Father's Day. A day to celebrate with your father, who helped create you, raise you, teach you and shape you. It's a day focused on the love and importance of a father in a child's life. Should be a very happy day. But for myself, it's exactly the opposite. There is no happiness here inside of me today. Only extreme, massive and profound hurt. I dread this day every year because I know it will bring up feelings that are still so intense and powerful, it knocks me off my feet. I can still feel the raw misery in my soul as if it just happened. And I don't want to feel that way. So I don't look at Father's Day like many. I look at it and really have to prepare myself to go to that dark place.
It's been twenty years since my dad passed away. You'd think I'd be able to handle days like this now. After all time heals all wounds right? WRONG. Time will never heal this wound. I will never get over it or past it. I have simply learned through the last two decades how to deal with it and live with it. I won't ever let it go either. There are times when seemingly out of the blue my thoughts will turn to my father and my mind will be consumed with these thoughts. I can't escape them. And, while its true that as time has passed it gets easier to think of the good times and smile, I still always find myself feeling such a heaviness and tightness in my chest due to the severity of the entire situation. I was eight years old when he died and in that moment, my whole life was altered permanently. It was a life defining moment and I was too young to even grasp the magnitude of the situation. I lost my innocence that day you see. I had to grow up and become an adult and feel adult things and understand adult things and yet I wasn't psychologically ready to do that. So I was simply lost, rejected, abandoned, scared, confused and in pain. I lived my life from that point on in isolation and in darkness. The hollowed out feeling and the constant numbness I felt was my norm. I didn't know anything else. So I never had a normal childhood. But lets be clear here: I'm not playing the victim writing this. I understand that this is life and there is nothing fair about it and that there is nobody to blame for what happened to me in my childhood or that I am the only one who has the market cornered on having to deal with this situation. I get that. But I'm just being honest when I say that I have had a chip on my shoulder since that night my father died. It's true. I have been treated unfairly by life and I have a lot of issues I have to deal with because of it. I recognize my issues now and where they stem from, but that doesn't make them disappear or make the war that wages inside of me easier to win. It just gives me hope that I can find a way to deal with the issues I have at some point.
What issues am I referring to? Well, for starters there is my abandonment issue. Yes, I know that nearly everyone who has lost a parent at a young age says they have this and I'm sure some of you want to roll your eyes and go here we go again with this "excuse". I have to tell you that I understand the sentiment from those who feel that way, I do. They simply cannot understand how it feels to lose somebody so vital and fundamental to your existence and who you look up to in so many ways. Its a case of not being able to understand because of lack of experience. Trust me, I am glad they don't have this experience under their belt. I am thrilled that they will never know what it's like to be left in such utter disarray with your head spinning in complete darkness and having your entire life destroyed after a parent's death as a young child. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy because it absolutely fucking sucks. There is nothing I would wish for more than that every child to never lose a parent in their childhood. But that is a wish that cannot be granted. So I can only say that for those who have never had to deal with it, wonderful. But you'll never understand how alone you feel after a parent passes away like that. To be eight years old and have my father die enstilled deep inside of me, the deepest parts of my subconscious, that to love somebody and to invest in somebody that much and to count on them with all of your being is a waste of time because they will only leave you in the end with nothing but despair and confusion and grief. It taught me to not invest in a relationship because why bother? The other person will eventually leave. And so you put up gargantuan walls around your heart so that nobody will ever get in. If they don't get to close, when they do end up leaving, it won't hurt cause you won't really let them get to you. So nobody ever really gets close to you. But yet you still cling to a person when you find them. You have such insecurity that they will eventually leave that you want them with you all the time. You never want them out of your sight. You cling to them as if they are a life preserver. I know that this seems very antithetical and you're right, it is. They are two polar extreme opposites to feel. On one hand you never want to bother to invest in anyone or anything so you close off your heart and mind but on the other hand, you latch onto anyone or anything so much so that they don't leave. But really, it all comes back to the same thing: the fear of being abandoned, rejected, and lost like that day when your father died and non stop chaos ensued. And if your that insecure and unstable, what is going to happen in the end? They are going to leave you and prove that your right for not ever truly investing in them to begin with. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You really sabotage your own chances at any meaningful relationship by pushing them away with your insecurity and then when they do, you get to feel justified in being close guarded. Make sense? Probably not unless you have actually gone through this yourself. Like I said earlier, if you have never experienced that type of loss in your childhood you will read this and scratch your head saying to yourself this lady is one odd duck (which is true by the way) and will just be confused and possibly upset that you took time to read this. But if you have ever gone through a similar experience, then you understand what I just wrote about completely because you've been there. And you understand the futility you feel when every relationship around you collapses, how you feel unworthy, unlovable and like your a complete failure. And how alone you really feel even if your surrounded by people. You just feel like you are trapped in a dark shell and cannot escape from it. This is the war that is waged inside of me every day guys. Pushing people away so as to not invest in them or latching onto them and becoming so dependent on them, it becomes a matter of survival (but to the people I latch on to, it feels like its obsessive and in many ways it is) to have them around. I honestly don't know what to do with this. I recognize my behavior and why I do what I do, which is only because of the 18 months of therapy, but I still find it doesn't make me stop my behavior. I guess it's just a learning process that I still leave much to be desired on.
