I have the house all to myself all day and night. Isn't that lovely, it's almost like I'm an adult living by myself, how crazy.
My dad made me coffee before they left.
I just, as in yesterday, when I was having lunch with my mum, found something out that kind of shocked me. See, my dad is a sober alcoholic, which I've always known. If you look at the disaster zone that is my dad's family and then take into account that my mum and dad don't drink alcohol, you can put the pieces together and guess as much, and at some point it came up in conversation too... but I always assumed that my mum and dad decided it was best to quit drinking so he wouldn't head down that same road as his dad and sisters and settle down together and have me and stuff, that's kind of what I've been lead to believe and whenever they've skirted around the issue or my dad's mentioned the reason why he quit drinking (according to him because he gets too sick the day after) it's like he's talking about a different time, as in when he was young and stupid, as in before I was born, as in before he was a dad, right? well, apparantly, he became sober when my brother was one. I was nine then.
I didn't know how to react to that. Dumbly I said, "But I've never once seen him drunk", to which my mum muttered that obviously (as in she wouldn't allow that) he had to hide it, so he snuck around with it. So up until I was nine my dad would, what, wait until I was asleep and drink himself in a stupor? That's... I don't even know. That's not right. That's not my dad as I know him. My dad fixes things and jokes around and plays the guitar and has a bad back and discovered the gardening when he got depressed and makes me coffee in the morning. He loves his family just as much as he hates it. He's the glue that keeps the rest of it together. He spends forever on the phone talking to his dad and his sisters, patiently listening to each or theirs shit about the others, and doesn't ever cut them off unless they're too drunk, and then he tells them to call him back when they're sober. And under no circumstances does he drink himself, especially not in secret. That is not the image I have of my dad since I was born.
I mean, it doesn't change anything knowing it now, because it isn't who he is anymore, that part is true. Nothing has really changed. I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that I never noticed anything. I was really perceptive as a kid, even more so than I am now, and I was always a daddy's girl, meaning I following him around like a little tail, so I can't think of any opportunity that he might have had to drink when I was little, and that makes me wonder if he ever thought, I don't know, if he ever wished I wasn't there, I would go to sleep already, or something. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. I made me coffee before they left this morning. That's all that matters.
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