So the saying goes, “you are your father’s daughter” right?
Well Im not entirely sure how I feel about that one. I have nothing good to say about my father except MAYBE that he was a willing participant in my creation, but from what I’ve unfortunately been told, that’s never been an issue.
As a child, I was a “daddy’s girl”, but this unfortunate personality trait lead to lots of heartache and dissapointment as I got older. As a child snuggling in your father’s lap while he passed around a joint and made sexual jokes with his friends while watching porn on tv is not exactly the best bonding experience…but it’s what I got…. so I took it and loved him inspite of it. I didn’t know to fear him, I didn’t know I could be hurt by him, I didn’t yet know the dissapointment that would follow as I got older and began to understand my reality.
I believed wholeheartedly that his presence could make everything better. I would snuggle up to him in bed some nights wondering why he wore perfume to bed…. ‘perfume’ which I later came to recognize as the smell of alcohol. I find myself conflicted because the smell of smoke fills me with a warm nostalgic peace; bringing me back to the days when he was still my hero and I loved him dearly because he was my ‘daddy’. If he said he was going to come by that weekend I would wait for hours at our gate in the driveway afraid that if I walked away he wouldnt show up. But as the sun would go down and my grandmother would call me in for dinner, tears would crawl up from deep within my broken heart and I knew, he wasn’t coming anyway.
As an adult I view him as a broken human being. He was never a father to me, although he likes to think he was. He pretended to be a father when it was convenient to him. When he wasnt with his girlfriend and her kids, when he wasnt high, when he wasnt drunk, when he wasnt off selling drugs to his buddies, when he wasnt chasing around cheap hookers, when he wasnt off in la-la land sailing and reminiscing about his youth… in the eyes of a broken child… any moment with her father was comforting even if it shouldnt have been, even if it made all the empty moments harder. In the eyes of an adult… I know better.
I have my space, my life, my kids, my family… his advice means nothing to me I wish his advice and opinions meant nothing to me, but they do. They hurt me, they drag me down, they bring me back to a place of vulnerability that is SO hard to climb back out of. I lie to myself and my friends saying that he makes a better grandfather than he did a father… but he is just the same. He is unpredicatbly emotional, he is high, he is immature, he is selfish, he shows up only when its convenient for him… My children can never rely on him. I will never leave my children with him. We do not go to his home and for the longest time I fooled myself into thinking that would save them from seeing the drugs and brokenness that still is so securely infused into his everyday life, but I was wrong and it is only getting worse. Who is kidding who?
No I do not need my children to meet your 23 year old hooker play thing youve gone broke supporting. No I do not want to help fund your pimp daddy trip to Hawaii because you cant afford to keep up the lavish lifestyle youve been hiding behind to impress her. No I do not want your drugs at my home because it would be more convenient for you to grow them here. No I do not want to sell them for you so I can make “real” money. I would rather make “honest” money and have my children be proud of me. No I do not want you to promise my children you will come down and visit or take them out on your boat and then forget. No I do not want to allow you to swing by because you happen to be around the corner and drop in for five minutes to snack on whatever food I have in the house because you are high as a kite, barely say hi to my children even though you havent seen them in four weeks and then take off to go home because its getting “late”. No I do not want to give you something that belonged to my grandfather, something he saved and cherished and invested time in because you are broke and need fast money but dont want to sell your precious weed because you smoke it all yourself… No…. No I do not need you in my life.
And yet, I am my father’s daughter right??
What does that mean???
WHat does that mean when you are ashamed of your father… what does that make me when my father is who he is… I know who I am and I am NOTHING that he is, but that is not because of him, it is inspite of him. It is because of an amazing loving kind honorable man who hugged me kissed me loved me tucked me in encouraged me played cards with me supported me, held my hand… it is because my grandfather raised me to be his little girl. HE was a father to me. He gave me everything my dad could not and more.
I am not my father’s daughter… I am my granfather’s daughter.