Insomnia Sucks

{I haven’t slept in 19 hours and I’m under a lot of emotional stress but I need to get these thoughts and feeling out of me so I can fully calm down. Maybe my spelling or grammar is off or maybe I’m rambling too much and not making much sense. It’s not important because I can edit this later. What is important is that express this right now before I explode into a panic attack}

I’ve always had a super hard time going to sleep. Most times, listening to music or watching a slow paced or complicated movie helps silence my mind long enough for me to slip under into unconsciousness. Today was no different than any other. So when I looked for something to watch, I noticed a title that a friend had mentioned to me once.

I Am Sam. The story of an autistic, mentally challenged single father fighting the court for the right to raise his 7-year-old daughter, regardless of the fact that she’s so much smarter than him. I’m not one to get emotional easily. But this movie had so many touching moments and so many heartbreaking scenes; I was uncontrollably forced to shed a few tears. Towards the end of the movie, like a hard blow in the stomach, I felt something I’ve always known but tried to not think about and forget.

I had to turn over in my bed, pull the sheets over my head, and scream the tears into my pillow as it sank into my heart. An epiphany that no daughter should ever come to know.

My.

Father.

Doesn’t.

Love.

Me.

I’ve always known this feeling, even as a young child. Always ignored, put the side, and never in consideration. I only got a few birthdays and Christmas presents from him. Only a small number received by hand. He’s never seen me graduate. Not from kindergarten, middle school, or high school. And we were living in the same house since I was in the 10^th grade. He never cared or fake interest in anything that I was doing or try to know the person that I have, so far, become. And whether that’s from me not being born male or his distaste for my mother or him simply not ready for parenthood, I just don’t think it was fair. It ‘s not fair that I spent 20 years without a real father figure to look up to. It’s not fair that I grew up missing out. I missed out on everything a father could ever had done for his child. It’s not fair that he could just run away from me and I never get a say in anything. I looked through his wallet one day and found a picture of my father and myself, posing in one of those Sears family portrait photo-shoots. He barely smiled or hugged me; meanwhile I have my arms wrapped around him and the biggest grin. In the photo, I was ten. I as nineteen as I held his wallet. We never been in any pictures together since then, and he hasn’t added any recent picture of me in his wallet since then. I can go on forever about how I never felt love or affection from my father, but what’s the point? 
He’s not going to read this.

He’s not come to me and suddenly try to talk (REALLY TALK) to me.

He’s not going to change.

He will never come close to being a father like Sam, the character in the movie. I know it was a fictional story, portrayed my actors with written lines and training to make emotions to look real. It was all fake. But the message was real. A father’s love knows no boundaries.

What do I need to do?

Do I need to beg and plead for my father to love me?

Am I asking for too much?