Diary Entry 1

Dear Fucking Diary,

It’s been a long time since I have written in you but I thought was a good time to return to you and spill my guts.

My relationship with my father has been a good place for a few years but yesterday I realised that was only a thinly veiled plaster holding us together amicably. Photographs of him and filthy ass girlfriend reminded me of the resentment I have towards him and many in my family.

I want to tell my philandering father that all cannot be forgiven with the baptism of one. The emotional abuse I suffered and the the witness I bore to the mental decline of my mother all for the sake of your relationship with your mistress who is now your long-time girlfriend, partner. I feel as though we were thrown away, expected to respect this woman who KNOWINGLY colluded with you to break your vows with my mother. Encouraged you to be vile to me (whether knowingly or not).

And now as an adult, I must be the bigger person. The person who sits by as two-faced, hypocritical family members forget the beginnings of this union and accept you into their homes as I am admonished for childish behaviour. Maybe I am being childish? Maybe I am wounded by the disrespect and abuse I experienced and witnessed that was never truly acknowledged. Maybe I feel like a child caught. Maybe I just have a long memory and penchant for holding a grudge? Or maybe I actually dare to hold people accountable and not take every fucking thing as a joke when it comes to people’s feelings and lives?

Perhaps I recognise the gravity of dragging your wife and child to America where they are surrounded by your inconsiderate family to turn around and ABANDON them is a special kind of heartless.  Away from your wife’s sisters and wider support system. And to then parade your mistress (because according to the Oxford dictionary, for a good many years that is what she was) is a large portion of salt on a wound that will probably never heal.

I try with every fibre of my being to be a forgiving person. But I bear a layer of guilt for not being able to forget these crimes against family and for being told by countless family members to get over it. To them, the adult Reds gives you a hearty fuck you.

Maybe God will heal me but in the interim, why should I continue to swallow this?