A nobody in a somebody world 2

I don’t matter to anyone. Years spent with my ex have all seemed to be washed from memories. Everything I did for friends, is gone. As soon as my marriage ended so did my family. My sister just wants to be the “super” aunt and rub it in my face that she would be a much better parent if she had been given the chance.

Gone are the days when “holidays” were special. I haven’t felt the “spirit” in 4 years and probably never will again. There was a time the family would come together with food and fun and now it’s a cold apartment and no greetings.

I don’t know any other way to live. For the first 48 years of my life, this is what I had, how I lived. For the last 4 years, it’s been nothing. Yeah, I get the kids a day or two afterward, but this isn’t the life I wanted them to grow up in. I don’t even know how to fake it.

I really can’t understand how these people I have loved and cared for over decades could have just given up on me as they did. I don’t know why when they all knew how sensitive I was and how deeply I cared for things, they just brushed me off and said “shit happens” and ” I don’t care to hear it” to me? What am I supposed to do?

Death is one thing. When you lose a loved one to death the finality of it is somehow comforting. This isn’t. I lost important people in my life although I can still see them, read what they write, and hear what they say all the while, they treat me as if there was nothing between us. I mean I was there for my ex for every doctor visit, every birth, and every happy or sad moment, but I get treated and talked to like all I ever did was sit and poke her with a stick for 20 years. She won’t even talk to me about the day any one of our kids was born like I just donated at the local sperm bank and I figured out that she “used” my sample.

It made sense with my first ex. We fought constantly. She lied and cheated. Hell, she even slapped the shit out of me for no reason one night. But, Patty, there were absolutely no issues being thrown around. Sure, in retrospect, I can understand it was a money security thing, but there was never a lack of love. As I have said countless times, the day she ended it all, we woke up, held each other discussed dinner, hugged and kissed, and we both said “I love you”. Then in the late afternoon without warning it was gone as if the last 20 years never happened. Everyone and I mean everyone, acted as if there was never a marriage between me and her. People literally looked at me as I was sobbing and inconsolable and told me “get over yourself” and “if you’re going to be like that, I don’t have time for you”. Do you know that I never was hugged or held and told “it will be ok. We’ll get you through this” at all, ever, to this day…

And now. I am always wrong. Always the bad guy. Not one person considers I may have an issue or problem, they just go right to “Colby’s a fuck who doesn’t care.” I pay over $700 in rent for a paper-thin walled 3-room apartment. The last few days have been cold and it’s only getting worse. My furnace has not stopped running since I turned it on 2 days ago. Not one break at all. It has never warmed the place up to the temperature I set it to, which isn’t the warmest either. That’s gas and electricity running constantly. My “budgeted” bills are too high to pay let alone what this will do. I pay 2 car payments, 1 I own and the other from my marriage that “who the fuck knows” where it is. $400 for one, $275 for the other. Every check has close to $350 taken for taxes and insurance. Insurance that still costs way too much for co-pays and prescriptions. Finally, I pay $200 a week for child support. What does this all mean? It means I live on $50 a week with no savings. It means that when I get my kids I blow what money I have on food for them. It means we don’t go anywhere because I don’t have gas too. IT MEANS, I am a no caring, shit, SOB of a father because I can’t take them this weekend… IT MEANS, I once again have to hear from my ex and my sister that EVERYONE has bills. YES, but not everyone has another person’s income helping, a paid-off home worth $80,000, several large Covid checks over the last couple of years, and huge tax refunds because you refuse to allow me to claim just one.

I’m just tired of always being wrong. I’m tired of having to rely on the kindness of strangers to feel like I am not wrong.