Entries Tagged 'My Father' ↓

I’ve misspoken, it seems.

I’ve gone on at length over the past year to explain the lack of love I’ve felt, and how manipulative I might have been, craving of affection and raging when it’s not found. That’s not entirely true. I’ve felt something I’d consider to be love for a number of people: the tough ones. These are the people that don’t give back what they receive, who might extol your beauty, grace and talents when they’re in the mood to, but otherwise, for whatever reason, might be unavailable for any form of friendship. Those that, on the surface, are there when it’s convenient to be.

These are the people I’ve continually sought out the affections of, whether it was a friend, lover or parent – and they’re the same people who have brought about the largest reactions when their affection wasn’t given, and when mine wasn’t returned, usually thrown out in the garbage and had a pile of shit rubbed in its face.

These people have, I dare say as one who is often just as guilty, little to no integrity. They are judgmental of others nearly always, gossips, arrogant in their perceived roles of power, knowledge or abilities. They don’t see themselves objectively – as most of us don’t – and they’re often quotable on their belief that they always accept responsibility for their faults and misguided actions.

One of the great things about the personal blogging community is that it gives you a lens to look through – different points of view are always coming within your own microcosm, and it can change the way we look at ourselves in the mirror.

Without blogging, I wouldn’t have been exposed to Grace D’s keynote in July. I wouldn’t have cried the ugly cry in a room full of other people (a lot of whom were also crying the ugly cry), hugged some close women after approaching the table to ask for tissues and approached Grace afterwards, unable to speak. I wouldn’t have ultimately freaked out because it was too much for me to handle, shut down for a few hours, returned back to the party dissociated, drank and stayed up all night, and come back with regrets.

Regrets that taught me about myself, and my ethics.

Without blogging, I wouldn’t have been exposed to posts written in reference to me – some so positive and filled with adoring words that I’ve never felt I would ever deserve, so that my eyes welled up and I cried happy tears; some that filled me with the rage; some that instigated distrust within the community; some that made me stop, stare at myself, and realize how it is that I might seem to people who don’t realize that even if I’m constantly changing and shifting, I am 100% myself online, as I intend to be.

Without blogging, I wouldn’t be where I am, writing professionally, designing websites, speaking at conferences, taking part in projects that are bigger than the universe I was part of five years ago. I wouldn’t be beginning to grasp some semblance of confidence in my abilities. I would be likely be smaller, duller, more marred, without a feeling of futurosity and the hopes and dreams I have (or as many items as there is on my bucket-list).

Because of blogging and specifically a few recent posts, I’ve learned one of the largest lessons I needed to about myself: despite how true Grace’s words are, I am nearly always the person who does things backwards. Even if I forgive myself first, it doesn’t mean that the rage would go away.

I am so tired of feeling rage toward the people that I initially just wanted to care about me – it’s energy that should and could and most definitely would be put to better use somewhere else.

This is not to say, or negate, any of the affection that has come in my direction. There’s been volumes of it in the past couple of years, especially. In fact, I’m owning up to taking that affection for granted, because there wasn’t game needed to get it. I didn’t have to bend over, change my ideals and ethics, open my house and heart to you every time you had a bad moment, or adopt your own mannerisms (even if it wasn’t intentional, totally) to get it. I admit, freely, that I’ve become close with a number of people that required nothing more than me, and because there wasn’t a chase, I didn’t participate actively – because I was busy putting effort into the others.

The ones that needed to just see how well I could take care of them, or advise them, or make them smile during a bad moment, to fall ass over teakettle.

You don’t have to be a Freudian scholar to see the daddy issues, abandonment issues or borderline personality disorder written on the wall.

So. I’ve come to all of these conclusions about the hows and whys of me and my history and now, it’s time to put those into some rational form of cogent action so that I can forgive myself for the self-hatred, the anger, the self-abuse, the denial and the way I’ve brought those facets into others’ lives. I need to forgive them, first.

Might as well do it here, right?

To my father: I forgive you for the knee-jerk reactions that resulted in my ribs and eye socket being fractured, dislocated joints and the migraines I now get regularly. I understand that raising a strong-willed, intelligent, dramatically-mooded child can cause these moments to flare up – I know first-hand what it’s like to want to slap your child and feel the red bubbling up. I forgive you for your weakness of ability to walk away during those moments. I value that it taught me to do so, at any costs and ultimately, to ask for help when it’s needed.

To my mother: I forgive you for walking away when I needed a champion and protector by my side. At nineteen, in the place you were, there was little way that motherhood would have come naturally to you. I forgive your defences against labelling, but still see that I am more like you than anyone in the world – ironic, since I grew up without your influence – and know that should I have been in the same position, in a relationship with the person my father could be and with a difficult child while under some form of chemical, emotional and historical influence, I would have fled, too. And I wouldn’t have come back because I would have felt unworthy to deserve the opportunity. This forgiveness doesn’t continue onward, though, so the true action for any repair and relationship needs to come from you because I need to feel deeply that you want me as your daughter.

