But Love

Occasionally, my father emails me. When these emails find their way into my inbox, they always look the same; the subject line says something like "how are you?" or "how's the job" and then there is nothing in the actual email. I rarely respond because I'm fairly certain that these emails are only constructed because people are asking about me and he doesn't have anything to say, and that doesn't boast so well for his picture perfect image.

Recently, I've received a lot of chastisement over the blatant lack of communication that I have with my father and since he's the one that initiates the emails, the communication controversy is apparently my fault, but I'm not about to participate in small talk with a man that I don't know just because it's what everyone else thinks I should be doing or because it's the thing that will aid in my father's ability to appear perfect. Does he actually or honestly want to be a part of my life? Blank emails aren't really an indication of genuine concern...blank emails are an indication that he checked me off his daily to-do list.

I am not going to be someone's inconvenience and that's what his emails feel like; a means to control the inconvenience of not appearing perfect.

I grew up in a "But Love" environment, meaning that the only time I ever heard the phrase 'I Love You' is if it was preceded by the word 'but.' I would get myself into trouble, receive a lecture/punishment, and then my parents would ritualistically declare: "but we still love you." But Love is the only context that I had for love, so for most of my life I understood love only as something that was explicitly tied to guilt.

While everyone in my father's life might believe that I'm wrong in refusing to respond to his subject line correspondence, I'm not replying because I'm done feeling guilty. My father has made it clear that he doesn't approve of my "lifestyle choice" or most of the other choices that I've made in my life, so the only thing that he has left to offer me his But Love... but I am NOT a child! I'm not going to feel guilty that the kind of love I've chosen to participate in (the lesbian kind) inconveniences his life. I'm not going to feel guilty that I dropped out of school at the exact moment that my mother chose to drop out of their marriage. I'm not going to feel guilty that I moved to the other side of the country without waving goodbye. The choices that I've made were, and are, mine and I've taken responsibility for them. If he only wants to offer me his But Love, he can keep it, because I am going to feel guilty no longer.