Sometimes it’s hard for me to write because I can’t always put into words what I want to say. Sometimes I think maybe that it’s that I don’t want to face certain things in my life. It’s not easy pulling up all that I’ve shoved down for so long back into memory. I think it’s also hard because I’ve held my Dad on this pedestal forever, and it’s hard to remember some of the shittiness that happened and that he was just a normal person with flaws like the rest of us.
Little things keep surfacing into my head. I try to laugh them off because it’s hard to confront that my Dad wasn’t perfect. I mean, of course, I’ve known for a long time he wasn’t perfect. But no matter how bad things got I still wanted to believe one day, he would stay sober and survive.
I have always been Daddy’s little girl, but when he was drunk he was a whole different person. I sometimes will think of him teaching me how to drive. That he was the one I asked to be there at my drivers’ Ed test. And other days I will remember a bad memory like one of the many times I had to find him drunk.
It’s hard to face that with every relapse there was another wall broken that I had tried to put up. My defenses so easily shattered. I was always so hopeful, but in the back of my head, I always knew he would end up slipping. And as much as I tried to put walls up to protect myself I just was too emotionally attached.
If only he could realize he “fell off the wagon” and got help, he’d probably never have been divorced. But he couldn’t. He could be stumbling over drunk off his ass and tell you to your face that he absolutely wasn’t.
It’s painful to think of the past, but I’m also realizing you need to face the bad, so you can get it out and start healing. So I will continue to write even though it will bring pain, and sometimes tears. I also know I’ll slowly start to let go of those bad memories, and they won’t haunt me as they used to.
There’s no way to completely forget, but you can learn to let them be in the distance. To not let them fester and leave you angry and bitter. I still have thoughts of “why us?” … “Why weren’t we good enough?”… Why this, why that? Why? Always why?
There are times I think of my Dad and a smile will radiate my face, and are times I just want to cry. I need to let them happen. This is the only way I am going to heal. so I am going to keep writing the good, the bad, and the ugly. I will face my own demons instead of hiding from them. I will not let myself be a slave to my past. I refuse to play the victim card any longer.
I hope that anyone that reads this can find some comfort. That we all have things that we hide from. But that there is strength in everyone, even if you don’t see it. It took me a really long time to finally realize I needed to heal, instead of hurting all the time. To not let all that negative turn me into a negative person. I don’t want to be that girl anymore, so I’m changing it!
If you want to change- change! It won’t be easy, but it’s worth it to feel just a little less burdened and feel a little bit lighter with letting things go. I thought for a very long time that maybe I wasn’t meant to be happy. I truly believed it wasn’t in the cards for me. It’s still hard but I’m learning I DO deserve to be happy! Everyone deserves that chance. Because what is life, if we let it control us?