To The Ex: I forgive you for not being the person that you have the capacity to be. For assuming your worth is so little, that the existence you lead is the best you deserve. I forgive you for accepting the easy road, because I understand that some days, everything feels an uphill climb and you’re just tired of walking. I forgive you for extending your disillusionment onto me, for the blame and the emotional abuse that you’ve laid upon me (sometimes independently and sometimes as a reaction to my own toward you). I forgive you for not being present for your daughter, because I understand that truly present right now seems less acceptable than sort of around, as much as you have to be. Know that that doesn’t mean she will forgive you, but hopefully, I will raise her with the empathy needed to do so, without taking on your pain personally.

To her: I forgive you for falling into the trap of perception fitting the most recent events. I acknowledge how easy it must be to see someone as never having supported you, when your last memory of them is your conclusion that they weren’t loyal. I forgive you for the lack of holistic vision you have, for how justified you felt in tainting my opinion of others’ and for the concern that you caused – ultimately leading me to invite you into our home and family to remedy the danger to your safety. I appreciate your attempts at healing yourself and your family and for your regret about nearly breaking another’s.

To her and her husband: I forgive you for changing the course of my history, irreparably. I forgive your weakness of strength to approach me with any and all concerns you had both when they first surfaced and later, before emergency measures were taken. I forgive your lack of trust that I was able to seek out help if I needed it, the steadfastness with which I have always raised my daughter to ensure she would grow up missing exactly the experiences I lived with, and your attempts to repeatedly defend your position, without actually expressing anything more than slander toward my character. I appreciate that your vision saw more (and continues to, despite reality) than what you were actually faced with: a recently-relapsed anorexic with severe post-partum depression (who was under treatment for it) parenting to-the-book so as to make up for the daily guilt she felt for resenting her life; a boyfriend/soon-to-be ex who was nearly always drinking, getting high or unemployed; and a difficultly-tempered baby who, in addition to nearly six months of colic, had a severe, undiagnosed wheat allergy. You saw a potential for danger, and you chose to take action months later, apparently, when confrontation and an end to the friendship made it easier for you to do so. I forgive you for not making that call sooner, if you truly feel it was justified.

To me: I forgive you for rarely caring enough about your own happiness, or deservedness, to seek out new options. I forgive you for never completing anything, and then using that as an excuse the next time that you didn’t. I accept that horror begets trepidation, and that this is also part of the reason why loving and being loved doesn’t come naturally to you, and why you’ve been more apt to settle around the types that are only passionate loves for a little while, enemies for the rest. I absolve you of the years of drinking, drugs, smoking, dieting, puking, shitting, fucking, eating and spending – I know they came from a place much larger than the land called bipolar and that sometimes, excess was all that could make you feel. I pardon you for dissociating from life, beatings, sexual assault, conversations, fights, your daughter’s first year, loved ones and responsibilities. I’m happy you’re taking this step.

With that, I close the book on the past, put it on the highest shelf of the bookcase and forget to dust it off from now on. I won’t page through it until I feel as though my journey’s coming to a close, and I won’t consider my journey done until I don’t want to page through it anymore. Until then, I’m going to try to refocus myself.

I’m 15. My hair trails down my back, reddish-orange. I don’t wear makeup, because I don’t really need it, yet. My tshirt is a size medium, plain, Hanes, scooped up from the bargain bin of the Sears kids’ department – I have four of them in different colours. My jeans are a holy mess, size 34. I wear Airwalks – my first pair – and a hoody that zips up and down and didn’t come from a bargain bin. I’m a mixture of skater betty and grunge.

Most of these clothes were bought with the proceeds of my job as cafeteria cashier the year before, in junior high. It was a volunteer position that I was awarded based on my contributions to student council. I pocketed money from the cash box on a daily basis for most of my tenure.

I’ve been grounded for two weeks out of an unspoken month for coming home with a hickey and then daring to have what-I-considered-to-be a logical conversation with my father about my intact virginity – how I plan to wait until I’m at least 16 years old, because to be younger and lose it would make me a slut. Somehow, even though I rarely remember the words you’re grounded coming out of his mouth, I spent most of grades four through 11 confined within white walls, disallowed from the bare-bones activities: school, errands and computer club meetings.

The hickey is gone, my angst remains, but I have one thing on my side in that my father did a lot of drugs before I came to be, in addition to having at least two major cranial injuries. His memory is swiss cheese.

He doesn’t remember how long I’ve been grounded for – I know it and he knows it, and likely, he’s smart enough to know that I know it. He’s not smart enough to know that I will work his lack of date-notation to my advantage.

