Bitterness.

I'm so rarely bitter about anything, so I really need to purge this out and get over it.

Even though, really, it has to do with my father, and bitterness about daddy's has been known to haunt even the best of us for the length of our lives.

The house that we rent is owned by a sweet little old lady who's decided she wants to sell it, and obviously we're the easiest and most acceptable possible buyers. When this arises, my dad tells me, of course your mom can get financed and get the house. I, on the other hand, am logical, and point out that my mother now only makes around $600 a month and that the bulk of our household income on paper comes from me, so even if there was a lender that could overlook our credit, I'd have to be on the mortgage for the financing to fly.

He commences to tell me how I'm dumb. Don't know what I'm talking about. And really, where did I learn about home financing anyway? Geez, the audacity of daughters. THINKING AT ALL.

And what happens this morning? He pulls me into the kitchen and tells me we need to sit down and talk about buying the house and says, no, I'm not kidding, that this is something any good daughter would do to help secure a house for her mother and I need to go with my mother to the realtor today to start the paperwork because I'll need to be on the mortgage.

I look at him, waiting for an apology. An, of course you were right, I wasn't thinking clearly when I said you were an idiot for needing to be on the paperwork three days ago. And do I get it? No. Of course not. My father has never apologized for a thing in his life because he firmly believes that he has never been wrong.

Oh, to live 80 years on this world believing with every molecule that what you say has the righteous ring of right. This realization was the straw that broke my camel's back of patience in regards to my father.

I've been looking at places to move out to since this fight on Monday because I am so. sick. of. him. He is constantly biting, sarcastic, demeaning, and dismissive, and never in my life did I think I would hold such a bitterness in my heart for him. When I only saw him once a month, sure, we would barely speak, but it was civil and decent. And then, my mother could tell me the sweet things that my father thought of me and I could believe her because I had nothing to disprove it. No longer.

He belittles my employment, my side business of bottlecap jewelry, and pretty much anything he can easily observe. And I ask my mother today, with angry tears wetting my chest, where the fuck does he get off? What, pray tell, has he ever done in his life that was so fucking remarkable?

And mind you, I've done more for my mother and now for him than his other children have ever done for their mother or him. That is a fact. I pay every bill in this house, their cell phones, my mother's car insurance...I have fiscally taken care of her since I was 16 years old, for chrissakes, to the persistant voice of my father telling me to always stay strong and take care of her. I don't think he ever once uttered that to her, though. Stay strong, and take care of our daughter. What does that say about who he thinks is more precious, more sacred? More worthy of care?

One could argue in favor of him: he puts this burden on you because he knows you're strong enough to carry it. That was my hope, too. Of course I would like to think that my dad considers me a good, strong daughter. But no. In all actuality, he doesn't.

I have a fierce and consuming anger that burns for hot moments and leaves a sulfuric ash of bitterness behind, and I don't know how to put it out except to leave them to their new life together and show him, pettily, what I contribute when he no longer has it when I'm gone.

Since when am I so petty?

I don't like this Erin.