he called us in to talk to us. he explained, he wants us to stay.

he knows he was wrong. he wants a chance. he loves us. he thinks if we leave him now we probably won't be together again, we won't want to leave our life for him, or how will we know he's changed from a phone call. we need to live with him to see a change.

i talked to him alone. he explained his mom not being there for him when he was a teen, now he doens't know how to relate to us as teenagers. how to show or even tell us he loves us.

i told him in all my years i never really knew if he loved me and recently i didn't think he did. i gave him examples, my birthday etc.

he stuttered, but his lip and fumbled for words finally swiping a finger across his cheek.

he apologized, said he really loved me.

i told him this wasn't about us not loving him, me not loving him.

he said he wants to just go back one month, one month.

i said he can't, that's the thing, he can't go back, it's already been done.

i kept telling him that i want us to be a family. i told him he needs to prove he can change. that he can't just expect us to automatically trust him after a week or two, or a few days actually so far.

he said he's never felt like this before, this sorry, acknowledging that he has been wrong.

he said he knows we don't think he has feelings, but he does.

i kept telling him to just work on himself, see a pastor, go to church, prove his change, then we can be together again.

he told me to look at statistics of couples who get back together, i told him to forget that.

i told him he was an alchoholic, he talked about how he went to the store today and didn't buy anything, i said it's more than that, it's the fact that once he has a little he just wants a little more, he can't stop. i told him he just needs to stay away from it completely, he said i was right.

he just keeps saying that he doesn't think we'll all get back together if we leave, that mom won't want to move us and leave our life in kansas to go to him. how she won't even be able to know if he's changed.

i told him he was giving us an ultimatum, he said he wasn't. i said yes he was, he's telling us if we leave now we probably would be throwing away this only chance. that things won't work out, we'll all make our own lives.

i said that's not true, if he really loves us and really changes we can all be together again. he said mom would never go for that.

he said a year was too long, i asked him if he expected all our lives this past 20 years to just go down the drain in a year, that it was sad if he thought that.

he mentioned something about love conquering all at one point, he said his mom never talked about that or demonstrated (though I don't know under which context he would expect that to come from her...) so I told him to do it, she didn't but he can. he said maybe.

it's not fair for him to expect us to stay now that he's finally truly sorry. i've never seen my dad cry before tonight, ever. even though he just teared, i've never seen him even close to that.

mom said he might have been faking, this was all a game. now that he thinks we're really leaving again he's trying to get us to stay by acting like this.

if he really loved us and really wanted to change and really was changing like i really think he is wouldn't he agree to wait a year, to let us go and not say that it probably won't work out? wouldn't he agree to go to church and see a pastor and prove himself to us, to admit that he can't earn our trust in a week, that he has to take time. that we can't stay here and cheer him on, chances are if we stay he may slowly lose the motivation to chnage because we're already here right? slowly the determination may wear down. he wouldn't have suffered.

there are too many what ifs. too many simple points that become a mess. simple right and wrong scenarios, the way things should logically be.

but when emotions get involved everything gets blurred and everything is gray. 

my head and heart are rarely in sync.

my mom was angered when he said he worried about us making it, like he didn't think we could, that we had unrealistic expectations. she said that's how he's always made her feel, like she was small and weak. she needs to do this, staying with him makes her nervous, when is he going to get mad again, what is she doing wrong now, did she cook something wrong.

it's when i think with my head and then my sentimental heart feels for him, and then i think maybe my heart is right. which is better? is there a yes or no? do we always have to struggle to find that medium, that common ground?

she was hell bent on leaving before i went and talked to her about his and my conversation, now she's not so sure.

wish wash. i try and sway her but when she sways i want to go to the other side again. i don't know why.

why can't he just be like, i understand that i have been wrong all this time and i don't deserve your trust so I will take this year or so to reflect, to see a pastor, to for the first time examine myself and my endless issues and faults and work on them and i hope that when i do these things and become the man that deserves you girls that you will let me back in to be your father and husband. and if not i at least have to try, for myself foremost and for you.

so yeah. we're always swinging and crying, too much htinking, what is right and wrong and is he faking and is what he is saying true, is it a game? if it's not should we still stay? or would us staying make it worse.

after all these years the least he can do is live apart from us, to understand that he could have thought about this a month ago, or when he signed the papers but he didn't and now he expects us to take his word when his word has rarely meant anyting in the past.

and if we take his word and things fall apart we will be the fools, we will be the ones regretting not leaving when we had the chance.

is there a clear answer? maybe someone is praying out there and can see this from an unbiased point of view and will read all of this, all my entries about him through the bad and some good and tell me what is right.

because unfortunately i can usually convince my mom of anyting, i'm good at arguing and reasoning and sometimes i wish i wasn't because then i wouldn't feel so responsible. i can't just hold back though. or maybe i can.

shutup chelsea.