burried hurts, and misguided lies

The pain our parents can dole out upon our lives can be lasting. At one point I thought that the issues with my relationship with my father had been dealt with.

I was wrong.

My childhood is split in two. The chasm of drug addiction forever changed my relationship with my father. Before his addictions gained the upper hand in his life he was a fun-loving playful soul. My father was my buddy. I was a true blue daddy's girl. Everything my daddy did, I wanted to do. Wherever he went, I wanted to tag along. On construction sites, to the lumberyard, the junkyard, around town running errands, anywhere and everywhere my daddy went I wanted to go.

Then he changed.

In what feels like an instant, my daddy became another man. The daddy I adored so very much was dead and gone, and in his place stood a shell of a man. A man so gripped by his addiction that he was blinded to all the hurt he was causing. He states nowadays that he purposefully worked himself out of my life and became distant to protect me. Unaware--even still-- of the damage that action caused me.

It hurt so much. Time and time again I would find myself so disappointed and heartbroken. My father's addiction controls him. He wants so desperately to be free, and he has been, but he just cannot break the chains his addictions hold over his life. Even thinking of this breaks my heart yet again. I can't stand the fact that the daddy I so loved as a little girl is dead and gone, and in his place is a broken, lifeless man. The saddest part of all is that my father will likely die without ever having lived. He will likely lose this fight. I want so badly to see that light in those ice blue eyes of his. Just once more. What I would give just to see his face light up with that infectious smile and his piercing baby blues twinkle.

How do you mourn the loss of someone who you see every day? The paradox that is the life of my father. He is alive and well. And yet all the while he is dead and gone. Buried deep within the confines of crack addiction is my daddy. Will he ever see the light of day again? I am not sure. But I refuse to give up hope. I know that he is capable of being clean. He just has to want it bad enough.

It is almost indescribable the hurt that I feel knowing that my daddy, the one I miss so dearly is here, just hidden away. That the one I spent my days with, the one I palled around with is missing. But yet a very similar man is ever-present in my life. This man looks exactly like my beloved daddy, only aged. He sounds like him, it's all the same man...only he is empty. His eyes no longer sparkle, they cry out with the anguish of a man so full of life caught in the death grip of addiction. He sits there in his room with crack rock after crack rock, day in and day out. Living the life of a dead man. He tells me he loves me more than I know. He loves me more than anything... But how do I believe this? How when I would ask him to come to my school functions, or see me sing at church...or just talk to me, and he chose to get high instead. I want to be angry about this. But while he lit that pipe and smoked it every time on his own volition, he is also controlled by it. It is there screaming in his ear ever louder, a near brute force twisting his arm, his will and ultimately controlling his entire life.

Heartbreaking.

I learned as a young girl to just turn off my feelings of hurt. And when it was really bad, I would just flip that feeling of hurt into fuel for anger. I got to where it hurt too much to hurt. I refused to be hurt, I just chose to either turn it off and bury it within, or get angry. It became so much of my daily life with my father that it translated into my relationships with others. I thought that this was a great solution. I was wrong. It was fine and dandy while I was in the situation. Because frankly it was a day to day thing. It was seemingly more worthwhile to just act as though it weren't happening rather than attempt to heal from hurts every single day. Especially when those hurts would not end, nor would my need for restitution be satiated. It was one of my many auto-protect mechanisms.

I am now discovering the many facets of my childhood need to protect my heart, and the seemingly brash and harsh ways I deal with those who hurt me. I am realizing that I need to allow people to be people. I cannot protect myself from further hurts. People do not live up to our expectations, they disappoint, upset and annoy us, and they break our hearts. But these are all the plot twists that create the great novels of our human existence.

I have realized that I attempt to force anyone who crosses me to pay for the hurts my father caused (and still causes). This is no one's debt to pay. My father could have apologized all the times he hurt me, but he didn't. And now the damage is done. I choose to forgive him. And now I need to allow myself to heal. So that is my mission right now. To fix me...

I am the fixer. The one who must fix it...whatever it is I must make an attempt to make it better. So here goes. No matter the multitude of tears and personal wrangling, and contemplation I will fix this. I will find the way to fix me. And thus fix my relationships both current and future.

The woman I want to be is not a harsh volatile person who causes people to tread with fear and trepidation around her. I want to be exactly the opposite of that. I want to be an approachable kind woman who instills a feeling of trust in all the souls she encounters.

Obviously I want this fix to be permanent. And I would love to be able to just flip a switch and be that woman...but healing and retraining yourself takes time. A dear friend (one of the most influential friends I have made, and one who wounded me deeply...a previous blog is written on this topic) who knows me more than I know myself at times, gave me some of the best words of encouragement: "Val you need to be patient with yourself. You cannot unlearn something you have done your entire life in one day. You worked hard to protect yourself in that way, and that is the way you know. " That is what I will tell myself. Continue on...press in and fix this. I will heal from this deep set wound from my childhood, and be the woman I long to be.