3.30.2014

Your Crazy is Worth It

You hope that by the time you are 30 you would have your life together. Most, like myself, are responsible for the well being of another human life. You don’t want to mess them up. You want to give them a better life than you had. So, you try and try and try to do things “right”. Who can truly say what “right” is? Taking them on family vacations, and spending more time with them than your parents did - is that right? Obviously, in some ways it is. But, is that keeping them from still getting the same emotional issues that you have? The abandonment issues, the communication problems, the lack of showing emotions, keeping people out so they don’t realize what a mess you really are. Is that something that you can prevent your kids from getting… just by taking them on vacations? I don’t know… I don’t have it figured out. Does any one?     
            I know my monster has abandonment issues – like I do. I’ve been told it’s a subconscious thing. It stems from the lack of a biological parents presence. The feeling of not being wanted – even before you are able to realize that wasn’t exactly how it went down. It still gets to you, no matter how you fight it. I didn’t want him to be affected by my bad choices as a young 20 something, rebellious girl. Inevitably, he was – even with a good man raising him that he loves more than me on some days. 
            So, what is the reason for this long-winded cluster fuck of words? So much. So, so much.  My issues came to surface over this last week. Not intentionally. Not by any means on purpose. I got to thinking about my biological father, which resulted in some Facebook stalking. Oh how we all love to Facebook stalk. Watch out, it can lead to some unresolved issues. I then proceeded to get  in touch with these family members – which leads to  more emotional issues… and here I am. After, a week of fighting it and trying to not be affected by it, to not be cranky, to not let it show. Today, the damns broke, today I let myself feel.
            I met him a couple times, about 11-12 years ago. I was in my “Mike Phase” as I like to call it. The time when I was “hard”. I was not me. My mom has even told me that I have never been the same person I was before him. I don’t think I could be. I was so young before him. I experienced a lot of stuff during that time. Things  I never thought I would do, or say, or… there are too  many or’s for this. That phase of my life is a whole different set of emotional trauma and I like to keep those locked in a different vault. I forgot the combination as well. I don’t want to rehash that. Back to my “daddy issues”. I don’t think I gave myself the appropriate amount of time to process what a BIG ordeal it really was meeting my biological father. I had spent 10 year or so wondering about this man. Wondering about why he didn’t want to be a part of my life. If he thought about me. Why he didn’t look for me? As a parent now, I don’t know if it is really different for mom’s than it is dad’s, I would go to the ends of the earth and back if I knew I had a kid out there somewhere. Eminem’s song Headlight’s comes to mind, that song is really getting to me lately.

“But I'd have flipped every mattress, every rock and desert cactus
Own a collection of maps and followed my kids to the edge of the atlas
Someone ever moved them from me? That you coulda bet your asses
If I had to come down the chimney dressed as Santa, kidnap them.”


I don’t know what prevented me from asking those questions. The “I don’t give a shit” attitude I possessed at the time, fear of knowing the truth, or the awkward feeling of the whole situation. Maybe all three. Either way, I was left with a lot of unaddressed feelings.  I stopped talking to him, or he stopped talking to me – I don’t know which. We lost contact after a couple years. Fast forward to today. I had a two-hour conversation with this man earlier this week. I don’t think I have ever had a two-hour conversation with my dad. No, I take that back… I spent a whole day talking to my dad after my step mom died. We talked about a lot of stuff – that left me pretty fucked up and emotional then too. I just don’t deal with talking to my dad’s very well. I guess I wouldn’t. I have said multiple times, maybe because I think it will change the more I think about it, I don’t know how to have a normal “father figure” in my life. I see these girls that idolize their dad’s. These amazing relationships. I have always wanted that. My. Whole. Life. I always envisioned my dad walking me down the aisle (which he did), the father daughter dance (which I got). It was nothing like what I expected though. It was awkward. Maybe it was for other people too. I don’t know. To say the relationship I have with my dad is and has always been rocky is an understatement. Maybe even the understatement of the century. I don’t know what I want. From my dad or my biological father. I don’t know what I expect to get from either of them. I think at this point in my life there isn’t much I can. It was needed in those crucial developmental years. The years that teach a girl how a man should treat a woman. Maybe then it wouldn’t have taken me so long to learn what I was worth.  Maybe if they were both around more I wouldn’t push the people who love me the most away because I don’t feel like my crazy is something they should deal with.  I don’t know, and I never will. Either way, I need to figure out what I want from here on out.
Now that I am a little more stable, and I use that word loosely, I am forced to deal with these feelings. They are making me feel quite unstable.  It’s funny how things come back. Not even just those things, but they force you to evaluate life in more ways than you ever wanted. You have to deal with feelings you never wanted to deal with. Even make you forgive things you never thought you would or could. If I could just deal with the feelings that I want and push the others off for a later date maybe I wouldn’t feel quite as crazy.

            Then there are the questions that I don’t know how to answer, no matter how hard I try. What am I wanting from all of this and what did I expect? I don’t know.