Dear You,

I don’t even know what the proper greeting for you would be. You don’t deserve the name “Daddy” like I used to call you when I was a child, nor any variation of it. Yet, calling you by your name seems like a mistake too, because I don’t really know you well enough to be calling you by your name, that’s how I would address my friends. To me you’re just an entity now.

When we were between seven and eight-years-old, we being my brother, sister and me, you had called us to set up another weekend to meet. I remember how our every-Saturdays turned into every other Saturdays and then nothing at all. I remember how it all ended because it was told to us right then and there. I remember every holiday going by and not seeing you, and then how that feeling slowly turned into a numbing pain that still haunts me to this day.

All throughout school, I would dread English classes where we had to write a memoir about something from our childhood because you are always the first thing to come to my mind. Every memoir, even now that I’m into college, I have written about you, and I always get the same grades and the same comments, but it never makes it any easier. I’ve read comments like, “With great pain comes a great memoir” and “I can feel the pain you’ve been through, excellent job” and even received A's on every single one, yet not once did I feel better afterwards.

I’ve probably written the same paper every year for the past six-years and I still can’t get over the emptiness I feel when I do. And the most ironic thing is that I have a family that loves and supports me in everything that I do, and I couldn’t be happier. My mom and my dad (if you want to be technical, he's my stepdad because you refused to sign the papers for him to legally adopt us) have been there through everything, and I couldn’t be more grateful; in fact, I couldn’t see anyone else being my dad. He loves me more than you ever have.

That entire ordeal has plagued my childhood, and it is something that I don’t think I can ever get out of. And I’m not the only one; I’ve listened to my sister say in a completely casual way that she was waiting for a letter in the mail on her 18th birthday like I got on mine. I’ve listened to my brother talk about how much he’s wanted to find out answers from you, something that we’ve tried to conclude that we would never get from you.

I don’t remember what you look like, much less what you would look like now. I am terrified of you showing up in front of me because I don’t know what I would do. I’ve pondered the idea before; maybe I would yell at you, or maybe I would break down crying from being so uncomfortable, but, ultimately, I see myself walking away, just like you did 12-years ago. Maybe then you can feel, if only a small fraction of, the pain that you’ve put me through.

I can’t recount the number of times that I’ve cried, lost relationships, was hurt and was bruised from these scars opening up again and again. Rewriting the entire process of what’s happened in the past however many years would be pointless to write about now. Even though I have suffered a lot out of all of this, I still have to say thank you.

Thank you for leaving all those years ago. You’ve helped me become the strongest version of myself that I can be, and it’s helped me build up my walls, so I don’t get hurt very often anymore. Everyone else can blame you for that, and they can blame you for why it’s so hard to break them down enough for me to trust them. Even though many people can see that as an issue, I see it as a blessing. I’ve learned from a very early age who is a good guy and who is a bad guy, and I want to thank you for that.

Anyway, I’ll end my letter here because, if I continue, I’ll just be rambling more than I already am now. I hope you’re doing well and that your life is fulfilled by the choices that you’ve made.