In this life we do not choose who we are born to. In my case I was born to a mother aged 16 and a father, 20. Being born to teenage parents places a stack of statistics on the likelihood of your success in life. According to statistics, I would’ve taken the chalk to be a teenage mother, under-educated, unhealthy, assaulted, witness to violence, and/or living under or close to the poverty line. More than one happened. Lucky me.
The probability of success was bleak because these statistics travel in groups. In spite of that, possibility discounted the odds. I have three advanced degrees, I’ve been a principal, I’m healthy, I’m a homeowner, a landlord. I should hold pride and be at peace with all I have overcome. Unfortunately, with all of the accomplishments, there are still demons that attach themselves to me because of who I was born to.
My relationship with my father was damaged at the start. He was barely around, addicted to his own dreams of being a music star. He would travel in and out from Milwaukee to Los Angeles. The innocence of childhood made me so happy when he would visit. We would go on adventures around the city. All I wanted was to be around him: receiving his hugs… his love. As I was swimming in the magic of his presence I noticed the people around me had expressions of angst, frustration on their faces and in their tone. They were never as happy to see him as I was and the more joy I had about his visits the more worry I sensed on them. Over the years I started to recognize why.
He would come into town. We would spend time together; the best time. Walking around the city, trying places new to me. I remember one time he took me to a Q-Tip concert. He would do this “magic trick” where he would flip a coin while we were waiting for the bus and it would appear in sight. Those were times I felt I had a dad and I was complete because the other half of my creation was there.
Then he would leave. The pain I felt sears through me today even thinking about it. Over twenty years ago. It doesn’t leave. Some days the pain feels branded within me. There was such visceral pain in all of me each time he left.
Everyone around me would try to comfort me but there was no comfort. My father, my creator, chose to leave. That’s a narrative a person starts to build a life around in their head. And so here I am, beyond so many of the negative statistics, yet I am parched for love. A father’s love. I’ve spent over a decade in therapy trying to root this craving out of me and all I ever get is the reflection of the yearning playing out in my own romantic relationships. I fall hardest for the ones that don’t honor me, that call sometimes, who are undecided. This admission is not for your pity. It’s my own catharsis. I’m exhausted from bearing the weight of a choice I did not choose.
Over the years I’ve learned to carry the hurt with me. I have made strides to create a relationship with boundaries. I hoped it would allow me to have a fraction of my father to satisfy my inner child. It worked for some years. I was starting to be able to take the good with the hard.
When he got an apartment after being unhoused for years, I accepted the work of releasing all the anxiety and heaviness that came from worrying about where he may be or what could happen to him being God knows where in LA. I started paying for his cell phone plan so we could communicate regularly. When he needed surgery, I worried, checked in with the doctors, sent food and car services.
I did the thing a daughter should do…would do. Gladly. I became willing to forgive. To forget. To meet the little girl within me and tell her “it’s ok to trust this.” He even started reciprocating. One Christmas he sent me money for a new phone and some money to spend. It was one of the most special Christmases I’ve had since childhood. It was the only Christmas gift he’s ever purchased me.
We made it to a place where I decided to visit. We had not been together in person in roughly 20 years. I saved my money and made the trip alone. I knew it would be difficult but the daughter in me wanted to take the effort to continue what was starting to feel like a solid connection to a new place. Maybe in LA I would find my dad. He would get to sense me in person and celebrate who I’ve become and my accomplishments.
There is a saying “once someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I thought family might be exempt. The trip started well enough. We went to brunch and shared our first drink on St. Patty’s day together. I drove us around the city, at his direction, seeing places and soaked up the LA sun for the first time. He asked me to drive past places where he’d once squatted.
The next day started bright, we went on a hike. He had such energy. It reminded me of all those years before where things would be good when he visited. This time I was an adult so he couldn’t leave me, I would leave him, so it was OK to feel. The emotions rushed out of me and we both stopped to cry while looking at the view. This was it. The tender place where new beginnings grow. I was happy to be released. To let go of the pain and grieving, the hurt, the sadness of all the things that came before this moment.
As the time progressed, more became clear to me. My heart could never settle. His behavior became less tender and more terse. It became clear there was a craving, an addiction, rearing its ugly head and until it was fed I would be its victim.
When it was all over and I dropped him off at home I pulled off and broke apart. A full mental and nervous system breakdown. There was so much all at once. With the innocence of childhood gone and the sense of my adult independence running the show I saw things as they were. My father is an addict. We would never reach the places in our relationship I’d dreamed.
He’s deeply fractured and a captive of his vices. He can’t know how he abuses his own creation. Isn’t that something? God is the creator, The Father. I’ve let that sit like bricks on my chest in the hope that the weight would pressure my heart into understanding the difference. To separate that God’s love for creation is not the same as my father’s love for his creation. My father is flesh. He is a man challenged to make choices each day that reflect the image of God. God will not make him do anything. Tragically, he has chosen not to love me.
He would argue I’m a crazy person for saying this. I am simply the messenger. The truth of my experience is that I am not loved by the man who made me. It is now my journey to separate the carnal man whose DNA I share from God, my true Father, who does love me. I seek God so much, all the time, and I know his love for me to be true. I know it comes in peace and brings about prosperity and light. I see it in my friendships. In the love my mother has for me. In the way I am kept. I see it. I do feel it. It is there. Still my flesh screams and weeps in hurt and mourning at the absence of my father's love.
Since our visit I have had to do a lot of work to stabilize, set new boundaries, and accept the realities of the situation. What used to feel like calls to check in I now know to be lead-ups to an ask. What felt like a listening ear was really him waiting for me to listen to him. What felt genuine I know is a ruse. And now I get it. I understand why all those many years ago, when I was so happy to see him, the faces around me were already bracing for the emotional wreckage to come. Disappointment doesn’t satisfy the nature of the situation. I want to be able to recognize love and be prepared to receive it and to feel safe to give it.
My uncle Joe used to say to me “you are worthy of love.” I couldn’t figure out what made him feel I needed to hear it. Now I get it. I'm so skilled at confusing the love of the man who birthed me with the love of The Father that I open myself to missing out on what’s meant for me. It’s a hard task, making that distinction and I’m exhausted. The majority of my life has been winning as an underdog in the game of life: education, career, homeownership, friendship, and travel. Lots of odds have been beaten. But the game of love, I find myself stuck. It’s drained me, loving in such a damaged fashion. I’m trying each day to reframe what love could look like almost prescriptively hearing my uncle Joe in my head and deepening my relationship with God. That’s a silver lining for me. It takes work and I’m not fit for it every day because in everything I have to ask: Is this how God would treat me? It’s the only compass I have to navigate my way to a place where all parts of me can find peace, healing and ultimately true love.