There’s a scar on my right elbow.  It’s barely visible now, it’s been probably 25 years since I got it.  Roller skating.  Funny, I know.  Now I skate hard in roller derby and scrapes and bruises are badges of honor.  I was huge into roller skating when I was around 6 or 7.  Huge.  I had books on it.  I had these old, second hand rental skates that my parents bought off the local roller rink.  How could I forget this?  When I started playing roller derby I thought that part of my attraction was my background in figure skating.  I forgot how obsessively I used to roller skate.

Mom and dad would take me to the local rink.  We had a big old house with tile floors.  They let me rip shit up in the house.  Whenever.  There were no restrictions in that house.  There were also no pads or helmets…

One day dad took me to the park to skate.  The old park in town.  It had pathways and small hills.  It was a nice place to skate.  I don’t recall going there often, but that was probably just because of The Incident.

There was a hill.  We were at the top of it, looking down, and I hesitated.  I recall crying a little to my father, telling him that I didn’t think I could do it.  But he said I could.  He believed I could.  He told me to hold his hand and we’d go down it together.  So I held his hand.  And he went faster than I did.  (More mass so more momentum?  I dunno.)  And we fell.

He felt really bad about it, because I cried, and I’m sure I cried for longer than I needed to, because I liked the attention that it got me.  Attention from my father.  Can you see where this is going?   Yes, I’ve admitted it in therapy.  I crave attention from men.  I am sure this comes from my relationship with my dad.  But you see the part where he believed I could do it, and kind of forced me down the hill?

I wrote earlier this week about theCrush and how it was attractive to me that he believed that I could make it down the hill (snowboarding).  Cliche or not, I know that I look for my father in relationships.  I look for what he has taught me, by example, what makes a man a man.  I like a man who can fix his own car.  I like a man who doesn’t feel like he has to share every emotion.  I like a man who is a little mysterious, who doesn’t give away all his secrets.  My father was that way.  I never knew what he was up to.  When he surprised me and did something nice for me, I really felt loved.  I am fiercely turned off when a man shows me all his cards.  Face up.

And I don’t understand it, because really, I don’t have the best relationship with my father.  I don’t tell him stuff.  I don’t particularly enjoy listening to his stories.  But for whatever reason, I still want what he has given my mother for all these years.