I Got Me

My father's absence defined so much of who I am. When I was about three, my mother moved us back to Pittsburgh from Seattle. That was before I had any core memories I can actually tap into. All I knew was that he wasn't here.

I was always sad about it as a kid, because even my friends whose dads weren't around at least knew who they were. Outside of a phone call or two a year, I never met him. I had no sense of who he was. By the time I finally met my father at 14, I had already learned what I needed to survive in this world.

I've reached an age, and a point, where I'm no longer living in survival mode. Moving from surviving to thriving has come from the work I've done to heal myself, to make myself whole. The healed version of me is who younger me needed and didn't have.

Part of why I didn't have it was the fractured relationship between Pam and Russell. Part of it was distance. In the '90s, Seattle might as well have been another country. We barely had rent, let alone money for a plane ticket. But the real reason is that I'm not sure my father ever had it to give.

Everything I learned about manhood and masculinity, I learned on my own, in his absence. And everything I learned about manhood and masculinity, I had to unlearn.