It’s no secret to those that know me that there is no love loss between my step father and I. He came into my family while I was in my first semester of college, right after I graduated from High School. I had gone WAY away from home to attend college, all the way to Florida. A few weeks before final exams started for that semester I received a letter from mom letting me know that my soon to be step father had moved into our home and that while I was home on Christmas break, they were going to get married.
While I wasn’t completely against this man or my mother getting married again, it was obvious when I got home from college that things between he and I weren’t going to be peaches and cream. It took less than 2 years before he and I had both finally had enough of each other and after a major fight between us, I packed my stuff and moved out!
That was more than 20 years ago and I wish I could say things between he and I have gotten better, they haven’t. We have, however, learned how to tolerate each other when there are situations that we have to be near each other. But after talking to my mother this afternoon, I’m honestly not sure I’m going to be able to ever be around him again.
In a few weeks my children are going to head out to the east coast to spend a month with their older sister. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with something special that my husband and I could do for a few days while the kids are gone, but everything I’ve checked into has been way out of the price range that I had in mind. My friend Lisa suggested that we go camping, but sleeping on the ground or even on an air mattress isn’t anything either of us can do anymore. So she asked me if I knew of anyone that had a camper and if I did, maybe I should think about asking them if I could borrow it.
The only people that I knew who had a camper are my mom and step father, so I called mom after I knew she’d be home from work this afternoon. While she thought the idea of my husband and I doing something special while the kids are gone, she said that there was no way my step father would allow us to borrow the camper. When I asked her if she thought it would do any good if I asked him personally she went into this “Holly, I don’t want problems and I don’t need any more reasons for him to get mad at me. I love you, but this is just not going to happen”.
While I respect my mother and the decisions she makes, I can’t help but hope that she has shopped around for cheap term life insurance for my step father because with all of the anger and bitterness this man carries around with him on a daily basis, I have no doubt his days are numbered. No, I don’t relish the thought of my mother burying another husband, but I do look forward to the day that I don’t have to be judged by this “Holier than thou” Christian man! Sorry mom, I do love you, but I have put up with this long enough!
