Call Back

The person it is most difficult to get a hold of in my life is my dad. It doesn’t matter why I am calling him, he usually won’t answer. I have never really understood why. My only guess is that he doesn’t answer the phone for anyone. But that has not ever really made me feel any better.

I guess the reason it is hard is because of the way I feel when he doesn’t call me back. It is like I am not important enough. It is like somehow, calling me back makes me an inconvenience on him, like he is too busy to remember, like I am not worth taking five minutes just to see if there is something I need to talk with him about.

I hate that this has spilled into the rest of my life. Somehow, I have taught myself that if someone doesn’t call me back, it is because they don’t really care, or because they don’t want to talk to me, or because they don’t want to be bothered.

I always attract these men… the ones who don’t call back. I try to understand, I try to remember that people have lives and that they get busy. But when it hits a week and I haven’t heard back, I feel like screaming.

The only way my dad will call me back, I have learned, is if I cry onto the answering machine. The great thing about him though, is that he always knows he is wrong for not calling me, and he is my dad, so if I cry he takes it seriously, and I don’t have to really care or worry whether or not he thinks I am an overly emotional freak… because he is my dad.

With other men, though, it isn’t the same. If I cried onto the phone to get someone to call me back, they would think I was crazy and then really have a reason to not call me. And the last thing I would want to do is push someone away.

Even if I am crazy.