I’m sighing and bored. It’s a Saturday and he’s attempting to get things done, which generally means sitting around, not getting much of anything done, smoking too often, and eventually, starting on a project that isn’t really necessary that will last way into the small hours of the night. He avoided doing the things he had to by creating jobs for himself, that guy.

I do that too, today.

I’m doing my best to stay underfoot. Enough to be petulant and annoying, but not enough to merit a beat down. I want him to want me to go away and it doesn’t take long, before the talking, snacking, getting accidentally on purpose in the way while he was just trying to make a damn cup of coffee, for fuck sakes makes him boil over.

I broach a compromise. I say, “look. This is the last weekend I’m grounded for. I have nothing to do here and my friends are all busy. Can I please just go to the library to read? I don’t have any new books here and my homework is done.” This plea contains at least four lies.

It took him all of three seconds, giving me that gnarly-eyed stare while packing his homemade aluminum foil pipe with tobacco. The questions began as he inhaled his first drag.

“Who are you going to see?” Exhale.

“No one. Every one’s busy.” Cough.

Inhale. “What are you going to do?” Exhale.

Breath. Cough. “Read. Get some new books. I want to find something about fashion illustration in the 40s.” Cough. He always had a spectacular ability to blow smoke directly into my lungs and eyes so that every time he lit up, I would become a red-eyed, sputtering child, unable to complete a sentence without hacking, incapable of blinking without crying.

Inhale. “And your homework is done?” Exhale. Tap tap ping. He’s done his drag, bouncing it off of the ashtray. It’s time to empty the pipe and start again – a bic pen lid scoops out the burnt and yellowed fingers twist, tear and tamp down a new hit.

Cough. “Yes.” This is a huge lie, since I haven’t been to class in three days – I don’t know what my homework is, so I definitely haven’t completed it.

“Fine. I’ll give you a ride.”

My plans go awry at that moment – the sweet freedom I was looking forward to. The call I would place on the payphone at the corner store ten blocks away. How slowly I would walk from there to the library to meet my friend. There’s $50 in my pocket, burning into my leg and my nose is getting itchy, and my fingers won’t stop twisting each other about as if caught in a do-or-die death-match. I’m a mental mess because this is the first day in over a year that I’m going to get high and now, he’s going to drive me.

I loved sitting at the library, or really, any place quiet, after cocaine hit my system. I felt at peace, not edgy the way most of the rest of the world does. Cocaine is like Bikram’s yoga to my brain – calming, leveling, Namastéing. And I need that kind of peace today because I’ve only recently moved back in with him after staying at my grandparents’ trailer for a little break. After he kicked me in the face, you know? I need to not be in the same place with this fucker I’ve all but forgiven. I haven’t forgiven myself for living there in the first place.

He’s driving me, and I’m sitting, lotus-style on the floor of the pickup because he never put the passenger seat back in it after it came out the first time. Every bump in the gravel-topped alley behind our house makes my skinny ass ache, and without any heat in the truck, I’m considering whether I might freeze to death, never having known what one last time’d be like. I’m coughing because he’s smoking more – he always smokes more while driving.

I do that too, today.

This is the vein my brain is working at, needling what ifs into reality, until I’m positively certain that I won’t be getting high today, or every again. Before I know it, we arrive, pulled onto the shoulder of the street my high school is on.

The library’s automatic doors beckon me from across the street, shrilling louder than his words, “Be home by five.” And I tear out of the truck, nearly tripping over my shoes and a stray soda bottle. I throw my backpack on and resume my indifferent posture – the one I’ve taken up for high school that tells others that I don’t give a fuck about them.

And then I see the bus, not signalling. Maybe he’s about to turn at the juncture of the three-way stop, or maybe he’s going to go straight, right in front of me. Separating me from the library, right where I need get to.

The panic is strong now. I know that I’m 20 minutes away from the hook up. I know that in 30, I will feel something comparable to what others describe as happiness. I know that there’s a bank of payphones in that library’s building from where I can make my call, and where I’ll wait with a chai latte in hand from the café down the hallway.

And now, the bus might stop that. It’s interfering.

I take a chance and run in front of the bus. I must get there, before the bus goes past, like some frantic in-real-life frogger. And just when I was safe, when I got to the middle of the street where west and eastbound traffic are normally divided by a tarnished, broken yellow strip of paint, two things happen:

The first is that the bus stops, signals and waits to turn because I’m directly in front of it; the second is that my pants fall down.

I froze. I see the bus, the driver not distinguishable because the sky is reflecting on the windshield. I am 100% in his sights. He’s a great horned owl; I’m a nervous field mouse. Finally bending over to pick them up, my entire white, skinny ass is exposed to the front of the bus because I’ve recently started wearing thongs.

Mortified, I look back and I see my father, still parked in the same spot, pointing out of the window and laughing at me.