Been a while since I’ve done this, hasn’t it? Well, here’s a quick recap on what’s happened since I moved out back in April. Dad and I basically had no contact except for e-mails at first (he stopped answering them, don’t ask me why); I commented on a photo of his on Facebook (yay, social networking) to correct my brother’s age at the time of the photo, and after a couple of comments (in one of which he made up his own saying, “ipso fatso”, and provided lots of laughs for my mother and I) suggested we meet to talk. My answer was “What kind of talk? It turned out to be pretty one-sided last time,” referring to the three hours we spent in the car while he told me his life story and blamed all of his mistakes on someone else—his teachers didn’t encourage him, so he went nowhere after high school; his parents never disciplined him, so he misbehaved; and my personal favourite, I shouldn’t complain about divorced parents because he used to see his mother so drunk she slept on the floor.

The answer I got, via e-mail (apparently he doesn’t want the world to see how he treats his daughter, after all; I couldn’t have cared less) went as follows, word for word: “....And as for meeting to talk, I suppose you're right...when one of the two parties involved already has HER mind closed, I guess there really isn't much point, is there? Too bad...I hope that years from now, or when I'm long gone, you realize that maybe you should have actually given some consideration to my point of view. I know that's how it worked out for me and my Father and it's a bitter pill to have to live with for the rest of your days.”

(He actually made a hilarious typo and wrote “don’t realize”. Hah.) And now, my response.......

So scream you, out from behind the bitter ache
You're hanging on the memory, you need most
You still want love, love's ugly, smooth and delicate
But not without affection, no not alone

And instead of wishing that it would get better
Man you're seeing that you just get angrier

And it's good that I'm not angry
Well I need to get over
I'm not angry, anymore

Cry when you cry, run when you run
Love when you love
Represent the ashes
That you leave behind

And instead of wishing that the road had shoulder
Man you're seeing that you're sinking over time

And it's good that I'm not angry
Well I need to get over
I'm not angry
It's dragging me under
I'm not angry

I'm not angry it's never been enough
It gets inside and it tears you up
I'm not angry but I've never been above it
You see through me don't you

And it's good that I'm not angry
Well I need to get over
I'm not angry
It's dragging me under
I'm not angry

And it's good that I'm not angry
Well I need to get over
I'm not angry, anymore

— Angry, Matchbox Twenty

Do you try to be deliberately infuriating, or is it just a gift? In case you haven't noticed, two people with whom you lived for extended periods of time have now left and been much less stressed and irritated elsewhere. The common denominator would be you. Give that some consideration before you call me closed-minded. I would have moved out the day I turned eighteen if I hadn't thought there was some way to make things better between us, but since you're obviously determined to be a cranky and embittered man for the rest of your days and blame all your problems on someone else, I really don't see the point anymore.

("Your grandma, God bless her, didn't discipline me enough, and she wouldn't let my father discipline me either..." "It's not my fault I didn't go any farther after high school, I only had one teacher who pushed me at all...")

That’s a crock. Teachers aren’t there solely to push the intelligent kids who just don’t try. If that were true, my teacher wouldn’t have allowed me to fail English last year. Teachers are hired to assign work, teach students the curriculum, and grade them, not act as motivational speakers along the way.

As for my grandmother, I remember her well enough to know she would have avoided conflict as much as possible, so maybe she was lax in discipline. But explain, then, your brother, who grew up in the same environment as you and yet is your polar opposite. You’re just determined to see the dark side of things, just as you enjoy misery and want everyone around you to feel the same.

Well, know this: I will never, ever be bitter about getting away from your constant slurs and humiliating little digs about my friends, my chosen career path, and what I choose to do in my free time. It’s my life, not yours, and parenting only goes to a certain degree before it becomes interference. You can no longer arrange play dates (not that you ever did) and select the children I’m allowed to run around with; you can’t honestly expect that referring to the field of psychology in general as “that psychobabble shit” will deter me from becoming a family counsellor—in fact, maybe if we’d gotten more of that after the divorce, we wouldn’t be quite so fucked up now—and can’t ask about the point of writing as though that will stop me from doing what I love.

In fact, I hope that someday you realize that it was you who drove me out. I hope you realize that someday as you’re sitting alone with your hash and alcohol for company—since I presume you won’t ever be able to hold down a steady girlfriend—and I hope that it hurts you just as much as you’ve hurt me over the past years.

I’m not angry about it anymore; I really don’t give a flying fuck, to be honest. The fact that you can still anger me says nothing of my emotions; you manage to anger people you’ve never met, after all. Yeah, you can piss me off, can make me rant and rave and storm around my room without any way to vent my fury. But you can’t hurt me, and that’s what matters. That’s what I’m sure of, and what you don’t even realize.

Any power you had over me is long gone. You can’t intimidate me into moving back in, and I won’t be foolish enough to let myself think, even for a minute, that I can fix things between us or “change” you. The only way a woman can change a man—even a daughter to father—is if said man happens to be wearing diapers, which, last time I checked, is one thing you don’t do (thankfully).

So go on, be your miserable self, shoot your little darts at me. You’re only driving me further away, and I’m not the one who’s going to regret it.

That, no matter what you let yourself think, comes back to you.

So, there it is. Short and not very sweet at all, haha. Now we wait and see if anyone bothers to review this.