As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong
--Julie Butterfly Hill
The other day you said to me, "God you're so tough."
I've never felt more exposed in my life, trying to swipe the tears off my cheeks-- as if hiding the physical evidence would conceal me. It was a flimsy attempt by an out of practice professional. That moment between us feels a little blurry now, I vaguely remember you asking me why I felt that I had to be so strong all the time..and I responded, "Because I've had to be."
This is new to me, this you and me thing. Sometimes, in the heat of what can only be defined as bickering, I suck in air, waiting for the blow to come--waiting for you to tell me it's too much, i'm too much. I keep typing things and erasing them here. Honestly, this is scary. I know there is no way you could really know me, in and out, like I sometimes feel that you already do. Perhaps I don't talk to you about my father or my sadness about my grandmother because these were events set in motion before you were here to hold my hand. I fear that maybe if I get used to reaching for your hand in shaky moments, it may not always be there..life is funny that way. The idea of sharing these worries and struggles is foreign--I decided long ago that I had to toughen up.
It happened on December 16th, 2006. I had just finished studying for finals, fortunately I had/have never been good at keeping up on emails because my Dad wrote to me to tell me "Eventually being self-centered like your mother will not lead you to a life of happiness. and Happiness is the key to life. I will no longer contact you." I sat on the couch in my apartment, watching the shadows move across the wall as the day passed. My fingers punched send into my cell phone--no one answered. Everyone had left school for winter break, and because bad news never has good timing, I spent the day struggling with how to pull it together. I write "my fingers" because that day, everything was out of body. I saw myself, but I couldn't help myself. It was like I was crippled by hurt. I was alone the entire day, with my thoughts, my sadness, my fear, I had no solutions. I just remember crying, crying until I fell asleep--wishing to wake up to a bad dream. I'm embarrassed writing it. I always feel like I have to validate the 6 month depression I fell into, because i'm not a weak person, but I felt weak. I felt helpless. I think that's why I am always bracing myself for the impact your words could have on me--I don't want to feel helpless, unprepared again like I was that day. Not to say that this "precautionary" emotional guard is only for you--it's for all possible upsets. Fortunately, these days there isn't as much hurt to anticipate--my major reinforcement periods are around holidays...I used to open cards from my Dad, curl up on my bed and cry. It was the moments I was most disappointed in myself and my inability to protect myself.
Remember when we would talk about people using relationships as band-aids? I still believe that--that you have to be a whole person before you can be in a relationship; happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else. What I'm coming to realize, but not fully accept, is that perhaps me being a "whole" person does not imply that I'm perfect or without "baggage." I have tried very hard to move into what you described as a "healthy" place with my relationship with my father. I never dealt with it well, sometimes it meant not dealing with it all, and other times that meant becoming overwhelmed by it. Now, I am at a point of acceptance--not would of, could of, should of..just is. That's all I can do, and it's my best. I stumble every so often, like when I went postal after deciding to send my father a Christmas card. I hated that you didn't know where that was coming from. I felt so frustrated, feeling possibly inadvertently judged--and I didn't mean to put you in that position, maybe some part of me wishes you could be that person for me innately. Because however you may feel about my situation--being without him is best for me. I write that without hesitation--I feel it with every fiber of my body. I need you to know this too for when I forget, slip and start to unravel. I have spent my whole life being told I'm not good enough ( a 3rd grader should not feel that they have to have a work out regime)--and I no longer want to enable someone to make me feel like I'm not good enough. I somehow needed you to be the omniscient person that tells me "It's not your fault." The person who fights on my side, because at the end of the day you believe in me. You wouldn't know this, but despite your impressions that I'm cold or closed off to my father--it's quite the opposite, I've spent years wishing it was different, he was different, and that I was someone he wanted. I mistakenly used to think his approval defined my value, I could not fathom what was so awful about me that I was not worth loving. I became tired of playing the "victim" role, of feeling sorry for myself and my situation. This is another reason I disdain talking about my Dad as much as it is a part of my day to day existence--because playing the victim is not the part I want to play in my life's stage. The pain I feel embarrasses me.
Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.
-- Ann Landers
The way I was brought up, something within me, feels that crying lets him win. I can imagine this ideology is rooted in some pep talk my mother gave me about pre teen girls. I applied it to my Dad--I did not want him to "live rent-free in my head." Wishing things were different does not move me forward, it does not change the past, it just makes me discontent with now. This is why when you asked me "If I would feel bad" I automatically inserted "if my dad and i never had a relationship" and the truth is--I will not, because I cannot. I cannot continue to punish myself for something that happened to me as a bystander. I intuitively feel that you would question my use of "bystander"--but in truth, my relationship with my dad was always something that happened to me, I was never able to be part of it. It was never on my terms or about me. I spent my childhood trying to make him "proud" of me--I always wanted to be athletic enough, pretty enough, smart enough--and I was never enough. I have an "I'll show you attitude" because I want to be enough, even if it's just for me. I know that you and I share a unique bond, an unspoken kinship, a knowing look that said "I get it," from very early on. So when you speak, I listen. I felt that something had been frayed when you spoke with such conviction about a past I had attempted to protect so ardently from you--I am so distant from the girl I was back then, that having you see me fall apart was a collision of the past and the present I wrestle with submerging all the time.
I've never lost "control" like I did with you when you were pushing me about my Dad. I just never wanted you to be the one to disapprove of my choices that I've worked so hard to make peace with. I am not, and more than likely will never, be at a place to calmly, and unemotionally, discuss "resolution" or "gestures" my Dad makes because there will always be a small girl within me who wants nothing more than for her dad to really love her. I truly cringe reading things like that because it sounds, and to some extent is, hopelessly pathetic. Spending your life thinking of "what could have been" is enough to kill you. It's a weaker side of me, a detriment to the woman I want to be.
Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.
-- Anon
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
-- Gloria Naylor
Part of me wishes you could inherently know all my weaknesses, sore spots, and silent struggles. It seems crazy, but I tried hard to leave the past in the past, particularly before starting to date you. I wanted to enter into this, only as "me", not with the girl who feebly took so long to pick up the pieces of a broken life. It partially seems stupid, trying to roll over sad moments. I know that realistically--it is part of life, crying is normal, etc, etc...but I guess I don't want you to see me as anything other than strong and capable, the two things I have worked so hard to be.
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
-- August Wilson
