She's not missing a damn thing...

      When I met her father I was totally in love.   People told me I was insane.  I didn’t know him well enough…long enough.  Others told me that if I knew it was love then it was love.  And behind my back would tell others I was crazy.   I was hooked when we first started talking.  But let me back up.

      Meeting him was the end of a year and half long battle with my raging libido.  At the time I had no idea that the reason my hormones were out of control was because I was thirty-five and my biological clock’s alarm was ringing.  Instead of hitting snooze I went out on the prowl.  I went out dancing, flirting and drinking.  I equate my actions now to that of bird’s…ruffling my bright plumage,  singing my sweetest warble, and posturing in the most flattering of poses.  Dancing and batting my eyelashes and trying to make my lips look and taste like the most edible things on earth.  Sometimes it would work and others I would come home alone with frizzed hair, runny eyeliner and a bag of chinese chicken wings.  Making love to chicken wings only got me fat…not fat and pregnant.  Damn I miss those wings.  

     I prepared myself for intimate encounters.  I always wore nice underwear.  I cleaned my room everyday and scented it with vanilla and butter-cream frosting scented candles.  Yes I did.  Now every time my foot depresses the trash can lever and the lid opens my room is wafted with scent of used diapers.     A scent that in the wild would get me eaten by a bear.   I even had my own supply of condoms.  The ones that would ultimately not be used when I met the love of my life.    

     It was a long year and a half.  So when he messaged me on New Year’s Day 2009 I was ready to be done with it all.  I let down my guard and let him in.  A couple months later my uterus was growing ten times its normal size to accommodate who is now the love of my life.

     As much as I hate him I do not regret a thing.  I may be stressed and broke…and stressed but I would do it again.  Because I don’t hate him for getting me pregnant or helping me get myself pregnant.  I hate him for not being her father.  I hate him for not caring enough to see her…or call her…or write her.  I hate him for not helping me in any way from the moment he knew I was pregnant.  I hate him for abandoning her without apology or remorse…for being so careless with her life and feelings.  I hate him for being the person that he is and not the father that he could be.  It’s going to take everything in my and my family’s power to make sure she does not grow up with the infamous ‘Daddy Issues’.   I mean we’re all damaged goods.  Aren’t we?  Knowing that I can’t say with any certainty that my daughter will come out unscathed by not knowing her father.   I can only keep plugging away.  He’s missing out on someone beautiful.  She’s not missing a damn thing.