Rewind to the year 2003 when my story begins. This story spans ten years. Hopefully a greater understanding of my struggles with my father can be attained. My father and I do not see eye to eye and over the years our relationship only declines. A single event lies in each paragraph; memories of my father and I and our struggling relationship.

My dad wanted full custody of my brother and I. This is very difficult to get in a divorce unless the other parent has a criminal record or drug addiction. He decided to plea my mother's insanity in order to not let her see us. He wanted us to live with him and my ill grandmother. That did not happen.

In the third grade our teacher told us to write a paragraph about our families. Mine went like this, "My mom and I like to watch old movies together. My brother likes painting. My dad has long, brown hair". After my mom and dad separated my mom brought us to live over at our grandmother's house and half the week we would stay with my dad. Because of this arrangement, my brother and I often saw more anger within my father. He asked us to sit down on the couch across from him, a sign that we would be yelled at by him. This occurred once to twice a week and always ended with me crying. My brother and I plopped down on the ripped green couch, worn from years of use and happy memories. He took out the paragraph I wrote. Tears in his eyes and face bright red, he shoved the paper in front of me. "What is this?" He asked angrily. "Is this all that I am to you?" I felt guilty like I wronged him in some way.

In the sixth grade I found my father's recordings of my mother. He had recorded here yelling and the recordings had names like "The B**** is Back" and "More Nagging". I wanted to cry. I told my mother but she already knew about them. Later that year I used his laptop to write an essay and found his journal with dozens of words I would never repeat describing my mother. I sat up in my room and read the whole journal, it made me feel sick and yet I could not take my eyes off the screen.

During the summer before Freshman year I played tennis at the SHS tennis camp. One day my father picked me up from it and we went home. When I entered the house my mom called me on my cellphone. She wanted to know if I would like to go to the book store with her to pick up my summer reading books. As I usually did not do anything at my dad's house I decided it would be fine for me to leave for an hour. I told my father that I planned to go to the book store with my mom and he said "Well that's crappy of you." I did not understand what he meant so I just put on my shoes and left the house. My mom dropped me back off afterward and the door was locked and the house appeared vacant. She took me to her work and I tried to call my dad on the house phone and his cellphone. He did not answer. Later he finally texted me back, since I went out and left him he decided to leave too. My mom dropped me back off at home and when I got in my dad said absolutely nothing to me. Every single night my dad would say "goodnight" to me and this was the first night he never did. I stayed up until one hoping that my dad would come upstairs and say "goodnight" but he never did. I cried myself to sleep. For three days my dad gave me the silent treatment. Until on the fourth day he heard me bawling in my room and came in. He explained to me that he did nothing wrong. I wanted to tell him that I did nothing to hurt him but I could not reason with him.

I used to feel bad about loving my mom more than my dad but I do not anymore. My father always tried to make me feel guilty about wanting to spend time with my mom and basically guilty about everything I did. Even now he refuses to come to my tennis matches and my badminton games and complains whenever he needs to come to a sports meeting and acts rudely to my coaches the entire time. I used to cry at night and ask why he couldn't be different but I don't any longer. He will never change and i should not expect him to. A father should be the one who helps you stop cry. He should never be the reason that you cry yourself to sleep every night.