This is kinda serious.

I've seen a lot of marriage problems erupt and heard a lot of yelling by parents in my lifetime. I've be there for friends when their parents are fighting and I've spent the night at their house when my dad left that one night. It's really really hard for me to talk about this because I can get really emotional. I hate crying. A lot. But if we don't talk about it and we just ignore it, what happens? I'll tell you, since my family is professional at bottling up feelings and pretending it's all okay. Your dad goes to bed early or takes his car to go on "errands," but you know why he's leaving at eight o'clock at night. Your mom has red eyes from crying in the bathroom but still tries her best to put on an obviously fake smile for you. Or sometimes she doesn't even try since she's so tired. She sleeps on the couch and you've never seen her so ... beaten before. The silence is so loud and it feels like the devil is sleeping in your house so you can't move or something will go horribly wrong. You want to believe them when they put on fake smiles and lie, but you can't. You almost wish they would fight it out, yell and cry and scream and then fix it. But they don't. They just ... hold everything in. And it makes you hold your breath for dear life.

It's scary as hell to think of your parents as flawed people. For your entire life, they've been sort of godly, with their amazing ability to fix everything and they were always happy to see you and they always had some sort of surprise for you that was usually just a Jolly Ranger, but you cherished it anyways. As I've gotten older, I've seen my world in a different view that I'm not quite sure if I like or not. I don't really have a relationship with my dad. I mean, yeah, he's my dad. I love him. We have typical father-daughter conversations. But not real conversations. When I walk away from being with him, I don't feel whole. I feel a sense of emptiness. Like I should've said something or asked something or told him I loved him. But I never do, and sometimes he'll try. But for me ... it's too late. For my entire childhood, he was never there. It was just me and my mom and my sister. I knew he was my dad, but I never knew him. He was always working or mad or yelling about something. If you know my dad now, you wouldn't expect that because he's so goofy and everyone loves him. But when I was a little kid, when I really needed my dad and when I wanted him more than anyone else to pick me up when I was down, he wasn't there. He was never there for me. So I relied on my mom only. She was my everything. She still is. And my dad used to treat her like shit. He never helped and never wanted "family time" and blah blah. He worked and came home upset and took it out on my mom. He was never abusive or anything, don't get me wrong. But he was never ever what she deserved. She deserved someone who wanted to be around and wanted to help raise his two daughters and wanted to go out with his family and show them off. But he didn't. He never did. So now when he tries to be like a dad to me, I'm kinda like ... it's too late. It's too fucking late. I'm seventeen years old now. I'm almost a legal adult. I'll be moving out in a couple of months. So when he tries to discipline me or do that Carly-do-not-speak-to-me-that-way-thing, I'm like excuse me? You're seventeen years too late to be like that. 

I don't know. Maybe someday it'll be better.

xoxo,

carly rae