Dear Dad,

Should I even call you dad after everything that's happened? Anyways, there's one day of the year that is a little harder than normal to push through. Father's Day comes once every year about mid-June on a Sunday. Most sons and daughters spend this day with someone special and close to them, but for me it's a little different.

Growing up in my young childhood, I always wanted you to be someone I could look up to, someone to cheer me on at soccer games even when I didn't score a goal, someone to threaten any boy that came near me with cooties, but most importantly, someone that I could trust.

I never had the typical family where my both of my biological parents had got married, had me, and we all lived happily ever after under the same roof. Life just isn't that simple.

I grew up bouncing between two homes and two families. Though I enjoyed the extra gifts on Christmas from Santa in two separate homes as a kid, I knew that going back and forth between two separate places wasn't working out.

For most of my young childhood, I spent weekends and some holidays with you as followed in Court's rules. I wasn't a fan of being in this situation where I was forced to spend certain time with certain people and spend too much time traveling between the two.

As I started to mature (somewhat) into a third grade kid, I started to pick up on your habits. I started questioning everything you did from this point on. I'd ask you, "Why does mom always bring me to dance classes and help me with math homework? Why am I not like the other kids who have a normal family? Why do you drink so much and then hurt me after?"

I never felt like I fit in at school when my classmates would plan play dates and I wasn't able to go because I would be at your house that weekend, in another town, over an hour away. I wondered what it would be like when I grew up and went to high school. I knew my older cousins in high school had to get jobs to pay for big kid things, but I wasn't sure how I would get one of those "jobs" when being in another home far away. At just 8 years old in third grade, all these thoughts ran through my head, but the constant thought that never went away was how I was going to become normal.

I was the "mistake" that turned your life upside down. You couldn't take care of me and sometimes the court didn't even allow you to see me because of your actions. You hurt me, physically, emotionally, sexually, verbally, and mentally. And for that, I gave up on you ever being my actual father. Yes, you might unfortunately be my biological father, but you don't fulfill that role to me and quite frankly I don't believe you ever have or will. What hurts the most is that you've denied everything to try and cover your behavior.

But that was then and this is now. At nearly 20 years old now, I've come to realize how far I have made it without you. I graduated high school, I've worked at different jobs, I'm involved in different clubs/activities, I'm diving into my third year at college, I've worked hard enough to be living on my own and supporting myself completely on my own, but most importantly, I'm doing just fine without you.

I don't have a sappy Instagram caption with a photo of you and I to post on Instagram today, but I do have self worth and determination, which overrides a social media post any day. I don't need to be "normal" just because I don't have a father, I just need to be true to myself and that's normal enough for me.