We made our next big move, we were back in New York, in a new apartment, and a new school. I met new people and made new friends. I continued learning about comics and art from my mother's boyfriend, or at this point now, her fiance. We started butting heads a lot, he never had children and was taking care of someone else's now, so we were both still a bit awkward with each other. He had a much different upbringing than I did, and couldn't quite follow my behavior.
He'd often try to get me to come outside and he'd try and teach me about baseball. Baseball was his all time favorite sport, but me being the gamer I was, had no interest. He taught me to swing, to catch, to pitch, and while I was getting the hang of it, it still felt like a chore to me. I really didn't care for it.
Being back in New York again, my father decided to come back into the picture as well. He started regular visitation. The hostility between him and my mother was not masked though in the least. My mother would continuously try to get me to not get my hopes up about him and not take anything he did personally, while my father painted a picture of my mother as a hostile loudmouth trying to take away everything fun.
Visitation was regular at the time, once a week, every Saturday for a few hours. We'd either get a bite to eat or I'd go to his house, and at the time he was seeing someone else. A much younger girl who, from the moment we met, hated me. She would say whatever snide or snarky comment about me or my mother in front of me, usually resulting in a harsh retort from my father.
Most the visits to his house was normally me sitting on the couch watching a movie or two then getting up and going home. I didn't mind though, I did miss my father and just enjoyed being around him, even if he wasn't around still a good portion of the time when I did see him. He'd often "run to the store" or whatever it was he did. His girlfriend would be in the house but paid little mind to me and went about her own business. Half the time she just walked around in her underwear and an over-sized shirt.
It was around this time that I even came to love movies. My father often played the movie Coneheads for me, a favorite to this day now. A lot of the humor was over my head, as it would be for a 10 year old, but it had plenty that I did find funny as well. Part of it might also just be the pure fact that my father put it on for me, and I was desperate for any connection to him, even as small as that.
As the weeks went on, my father would miss a week here and there. Eventually he started complaining about the 20 minute commute and how he wasn't able to see me as often because it was "too far" to go every week, Eventually it became bi-weekly visits, and eventually monthly.
This started making things a bit easier for my mother though in some respects. We eventually moved again, and because my father had so little involvement as it was, he didn't give us a hard time about moving again.
Around this time, my mother and her fiance were married, making him my new stepfather. He still tried every chance he could to get me to play baseball, but I still showed little interest. But he did try, much much more than my father ever did. But in the back of my mind I still had some form of absolute loyalty to my father and was still very hesitant to my step-father.
He used to get even angrier than my mother when my father would cancel visits, and even offered to adopt me as his legal son. That was where my father drew the line, he refused to allow it, despite never having much contact. He'd try to at least call, once a month or so, but I rarely if ever saw him in person.
I'd also find over the coming months and years, that I'd see and hear from him less and less, and over time, this started to affect me in ways I couldn't even begin to imagine at this point. But this is a story I'll tell another time. Recalling this part of my life gets me a bit emotional and I'll take some time to gather my thoughts and align my memory properly.
Thank you for reading along with the story of my life so far.
