It’s Tortilla Time| Hi I’m Tori and This is my Story

My Mum’s friend Lora can be surprisingly wise.

Ben and I were essentially raised with Lora’s two children. The four of us shared a common thread; the fact that we were raised by strong, single mothers. Our fathers left, married and began new families shortly after. We both lacked a liking for our new stepmothers, and even developed a series of jokes inspired by them.

Mum was catching up with Lora a few days ago, as it truly has been a while since the two conversed beyond brief ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ conversations. They were discussing our fathers, Lora was saying that her children hadn’t seen their father in a while, much like Ben and I.

‘As much as people like to complain about the teenage years,’ Lora said, ‘they truly are the best years in our kids’ lives. Sure, nurturing them when they were young was great, but now we can talk to them as people. These are the best years to build a relationship with our kids, and if their fathers don’t want to make an effort to get to know their kids now, they’ve lost them forever.’ My Mum thought for a second and quickly realized that what Lora had said was extremely true.

Has my father ‘lost me’ forever? I’d say that that is a fair assessment.

He has never shown an ounce of remorse for the pain that he caused when he went away. I was a mere child, lacking an understanding of his absence. She-who-shall-not-be-named quickly appeared on the scene, and my father allowed himself to be manipulated by her into not seeing us. He then moved far away, married without informing us, and began a new family.

I could probably count on one hand how many times I’ve seen him in the past couple years.

It’s now nearing seven years since the divorce.

It has profoundly changed me as a person. But apparently not my fashion sense.