I can't hate my father because I'm just like him

What happens to a child when one parent teaches them that half of who they are is something to be ashamed of?

When your parents divorce, guilt doesn't belong to one person. It spills onto everyone. When I was living with my mother I remember all the late night talks about my father. According to my mother, he was cruel. The kind of man who could lie without blinking.

I remember sitting in my room with a small mirror in hand studying every detail of my face that reminded me of him. My bushy, dark eyebrows, hazel eyes, rosy, round cheeks and big nose. I'd sit with the only photograph I had of my father, comparing our faces. If she hated my dad this much, does this mean it she never really meant when she called me pretty? I wasn’t always looking for similarities, I was trying to understand why being like my dad was my curse.

In my neighbourhood, everyone knew my father, they also knew about divorce. Every time my mother and I went out, we'd run into elderly women who would sympathize with her before turning to me and saying, "You look just like your mother." But I never did. My mother's dyed blonde hair, greenish eyes, and small lips looked nothing like mine. She was always relieved to hear that I was nothing like my "evil dad." I would always frown, because I knew we didn't look alike.

I not only had the face of the man my mother truly hated but also the personality, and each time I argued with her she used a curse “You’re just like your father.”. She never told me why the biggest insult from her was comparing us, because he was a part of me.

When me and my mom argued she used to say “one more word, and you’ll start new life at your dad’s” and for so many years I thought it was just a saying. Besides, it can’t be that bad to live with your other parent, right? I moved from my mother twice.

Once to my dad when I was 17 after fight with my mom. I packed my books, clothes and my laptop, that was all I needed. I was so proud of myself to leave my mom but then, when we arrived at my dad’s house I saw strangers. People I’ve only heard about, in a house from my childhood memories that looked nothing alike. I stayed one night in dad’s childhood room upstairs. The next morning I packed one backpack, called my mother to ask for bus fare, and cried the entire way home. I had lived with my father for less than twenty-four hours. I wasn’t part of his life, all the pictures of me were replaced by new family and yet I was the one cursed, with his face and personality that caused me so many issues. He could replace a family. I couldn't replace the part of him that lived in me.

When I came back, it felt as though my mother finally believed I would always choose her.

The second time I moved to my dad was at 19. I remember after a huge fight, gasping for air on the living room floor nearly having panic attack. I remember shoving my clothes into my bag, my books, my laptop and everything that reminded me of my partner, my grandparents and who I really am. I didn’t leave with one bag. I left with ten of them. And there I was again, in strangers house but this time they weren’t just peeking. they were treating me like everyone else. I remember not being able to unpack because my stepmother served me dinner and my dad asked me “what do you need?”. Nobody asked me that for years. I wasn't used to being asked. I didn’t know what. When my dad asked me what my favourite food was, I realized I couldn't remember. It took me three months before I had an answer. My mother called my dad many times asking how I’ve been, he always said it’s not her business.

It’s been two years since I live with my dad and my stepmom and I’m not hiding anymore in my father’s old childhood room. I have my own one here. For those two years I’ve tried to hate my dad, to be mad at him like I used to be at my mom when we lived together. But I can’t hate him. Not when we both get coffee downstairs in the morning, when we smoke cigarette on patio or when we get in the car and listen to music. For many years I thought I was a bad kid, the unlovable one. I also believed my father couldn’t love me because he was the worst. But the worst thing was believing that being like my dad made me a bad unlovable person.

Sometimes when I sit with my dad at dinner across from each other I scan his face like I did with mine as a kid. We both have white hairs among our dark hair, tired eyes and rosy, round cheeks. I can’t hate my father, because that would mean I hate myself.