I remember an interaction I had with my father back in January of 2005, I was getting ready to leave the house for an early-ish appointment that I hadn’t shared the details of with my parents. I was at the front door preparing to exit and had opened the interior door, when my father came down the stairs in his underwear and was immediately angry at the fact that the front door was open while he was standing there in his undergarments. Never mind the fact that an adult man still found it to be acceptable to wander the house he shared with his adult and teenage daughters in this state of undress. We argued for a moment, the urgency that had brought him down the stairs taking a back seat to his fury.

The argument consisted of me explaining that I was trying to leave for an appointment, and his response was an off the cuff scoffing “What? Are you pregnant?”

My immediate response was “I DON’T KNOW! That’s why I’m going to the doctor!” followed by me walking out the door and slamming it behind me.

I was 22, working a full time job, and covered by my own insurance, but I lived in his house and shared a car with my mother. I sat in the car shaking for a moment before I pulled away. This was the first time I had this kind of interaction with him, not to say that he wasn’t belligerent in the past, but it was the first time I had used my voice against him, and I was afraid of the repercussions of not only my actions but of the news that I had divulged out of anger and frustration. My fear was doubled when I returned home with no results because the clinic was closed that day.

The following year involved me moving out after he insistently pressured me to have an abortion and tried to convince Joe that the ‘inevitable’ changes that would befall my body as a result of pregnancy would be undesirable. I didn’t acquiesce to his pressure (Joe’s support for our joint decision never faltered), and this disagreement over how I should live my life nearly found my father exercised from my life entirely.

It felt in some ways that the only reason that didn’t come to fruition was that he came to the hospital the day after I had given birth. But thinking back I remember that, I saw him plenty while I was pregnant, though I can’t remember what kind of interactions we had.

I was driving my mother’s mini van when I was in a roll over car accident while 9 months pregnant. I do remember feeling like he blamed me for my mother’s van being totaled even though I was not legally at fault for the accident, I was the one who was most injured, and me, my sister, and my unborn child could have easily been killed in the accident. In the aftermath it felt like all he could see was the inconvenience the situation had caused.

This perception may be completely inaccurate, but in the moment I was consumed with my own health and the health of the unborn child that wiggled and stretched in my belly, expressing her own disapproval of the physical stress we had both been through.

His previous belligerent interactions typically revolved around him calling me a slur, specifically in regards to my hair.

When I was in middle school we participated in what they called spirit weeks, where each day had a different theme. Crazy hair day was my favorite! One year for crazy hair day my friends helped me put my hair up in a bunch of tiny ponytails all over my head while we were waiting to leave one of their houses and walk to school. That night I was supposed to leave on a road trip with my mother, which my dad was never fond of. When he saw me with my hair this way, his reaction was inflammatory.

My hair was a huge part of my self expression as I entered high school. I could never get salons to cut it as short as I wanted it, so I eventually started cutting it myself. One time I had friends help me shave the sides leaving me with a short mohawk, and when my dad finally saw it he reacted the same way he did when he saw all the tiny ponytails.

And in case you’re curious about the slur, well, suffice to say it was enough to drive the point home that he would find it repugnant if I was to bring home a romantic partner that was anything but male.

Looking back, I can say that these experiences may have slightly warped my sense of self and steered my social life in some ways. Though I can say that the way he treated my mother was enough to burn into my brain what I did NOT want in a partner. This is also not to say that he was physically abusive, because he was not. But mental and emotional abuse was not beyond the realm of his actions.

His death in 2023, was simultaneously a huge loss and also a huge weight removed from the shoulders of my spirit. I no longer needed to carry the burden of his judgement! And the first thing I did was cut and bleach my hair. I wanted to go purple, but that would come later, and become a yearly Winter tradition.

I felt free, but also burdened by guilt for feeling that way. The juxtaposition of my sense of relief against the immense grief my mother and sister were experiencing… was a LOT to sit with. And I had to unpack the fact that even though I resented him for a lot of things that I would never get to confront him for, I did in a lot of ways miss him. But i also know that he would not have been accepting of the revelations I’ve had about myself.

I can’t say that I adhere to widely used labels, but I have previously described myself as a “butch human who happens to have a uterus and be deeply in love with a man”. The part about having a uterus isn’t a true statement anymore since my hysterectomy last year, and I’ve recently given up on men entirely, but the gist of the statement is still true. I guess this is me saying that I’m situationally gender fluid. By that I mean, well, my interactions with the world determine whether my feminine or masculine personality traits take the lead.

But I also feel like anyone who knows me kind of already recognizes on some level that I’m a little outside of the box that society wants me to fit neatly inside. So I’ll continue to not use labels and continue to unpack my bias.

He would say that “nothing is more important than anything else” but I feel like understanding yourself is the key to understanding the world and how you fit into it, and I feel like I’m finally learning how to uncoil myself from the knot I unknowingly tied myself into over 40 years in an effort to protect myself and my sanity.