Sitting in the Shower with Bottles of Cider

Sitting in the Shower, With Bottles of Cider

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"Father"

It's hard to make this stuff interesting, and I don't even know why I bother. Nopony's gonna read this. I don't want anypony to read this. Water flows, tubs drain, and sister... I drink cider.

Heh.

Anyways...

When I was born, I was the problem. Mother and Father, as I look back now on my own life, were not ready for a child. They also weren't ready for the strain it would put on their finances and relationship.

Funny, my last rant was about money.

And I'm proof.

But it gets so much better. SO much better!

Not only were they not ready financially, nor was their relationship ready, but I was born... different. My brain was... broken, so to speak. I wasn't the child my mother was hoping for, and I wasn't the child my father was ready to raise. I was angry, just being born. I was sick and unhappy even as a baby. It's like I knew that I was being dragged into Tartarus right out of the gate and didn't want to be a part of it. There was just something wrong with me that made me different as I grew up. I was smarter than many of my peers, but I was also more awkward, because I knew things that they didn't care about and I didn't care for the things that the average foal did.

But you know, my mother loved me anyways, insisting that I be kept and loved and cared for.

For this, I am, or should be, eternally grateful.

My father, however... he didn't want much to do with me. His father was similar, but much more harsh. As a result, my father raised me the way he knew, which was to say from a distance. Or not at all. He was either always working, or always sleeping. The few times I can remember him actually engaging me were not bad, except when I was doing something wrong (which was almost always.), but they were so few and far between that I almost feel like it would have been better to have had him never even looked in my direction at all. At least then I could hate him wholeheartedly.

Sounds harsh, doesn't it?

You know, it is, but that's just how I am. If you don't like it, you can quite literally eat dirt for all I care. You probably shouldn't be reading this anyways, because nopony should be able to read this. Nopony.

I know I shouldn't hate him... but I...

That'll come later...

But you know, I wanted to be just like him when I grew up? I wanted to be a Royal Guard. I wanted so much to be a Royal Guard that up until the last year of my basic schooling, I had my hair cut Guardpony style. Short, in other words. Against my mother's wishes, I went immediately into the Royal Guard. I wanted to be a scout. So I became one. And I failed. Miserably.

I don't want to remember that anymore, though. I want it to go away, and leave me alone so I can move on and forget. It's why I sit here in the shower, and drink. So I can forget and maybe some day move on and do better things.

I'm being constructive with my destruction.

Anyways... up until I was fifteen, my father barely even paid attention to me, and then left my mother for another mare. Walked away from me and my little brother when we needed him most. Gone. Just like that. Sure, we were made to go visit him every weekend in some flank-buck part of Equestria, but he was always working, or busy, or sleeping. And he was single. There's no excuse for that. There's no excuse for ignoring my brother and I!

And two years later, he married.

To his highschool sweetheart.

Essentially, he took on a new family, and replaced me and my mother with a daughter and a new wife.

I love my stepsister.

But whatever. I don't see them anymore. I do my best to not bother with them. My father has... suddenly, taken an interest in my life.

And you know what he tells me? How I'm failing constantly, how it's his JOB to raise me.

I'm twenty. Bucking. Three. I served my time in the Guard, I've moved out of his home, I've left him behind, and all of a sudden, it's his JOB to make sure that I have all the knowledge I need to succeed?

I don't even have words to describe my rage.

I'm doing better than HE was at my age. I've already exceeded him, moved past him!

Buck him! Buck him and his new family! Except my sister...

I can't say I blame my father... though... the stallion was young and stupid. He didn't want a problem child. He wanted to pretend like I didn't exist, and that's the natural reaction. In the wild, those who stand out die, or are eaten or abandoned. We ponies are no better, difference scares us, change boggles our minds.

And those who aren't like everyone else are left alone, to fend for themselves.

Equestria be damned and my father with it.

I'll be better than him, given the chance. I'll be a damn good father... if I ever get the chance. I won't hide like he did.

I'm going to rest now... I'm just so tired of it all. Tired of being accused of being a failure when nearly everypony around me has so many more issues and has made so many more mistakes than I have. I've been careful. I've changed who I was to survive in this society. All the things that the docs told my parents as I was growing up, all the things they said I'd have trouble with... they were right. Except... I have a job, and I keep it. I hate it, and I hate those who I work with and I hate all the ponies I see on the street...

...but can I really be blamed when being different was the only crime I've ever committed and I've been punished for it since day one by my own family, then my peers, and finally my co-workers?

Can I even blame myself?

I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest... and while it doesn't make me feel any better now, I just know that some day I won't have to answer to him ever again about success. Someday I'll be able to tell him to buck off and leave me alone so I can actually enjoy existing.

I guess I don't really hate him... I just don't think he deserves my love as a son. I hope... I hope that he learns from what I'm trying to teach him so that he can make up for the time he lost avoiding me with my little brother... If anything, my brother deserves that much. To have a real father...

... I want more cider...