Isn't it ironic? Salty tears

My life is full of irony.

I put up a blog a few days ago about my dad titled "12 Things I Hate About You". Then, I found my brother on Face book after a few years of not knowing how to reach him. I say Hi, figure we can catch up and he drops a bomb on me.

My dad is being flown to a V.A. hospital for surgery today, angioplasty in his feet due to diabetes infection. If it doesn't work they'll have to amputate his feet. If that happens he will most likely die because his heart and kidneys aren't healthy.

For my own mental and emotional health and well-being I cut him out of my life 18 years ago, not that he was in it much before, but he managed to be around long enough to permanently ruin the relationship. Short version, alcoholic, divorced when I was 3, put my mom in the hospital with a broken arm plus other injuries, tried to kill us all by playing shooting gallery with us as the targets. As an adult I tried to heal the relationship reaching out to him, only to have him steal from me, sabotaging any trust I offered.

I feel loss... but it's not for him. I feel as much compassion for him as I would for any stranger in similar circumstances, but due to his own choices in life, he is a stranger to me. My loss is that of someone who has never had a father. I mourn that I never had a father figure that I could trust. I cry for what I never had. I cry for what I'll never know.

So, yes, I feel loss. This possible death is merely a reminder of what I never had, salt in the wounds of my heart... maybe that's why tears are salty.

Advice, so easy to give, so hard to take

I give advice to people all the time to leave when they're not in a good relationship. People tell battered women "Leave!". If a battered woman kills her partner everyone says, "Why didn't she just walk away?"
I am not in a relationship with a batterer, but I am in a relationship that is going nowhere, day after day, for 7 years now. I can't explain to anyone why I would stay in a relationship where I feel like nothing, day after day. How sad is it that a video game is more important than me? What kind of horrible ugly person must I be when someone who says they love me would rather spend time punching buttons on a keyboard than helping make our house a home? I feel lower than dirt. I can't even talk about this with people face to face without crying which makes me sick and disgusted with myself. I go back and forth between knowing that I'm better than this, that I deserve more, and feeling like I must be the ugliest thing on the earth and stupid to let someone treat me like this.
I also feel guilty for asking for more than I deserve. I think that's from growing up being told to "be seen and not heard", "put others first", "be quiet", "You're the reason my life is hell. If it weren't for you I would have a good life."
So, through my tears, I am going to go forward and not give up. Even if I don't deserve better, I won't continue like this. I will trust that the sun will rise on me tomorrow and shed light on my shadows.