting father, no?
I forget when. I always remember it as being when I was very young, but mum remembers it as when I was older so I can't pinpoint the exact time. Napoleon moved out. It was so subtle that I barely noticed. I don't know the reason, just that they "fell out of love" what a crappy excuse. You shouldn't have bothered having a child then should you!!! Napoleon started not coming home. Slowly moving things out as and when he wanted them and never told us where he went. Him being him, probably to a mate's house. He's not the kind of guy most women fall for so I doubt it was another woman. Although I have to state one thing. If it was and or still is I don't much care anymore. Really. It's if he actually had a second family, other children besides me that I couldn't stand. If he had and I'd been introduced I could get over it I guess. But now I'm 23 years old. So it's far too late. I decided that if he'd had any other children after he married my mother (ones before I will forgive if they exist, since I wasn't around or even an issue then) I decided I'd kill them. Pretty selfish huh? Sometimes I think about it, him having a second family and it pisses me off so much that I can't stand it. So I decided that if he left me for another family, or had one after he left me I'd slaughter them all. Why should they have his love and not me huh?
Ah, but Blue, you said he gave you all those things, those expensive things other children would've killed for. Isn't that a sign of his love for you? You call it love. Maybe it is. Sorry though, I just can't help seeing it as a man who is a stranger to his daughter trying to buy her love. Buying things he thinks she'd like because he doesn't know what she wants.
I said stranger. It's not like he up and left without a word. He'd visit. Sometimes in the evening or the morning (Mum and I hated morning visits because it made us later for school than usual. Why couldn't he understand that) and he'd often do a kind of "while I'm here" might as well check the car which held us up even more. Could it be that he was actually concerned for us and wanted to make sure all was well, make sure we didn't blow up on the way to school? Perhaps. Perhaps not. He's incredibly hard to read.
For a while he came to visit me on weekends, when I was sleeping in late. I hated that but I kind of liked that I got to see him. After a while it became tedious though. Sometimes he'd drop in after or before I got home from school (when I started taking the bus home and got back between 5-6pm). He got me to call him every day when I lived at Uni (I lived in halls of residence for my first year, commuted for the other 2). He sends me a text every morning about the weather, something like "Hi sunny today xxx" Always with the xxx. The least xxx person in the world. I think he just does it out of habit. I never reply, I see no point. I used to call him weekly, or when I was bored but recently I've cut him off and only call him when he has post or something breaks (like my old PC). Now he just visits when I tell him he's got post or when he's in the area, which can be weeks or even months.
You don't know how tedious it is to talk to this old man. Give him the slightest thing to sink his teeth into and he'll harass you about it until you want to strangle him. Student finance. I don't want to take out a loan this year, I can pay the tuition fees myself (I took out a loan in my first year and withdrew a savings account they set up when I was a baby but barely spent it, so I was able to pay my own tuition fees for my second and third years) I'm not taking out a loan, I don't want to have to pay all that back. Fine fine don't take out the loan but take out this grant because you don't have to pay it back. Time passes. Take out the grant thing. You don't have to pay it back. No interest blah blah blah. Have you done it yet? Why not? You don't pay it back. etc. etc. etc. Hey old man. I looked into it. You happy now? And? (Student finance is now done online, form is a little confusing when you're only trying to get one thing) Looks like I can't take that out without taking out a loan (the main loan). No just get the grant. You can't get that without taking the loan. I don't want them to pay my tuition fees, it's easier if I do it myself. But take out the grant, you don't pay it back. I can't without taking out the loan. I don't want to get into more debt.
That's just one such issue we've had. And now you're thinking but Blue, maybe he was just concerned for you financially, what's wrong with that? My answer? Nothing. The way he goes about things is what's so annoying. He never listens. He also backtracks. The number of times we've been in a situation like that and half way through, just as I might be coming around to what he's saying, he spoils it by going back on himself and saying something else. So much so that I just ignore him when he goes on about one of these things. These things have included; Uni, student finance, job, student finance, his mate has a son at uni, job, student finance, job, graduation, job, librarian (to shut him up I mentioned that I was thinking a library or a book shop would be good. Big mistake. Never tell him something like that because he'll bang on about it until you lose all interest in the idea), the dog, Student finance, Work (got a job for me. Whoop-de-****ing-do). During the past couple of years I've worked with him on 2 jobs. Both boring as hell. Both strenuous on my weak and flabby muscles (just because I'm weak, not because the work was too hard or anything, decorating, mainly painting, partially heavy lifting, having to listen to loud drilling, dust, dirt) The greatest trial of it all, getting along with the old man for an extended period of time. I got fed up with him. These days I get angry when he visits for 10 minutes and it can ruin my whole day. Imagine how bad it is to spend the whole day with him. And now he's doing a job nearby. Whoop-de-****ing-do. It's a short walk from here and he says I can bring the dog now and then for a run around in the garden. Now the garden thing is tempting. I desperately want to let Yuki run around freely without worrying about her escaping but it couldn't be every day he says. No way in hell am I leaving this dog here alone. God knows what she'd get up to. She'd be so happy to see me and rush in for a hug and I'd be pissed off from a day of working with the old man and covered in paint and dirt that I'll get angry with the dog when there's no reason and I'd feel guilty. Trust me. Prolonged exposure to that man is not good for me. I'll get to the point where I want to choke him.
