in which a girl says goodbye to their father.
As morbid as this is gonna sound, I use to think about what I would say at my fathers funeral. Not that the thought of him being gone was something I looked forward to, quite the opposite actually, but having the opportunity to talk about him to an audience, about how he shaped me, that always seemed appealing to me.
My father was my hero, I idolize him. So it’s hard to conceptualize where we’re at now.
I’ve never really felt safe in my being. I’ve been battling my sense of self my entire life, my identity being a mystery to me but I’ve always found solace in my father.
I don’t know when or why he became an enemy to me.
Everything he is I’ve become and yet i’m not enough. Not to him, not to me. I feel weak at the thought of being a disappointment to him.
He sees the potential in me and that seems to matter more than my suffering.
It’s a confusing dynamic. No one’s ever protected me more. The person who seemed to care about me the most also made me feel less than zero.
I craved freedom from him more than anything. I craved it so much I burned my strongest bridge. I struggle with acknowledging the complexities of him.
My father is a great man. He is selfless, generous, and thoughtful. He’s a provider, a protector and also an anomaly to me. With all that good, he’s also cruel.
One of the memories that stick out to me the most is the fear I felt when he threatened my life, over something so simple. The word “well”. It wasn’t the first time I had been afraid of him but it was the moment I realized everything had changed.
I felt like I was his favorite growing up and in a way I still do but things will never be the same in my eyes. We have different perspectives on right and wrong, how to behave, it’s written all over our interactions and he feels like a stranger to me now at times.
The awkward and heavy fog in the air every time we’re around one another. It’s awful because all I want is my dad again.
I hate to say goodbye, but i’ll be loving you always.