I’ve had an eventful past few days. I got in touch with my bio dad. I’ve written about my daddy issues before but right now I don’t feel anything at all. I think I’m supposed to but I don’t know what the feeling is meant to be. At least I’m not crying.
I do know I feel very grown up. I’ve always viewed him through the eyes of a wounded child but I don’t feel like that right now or when we spoke. I felt grown. I felt like I could see right through him. I feel like my old self in the best possible way. Resilient. With understanding and control of their own mind. It’s a foreign but welcome feeling.
He was a coward. He made a million mistakes. His guilt eats at him everyday and it should. He’s excited at the thought of redemption. He doesn’t deserve it but that doesn’t matter. I owe him nothing at all. I get to choose everything that happens and doesn’t happen. I don’t have to believe his excuses. I can know he’s a coward and hear him out and nod my head and smile and understand him like a mother might eat up a toddlers lie because it is a comforting one.
Grown people lie to themselves a lot to deal with the guilt. I don’t doubt I’ll be doing it too.
All that sounds mean and harsh. I don’t mean it to. It’s just the truth. I don’t hate the guy, in fact I don’t harbor any of the old anger. He left me. He kept his other kids. He just did. What’s done is done. I think he’s just a person and people are … meh. I’m no exception to the rule. I’m also meh.
Maybe I like him because I owe him nothing. He is the only person in my life who I am not in debt to somehow. In fact he owes me. That feels good. Existence without expectation.
There’s a lump in my throat but I don’t know why. I know that precedes crying but I’m not sure what the crying would be about. I don’t think I’m repressing anything? Maybe it’s just a shock to the system to talk to the man.
Maybe I’m disappointed? But I’m allowed to be disappointed, I missed out on a lot because of others mistakes. I never got to have a dad. Maybe I get to have one now, I wonder what that’ll be like. Seems like a lot of people don’t get along with their dads that much so I know its usually not all that magical.
He told me about my mom. No one ever talks about her. He told me she was a really happy person who loved to joke around. He said she was really funny. That she liked helping other people. She wasn’t just sick and sad. She was someone before she was sick and sad. And that he loved her. That he stayed till the end. I don’t know if that’s the truth. I think it’s his truth. I’ll let the man have it, if it’s true then good and if it isn’t he probably lied because he needed it to live. Carrying guilt like that around must be tough. Not my job to care about it but I can understand.
He said he liked animals. All kinds. He likes reptiles, like me. He knows I like to paint. Said my mom did too.
It’s weird, there’s so much history about the family I don’t know. But I want to know. I like to know things. He said he likes to talk a lot and that my mom did too. I told him I don’t really like to. It’s funny, it seems like me and my mom were opposites in so many ways. I don’t think she would’ve liked me very much and I don’t think he would either if he didn’t feel so guilty.
I like being an adult and then meeting him. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t get a say in anything. There it is. Freedom, that’s what I like about him. I have total freedom because I cannot be reproached.
I wonder if his other kids like him. I don’t. I don’t like him. Not in a big way but in a small way. I feel about him like you might feel about your work friend Jerry. Jerry has two kids and a wife and grill and he asks about your weekend and you answer and you ask him a question and he tells you about his daughters ballet recital and you nod and you know that Jerry is not someone you would talk to if you didn’t have to. And it’s fine. You don’t hate Jerry. You just don’t like him. And Jerry probably doesn’t like you either. And you sip your coffee together and it doesn’t matter that you don’t like each other. In fact you sort of revel in it. The mutual knowledge that you don’t really like each other.
I want to look him in the face. I just want him to look me in the face. I think he could understand my face even though he hasn’t really seen it. I think he would find contempt there. Maybe I still am a little angry. That kid anger. That why did daddy leave anger. I’d like it if he knew I hate him just a little. That’s sadistic but sometimes you want people who hurt you to hurt because of you. I’d like him to carry the weight of that knowledge the way I carried the weight of his absence.
Maybe I’m not so grown up yet. Maybe I’m still an angry kid. But not as much as I thought. He made a mistake and I suffered for it. I’m strong enough to realize it and not take it to heart. It’s not about me. It’s not that I wasn’t wanted. It’s that the person who had me didn’t have it in them to fight. I can understand that, I’m just like my dad in that way. I’m a quitter too.
But I don’t want to be. I think I could learn from him. I could learn what not to be. I don’t want to be a coward. I don’t want to need him. I don’t want to depend on him. I don’t want to let other people down.
Please please please don’t expect anything of him. He’s gonna break your heart. Maybe that’s the feeling. This unfeeling feeling. It’s preparation. It’s a preemptive front of not caring because daddy’s little girl is getting her hopes up. Damn kid. Damn.
What am I gonna do now? He’s gonna break my heart.
Orange tree,
I hear what you are saying the dad issue blog.
In a bear attack documentary, a dad demonstrated being fully present for his adult daughter. He was protective, devoted, self sacrificing, shoed humility, etc. He made the statement at the end of sharing his experience that he didn’t do enough to protect his daughter because he regrets even suggesting taking a hike with her. He never wanted to put her in danger. He called himself a failure. His standards are high as dad and as a person.
I found myself mourning “the dad I could of had” yet my alleged dad wasn’t the “worst person on earth.” He was merely human. It is easier to paint people as “good” or “bad.”However, people can be somewhere in the middle and seem to be trying their best but their best is lacking compared to “saving daughter from a bear dad.”
The people who happen to be a parent, living on their
own choices and unique character, and experiencing the tides of life can either inspire us to rise to their levels or make them horrible examples of how we want to be as a human.
It is okay for you to feel the complex feelings about your dad. He can be neither a inspiration nor a horrible warning. He can just be a human that you may share the same abilities with like the artistic talent etc. Maybe he was the best man he could be for your mom and stayed until the end. Or maybe he is rewriting history to feel more comfortable with the man he is today. It is his history to live with either guilt or pride.
It never was and won’t ever be your responsibility about who your dad is as a person.
You are on your own unique life journey and you aspire to the best person you can be.
It is okay to appreciate the thoughts of your dad being there for your mom and sharing your art ability, while protecting yourself from being emotionally vulnerable about him.
Also, there is something called, “Radical Acceptance.” The way you feel is valid even if you feel like others may judge you be as being “wrong” or see it differently.
I find radical acceptance to be very empowering! If others understand, fine. If they don’t, it is fine as well!
I believe that your truth and the way you manage your life, your own life story belongs to you and no one else.
I don’t believe in “how you should feel” thinking based on “Hallmark movies.”
I just want to thank you for what you said. I’ve had some time to think and new things have happened since then. I will say a line you wrote — “It never was and won’t ever be your responsibility about who your dad is as a person. You are on your own unique life journey and you aspire to the best person you can be,” — really shocked me.
I don’t think I realized the way I was tying myself to him. The thought that I could come from him yet still be my own separate person was freeing. We can acknowledge our roots but not be held back by them. Radical acceptance also interests me, I’d like to practice that in my life, thank you for being the first person to tell me about it.