My Dad and I.

16 years ago was the last time I saw him. The last time I heard his voice. I was 10 years old.

My parents separated when I was about 7 years old. It was a messy divorce. Things happened that I wish I was old enough to say "no" to. Things that have haunted me to this day.
My mum remarried when I was nearly 10 years old. My brother and I were about to have another sibling, and adjusting to a new 'Dad', as well as a new life.
This new life was something that I never fully adjusted to. I am 26 and it still doesn't sit well with me.

My Dad moved to N.S.W when I was about 10. From this point on, he became a stranger. There was no communication. No school holidays at Dad's. Nothing. This is something that I still cannot come to terms with.

There have been so many times I have wanted to reach out to him. But there has always been something holding me back. I don't know what it is. There has been one opportunity to see him, when I was 20. I didn't take that chance. There was an element of pressure to do so, not from him, but I felt like I was doing something before I was ready.
How do you let someone back in that hasn't been in your life for 10 years? What do you say?

Two years ago, my Mum and Stepdad's marriage ended. Again, it was a messy divorce. Despite being older this time around, it still affected me. The same manipulative tactics were applied to me in an attempt to sabotage the other person. I think, that because I knew what was happening, that it affected me more. There was no innocence of an eight year old.

My Baptism

This year, when I moved back to Geelong, I made a conscious effort to make contact with the family that I lost all those years ago. My Nan and her husband (my pop dies before I was born) live outside of Geelong. I reached out and made contact and said that I wanted to see them again. This was such a surreal experience. Time had blurred my memories of the finer details; the lines of my Nan's face, her perfume, her voice. She wasn't the person my memories had held. We relived memories from my childhood. It's hard to explain; sharing the same memories with someone you don't fully remember.

My Nan is having her 80th birthday celebrations in a weeks time. My Dad and his partner are travelling down from N.S.W for this. I have decided to go. The family I lost will be there, and while it is something that feels so foreign to me, I am re-gaining a part of me I left behind in 1999.
My Dad has asked to meet up before the birthday celebrations. He will be in Geelong, staying at Nan's. It wasn't until the prospect of seeing him, that I realised how far I had buried the pain, sadness, and fear that came from him and mum separating. These emotions are bubbling to the surface, and I am struggling to comprehend them. I felt these emotions as an 7 year old, and I am feeling them again as a 26 year old.

What do I say? Do I hug him? Will I cry? Will he recognise me?
I will be meeting him again, as a 10 year old, in a 26 year old body.