Christmas Kids.

Tyler The Creator’s Like Him, Absent Fathers & The Christmas Text.

The first time I listened to Chromokopia was a couple days after it released. I’d pre-ordered a test pressing of it, and that’s how I wanted to experience my first listen. Then, Side D. Isolated piano.

Mama, I’m chasing a ghost.

The last time I heard from my dad was on my birthday. By that, I mean the last time I heard from my dad was on August 6th. He tried to ring me whilst I was out for dinner, with chosen family, but I didn’t answer. I did see the call but I was drinking my wine, and eating my spaghetti, and I felt it would be abrupt, and rude, to answer. I remember texting him, telling him the situation and to call me soon, and I think I remember his reply, but to be completely honest I will never be sure because he has his WhatsApp set to delete all conversations after a week. More likely so any promises he makes can disappear without trace.

I don’t even know where he is, to be honest. Somewhere in Barcelona, I think. But it could as easily be London, and his avoidance to text me will be maybe even more hurtful then. I suppose distance makes it less so.

She said that I make expressions, like him.

My dad wasn’t ever a good one. Sure, people had worse. People had never met theirs, some experienced much worse than that. Mine dolled out physical punishment, and was never too emotionally sensitive when it came to his children… but beyond that I suppose he was nothing but absent, and inconsiderate. On occasion, he’d throw a bone - he paid for a ticket to LoveBox one year, he sent me £50 when I was struggling with money at uni. But to be fair, he borrowed £100 from me when I was 13, so maybe we’re even now.

I wanted to trust him, but I think the moment I lost any hope in that was when I spent an hour-long car ride with him, and he told 14 year old me that I had to start doing crossfit otherwise my body would always look like it did - plump, sure, but nothing that I couldn’t help… I don’t think it was necessary. I don’t think it would’ve been necessary even if I didn’t grow 9 inches in the years since then, and fill out the way I have. If I did stay the way I was. But when I’ve spoken to him, he’s never mentioned it again. Maybe because I have changed.

The thing is, my dad was like me. Or perhaps, I was like him. He was big. He was rugby-built. I had his build and his eyes, maybe people would say I have his nose too. And I grew up hearing that, that I’m like him. And I’ve seen the photos since. So I don’t understand, when he told me that I shouldn’t like the way my body looks, that I shouldn’t be happy with how I look, how can he say that. I’m like him, how can he say that?

How could I ever miss something, that I’ve never had?

It was a dark December night the first time I watched aftersun; a film about a woman reminiscing the first holiday she shared with her father, a young Scottish man. The girl I was dating was meant to come with me, but, for her sake and mine, I’m glad that she didn’t.

I never went on holiday with my dad, nothing beyond a trip to Scotland for my grandfather’s second wedding, and the amount I saw him between the ages of 3-12 was probably… around 18. So I don’t know how exactly I related so strongly to Aftersun, but I remember sobbing silently in the cinema, and thinking about how Callum, the father played by Paul Mescal, affectionately called her poppet. How he proposed this “business” he’s starting with his friend. How he told her he’d pay for singing lessons, a promise that is clearly empty. And even how he talks about his abusive father. I knew all of this. I felt all of it. But once again, I didn’t. Not well enough.

I was not only grieving what I had experienced, knowing some of these things all too well, but grieving what I hadn’t. I shouldn’t miss these things, almost none of them are good, but I still knew I had missed out on something, something that I’ll never get the chance to experience again. That was enough for me to cry, to rate the movie five stars on letterboxd and for me to list it on the movies I probably shouldn’t rewatch.

But I did, around a year later, with a girl I knew and I still appreciate. We watched it high, after we’d made edibles, and fell asleep whilst it was playing, and we cuddled. And I woke up to hear “Under Pressure” by Bowie and Queen, and to see the moment that most people remember from that film. And I remember crying again, but this time quieter than before, trying not to move my chest. She eventually woke up, but long after I had settled, and we watched Gordon Ramsey in a haze of edibles and fell back asleep. I walked back to my flat that night and I thought about the movie. Little did I know, a year later, I wouldn’t have heard from him in four months.

Too complex to itch, What I'll never scratch

The next time I hear from him will probably be soon. The 25th of this month, I assume. Christmas. But, that fact, I cannot even be sure of.

I wrote a screenplay once about Ronnie Spector and how her husband, Phil, adopted two kids without her knowledge on Christmas day, and cared about them for just Christmas day. My dad is not Phil Spector, don’t get me wrong, but he told me to send him the script, a script he never read, but told me he’d send to one of his “friends”, a term I’ve always heard from him about people I’ve never met. Someone who worked on sex education. I don’t know if he ever did.

It probably sounds like I hate my dad. And like I think he’s a terrible person. I don’t. I don’t even think he’s a bad person. At this point I think I would, instead, call myself resigned.

So i’ll hear from him on Christmas. And I’ll be his Christmas kid. But I don’t know if I’ll reply this time. I also don’t know if I’ll even get the chance to.