I hate to become another girl with daddy issues. It's so fucking cliche. In fact I've spent some quality couch time trying to move on from the past with the help of a certified professional. I'd wasted much of my adolescence being the poster girl for teenage angst, the girl angry at her dad.
Growing up there were times when my anger was so alive I felt it literally strangling me, taking away all of my oxygen and leaving me empty. My anger, my rage is something I hide behind so I don't have to expose my real feelings--hurt, embarrassment, shame, guilt, vulnerability, isolation, fear. As much as I want to move past the anger and all the issues I dealt with growing up, they keep sneaking up on me. Something, someone keeps getting in the fucking way. Every time I think I'm so much better off, every time I think it's finally going to be over, it happens again. I'm grateful I can focus on the present without dredging up every single fight, every wrong that's ever happened in the history of my dysfunction. I do know "I don't like the way you are treating me" but I cannot say it. And right there, that comes from deep within, the fear of being honest and getting destroyed comes from the past and everything that's happened before.
A few years ago I made a conscious decision to have a relationship with my dad, to bury the hatchet and be friends. I spent some time taking inventory of my life and I realized how lucky I was. I had a dad after all, alive and well, present in my life and I was wasting this gift, throwing it away. I used to feel guilty, those times my anger would push me over the edge and I'd lose all control, the times I'd actually wish him dead, wish something terrible would happen to him, pray even, that he'd just die.
And instantly I'd be filled with remorse, with guilt for not taking advantage of what so many didn't even had. Knowing how horrible it was for my mom to lose her dad. To watch as he got sick, watch as he got worse, watch as it became too much and he died. Knowing how it hurt her not to know him as she became an adult, for him not to know his grand kids and visa verse. How she misses him, grieves for him. I'd feel lower than low, and wish that it could have been my dad, wish that I could have traded her that pain, because after all it's what I wanted.
The last few years have been golden. Moments of "honesty" with my dad, laughs and memories. And it hurts now to see that he doesn't realize what I did. That I wanted to know him, I wanted to move on and so I changed. I did so many things for him, birthdays and phone calls, weekends spent at home playing cards, weekends camping and sitting by the fire. Sure, all things I enjoy, but I was making an effort. For years that stuff never happened, no camping, no drives to the lake, nothing. Because he didn't see that as a way to get to know either one of his daughters. He never thought of an activity we'd enjoy, and take that chance to grow away from the shit and start something positive. The change came when we started doing things he liked. And I'm not angry that for that to happen we were the ones who had to make the change. Sure, it should have probably been the parent instead of the child, but that's just semantics.
I pushed away everything else. The times I needed him to stand up for me and he stood up for himself. The times I needed support and he didn't want to get involved. I just wanted a good relationship with my dad. But it's over now, that last straw has broken the camels back or whatever... For months now he's made it so obvious that he's only taking care of himself I can't even stand to be around him. He's so blatantly selfish it actually hurts me. To know how "close" we were, and that changes and he doesn't even care. He puts it all off on me.
He's free to do that. He's free to wander around in a haze, angry and rude all the time. But I'm not going to be a part of it anymore. I'm tired of giving and giving and getting nothing. Less than nothing, because when it's not appreciated, when it's taken for granted that hurts even more. I'm not willing to go back to being angry all the time. I'm not willing to let that suffocation hold on to me until I have nothing else.
I can leave the past in the past. But I'm also not stupid enough to keep on making the same mistakes. I'm not going to beg you to listen to me, to stand up for me, to love me when you're walking away. I've learned that lesson time and time again. And sure, maybe I'm alone now, but that's better than pouring my heart out to someone who's walking away, who's turning around and shutting out everything I am saying, everything I am. He's closed the door.
He's a grown man, fully capable of making his own choices. I'm not standing in the way this time.
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