And speaking of recognizing truths about myself, here is the whole reason I wrote this blog today on Father's Day. I have been thinking a lot lately about this (as I said earlier I dread this day every year) and a couple weeks ago marked the 20 year anniversary of my dad's death. Since that day, I have really had a hard time dealing. Moreso than in past years and I wasn't sure why. So I went to therapy and had an intensive session, I mean we dug deep. And this is the truth that I came away with from that: I am resentful of others who still have their fathers and I am envious of them. I am. I don't know why but I thought I was not that way. I thought the feelings I had around this time of the year every year were about other things, and on some level they are, but the biggest reason I have such dread and depression around this time of the year is because I hate that I never got more time with my father. I hate that I had to grow up without him, that I had to live my life with such constant sorrow, I hate that I didn't even get the chance to know him at all, and that makes me resentful of those that got all that. When I think of other daughters who get to have their dads walk them down the aisle on their wedding day or have them give a congratulatory hug after graduation or who just get to get to know their dads, it makes me so envious and so damn resentful. Why? I still ask that question. It doesn't do any good to ask that question but I do it anyway. Why did I never get to have that? What makes me inferior to others that I didn't deserve to have that as well? I can't have that and it tears me up inside. I would give anything I have to be able to have my father back and be able to have all those things. I would. And I get totally pissed off when I realize that people out there still have their fathers, the only thing I long for in this life, and yet they don't know how lucky they got it. It infuriates me to no end when I hear people say that they have a father but they don't talk to him or they don't have a relationship with him. Yes, its their choice but it makes me so angry because they still have a dad. I would switch places with them in a fucking new york minute. They don't want a dad and they don't want to cherish him-fine. I will. And to have people who have their fathers around and just don't appreciate them for what they are makes me so mad and sad and disappointed. I wouldn't do that. It's almost like a woman who can't have a child but wants one so badly who constantly sees other women who have children that they don't cherish and appreciate. It's just something you want so badly, you can't see others have it and waste it. That's how I feel when I see other children with their fathers. I know it's not fair to them to feel that way. I know I'm judging them far too harshly but I cannot help how I feel. I want my dad here and I want a relationship with him and I'm never going to get it. And that knowledge brings unbelievable pain, sadness, agony, anger, resentment and disappointment to my mind, heart and soul. So I have to simply get over it. I know that. But it's not that easy. I long for my father's touch and to be able to have a conversation with him just to get to know him. I ache for that. But it's never going to be my reality and I can't take it out on other people who do have that. So I'll figure out a way to deal with this someday. I have no doubts about that. But I gotta tell you that sometimes I hate being so self-aware and understanding my deepest, innermost thoughts because I gotta deal with profound truths that are brutal, intense and challenging. I understand why they say ignorance is bliss. Sometimes I'd rather not know these things. But alas, I do know them and I do feel them and I do have to deal with them.
So here's the deal: I am jealous and resentful of so many of you who have your fathers. I admit it. But I will not take it out on you and I still got nothing but love for you. Just do me a favor though. Don't take him for granted. Cherish every moment you get with him. And for those of you out there like me who are having a rough time with Father's Day because you have lost him, I just want you to know that I feel your pain. I understand what you're going through and I wish I could make it better for you. I know I can't but I wish that for you. And just remember that we are all in this together. Even if we have never met, we have a close bond that will always bind us together. We will always love our daddies and one day, when God sees fit, we will be reunited and get all that we long for now.
Thanks for reading guys.
God bless
Hug your dads (and your moms for that matter)
Mel
