i’m so exhausted

emma says dad’s in and out in terms of sobriety - he’ll be fine one day, and the next he’ll spend the whole day drinking until he passes out. when he’s drunk it’s all her fault.

he’s only drinking so much because she’s making him stay in an apartment, he says. if he were allowed to live at home he’d only drink in the evenings, like before. he doesn’t care about/won’t listen to the fact that the amount he was drinking before was unacceptable.

emma’s told him she doesn’t want him in the house when he’s drinking because she doesn’t want the boys to see it, and all he answers with is that i saw his drinking and turned out fine. from the man who constantly told me that i was a freak, that i was crazy, that i was fucked up. and even without that, even if i had turned out just fine, why do the boys deserve to see it anyway?

i told emma earlier that i don’t want him at my birthday, but that if she felt that trying to tell him that would cause a huge fight, then so be it and i’d let him be there. she asked if i’d spoken to him at all since everything happened. i told her no, and that i don’t know if i want to. she didn’t argue with me at all. told me that he probably won’t be in any state to come do anything anyway, because he’ll probably be drunk or hungover.

and i was glad about it. i was glad to hear that he’ll probably be too drunk or hungover to be at my birthday. that she’s not going to insist i speak to him.

and that hurts. it hurts to sit here and realise that those have become good things in my life.

i already walked away from one biological parent, and now i have to do the same yet again. the only relative i really have left not on emma’s side is my nan. and it’s a relationship that requires me not talking about things like that, because if i do they’ll get back to my mum. i can’t trust my nan not to tell her things, even if i ask for them to be kept in confidence. because of that, i can care about my nan but i can’t bring myself to love her. not anymore.

emma’s the only one i have left. and god knows, she annoys me. god knows i hate her sometimes - often, in the past.

but she’s the only parent i have now, because i walked away from my mum and now - for my sake - i have to walk away from dad, too. i wish she could, too, but i don’t begrudge her letting him see the boys when he’s sober. i got time with him, you know? when he was sober, when i was younger and not one of the enemies like emma is because i didn’t know about the alcoholism back then. i got time with him, i got to have a dad. and the boys deserve that too, for as long as he can manage it.

i’m scared, because i don’t know how long that will be. before he stops being able to be a dad because he’s either too sick or he’s in the ground.

i’m not sure what’s scary about it, though.

i don’t want to lose him but the truth is i already have. the dad i remember from when i was a kid stepped out of my reach a long time ago, i think. maybe when he crashed his car the night before my fifteenth birthday. maybe before then.

i think what scares me is the thought that he’ll still be around for a long time. because this won’t end. even if he gets sober, he’s thrown away too many chances for me and emma to ever trust him on this again. we’ll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop and him to start drinking again. and if he doesn’t get sober, then this song and dance will keep up.

i don’t want him to die but the truth is

i do, really. because i’ve already lost my dad, and emma has already lost her husband, and maybe there are still bits of him left in what he gives to the boys but it’s not enough to make up for the rest of it.

i don’t want him to die but i want him to be over. and i’m not naive enough anymore to think it’ll ever be over until he does.

so i’m just… tired. knowing that.