Ah. I've rather lost the point. What was is again. Ah yes. I rather hate Napoleon. I have no respect for him. I mostly ignore him when I can. I never felt that he was ever there for me and so think of him as an absent father. I should point out that he's been paying household bills up until recently, but he's transferring that to us now since he can't keep up 2 houses. Twice during prolonged exposure he's called me Suzie. My name's Emma. I fail to see how he can mistake the name of his only daughter. I gather he may have lived with someone called Suzie, what she is to him I don't much care. If you're wondering why I'm throwing all this in now it's because I want to put it all in but I forgot about all this earlier. When mum was pregnant with me most people thought I'd be a boy. He was determined to name me after him. Then when I come out I'm a girl. Shock horror. After hearing that I've always thought he was disappointed to have a girl, maybe he was. But they agreed on both a boy's name for me and a girl's so maybe it wasn't as big a deal as I thought. He freely admits that the first thing he said when he saw me was something like "hasn't she got big hands". I'm bad at sports. I'm bored by model trains. I don't much like war games, fighting games or 1st person shooters (I don't hate them all, I like some but I suck at them, especially shooters) I hate football unless it's the world cup but that's only for national solidarity. I like fiction books (when was the last time he read one of those?). I'm lazy. I'm untidy. These are all things that I feel distances me from him, so much so that we're at the point we are. He's short (not overly short, but I'm now just about taller than him), he's balding (has been as long as I've known him. No hair on top, a little strip around the side), his eyes are a boring brown colour (not all brown eyes are boring, it's just that this shade of brown is dull), he always seems lacking in personality, rarely smiles, hardly laughs, always wears the same clothes with holes and or old paint stains, only visits for a short time (10-15 minutes perhaps), nags, Smacked me over the head when I argued with him a month or so ago (I'm 23 years old. You can't win arguments that way anymore. I haven't been smacked since I was a child. I waited until he was gone and started crying. Why? I don't know. I wrote a blog about it but deleted it when I felt better. Why did I cry? I don't get it and it's pissing me off. I'm not a child any more. I wondered if I should have punched him. Maybe he won't do that again if he sees me as an adult. An adult should hit back...or not. Depends.). Always gave an impression that I was an obligation. Terrible cook. Goes on about irrelevant things. Hard to get close to. Lacks imagination. Old fashioned. Once I asked him out of curiosity if I were a boy and told him I was gay what would he say? His answer: Piss off. Same question but as a girl? Same response (That wasn't my attempt at coming out, as far as I know I like men but I had a few gay friends at uni and it got me wondering how this old dinosaur would react if I were also gay. There's my answer.) Thinks he knows everything when clearly he doesn't. Often jokes "Written any books yet?" like it's some simple thing. Like to see him try. Sucks at buying gifts, often gets mum chocolate (One Christmas it was 3 giant Toblerones and 3 chocolate oranges 1 milk, 1 dark, 1 one white. Mum hates dark chocolate, white chocolate is too sickly and she doesn't much like chocolate anyway (she's rather conscious of her weight since she's already fat. And I freely say that because it's true and has been for as long as I've known her and because it's the same for me.) I certainly had a good Christmas that year, since I ended up eating most of it) It's got to the point where I tell him what to get for her (one year I brought her a jumper in the January sales for her birthday (the end of January, perfect for birthday bargains) originally £24, reduced to £12 and then to £6 when I bought it. But I wasn't sure if she'd like it so I sold it to Napoleon for £6 so he could give it to her. Kind of bugs me, I could've gotten away with £12, didn't think about it at the time. Even though it was from Napoleon she knew I'd bought it because it was the right size and she actually liked it).
Anyway. That's reasons for why I don't like the old man. Oh, and one more thing, has no clue about anime and thinks my fear of spiders is stupid when he's afraid of snakes. Okay, so that was two things. And the only reason my parents didn't get divorced and he paid bills was because divorce was too much hassle and if they did divorce he's have to pay maintenance for me anyway so take the bills and stuff as maintenance instead. So. Do you think he's actually a good father? Am I really just being selfish. I mean, at least I had one. There are people in the world who don't even know who their father is. Do I really have a right to complain?
He was there, sometimes, it's not like he disappeared forever. He supported us financially, gave me expensive gifts and spending money for holidays. So, does that mean he wasn't a bad father at all. I've heard that a girl's father is her first male influence and affects how she thinks about men in the future. You know how sons who got along well with their mothers look for a woman like their mother and daughters who got along well with their fathers look for a man like their father, do you think it's really true? Do you think how you were raised affects you that much? Can you really blame almost everything in your life on your parents? I've been wondering. Is it just me or are all children kind of greedy with what they want from their parents. Sure I've still got a.....Napoleon and he made sure I was well looked after but I still wanted more from him, I wish I'd had more from him. Is that selfish? I wish he'd been openly supportive. I wish he'd tried to take an active interest in whatever I was interested in. I wish he'd spent more time with me when I was little and wanted his attention as oppose to now when I can barely stand the thought of him. I wish he'd put the effort in and come to school plays just to show he cared. I wish he'd said that he cared instead of brushing me off, even if it was uncomfortable or awkward to say. I wish he'd picked me up from school sometimes just because. I wish he'd said he was proud of me. I wish I knew why he didn't do all of these things. I wish I knew why he chose to leave us but not completely, but just so much that I now wish he had left us forever.
I wish I knew why I wish all this would've happened. It makes no difference now does it? If it is true, about a girl's father being her first male influence, that fixes her ideas of men for the rest of her life then I'm pretty much ****ed aren't I?

Sorry about all this. Thank you anyone who took the time to read through all this crap. you are surely a greater person that I.

Bluebiird out.