Dear father,
My first response to anything is a harsh one. I have normally learned to keep my mouth shut until I can atleast come to a second or third response about things. It's harsh because I learned harsh. Harsh because I grew up in a harsh environment. I didn't have choice and when I wanted to choose I was harshly shut down. I think that is all relative anyway isn't it? That is just what I think.
It made me a harsh mother to my first daughter. Then I learned better and I did better. I learned softer and compassion and love. I work to be those things though. I have to work at being loving and being compassionate and being soft. I think that is a good thing because it means I am thoughtfully loving, thoughtfully compassionate and thoughtfully soft.
It makes for a lot of thinking.
I have been re reading my first letter to you and I see it's a bit harsh. Not much thought went into it. I know I needed to get all that out, I know I wanted to go there and know that about myself.
I think the biggest thing I learned is that I just want you to know me. I want it without wanting to know you. Maybe you are my last frontier in learning to love? Is there ever such a thing I wonder? My ex husband did a real good job on me for that one. Here I am loving all his girlfriends and him as well. There has to be room in here for you surly?
I want to know what your family is like. What my ancestors are like. What my blood is like. I want to be able to tell my girls where they came from and who they are and what health and gene stock they need to know about themselves.
Is there a history of twins? Of anything? I don't know… I tell the doctors I am a love child of the seventies and we all have a good laugh and no one is ever the wiser at how much that hurts me.
I was harsh because it hurts so damn badly. Not knowing hurts. Its an unanswerable question that is easy to deny and disregard unless of cause your writing out your heart and diving deeply into the darkest part of the pool.
Your always at the bottom, ya know… Your always there just out of reach. Facing you is like a torment to myself. And I think that is all I have ever done my whole life. Is to torment myself with unreachable untouchable torment.
The torment has always been to myself. I hide behind the normal everyday shockers that other people suffer and keep clear from. That suffering is relative isn't it? The real suffering for me is you. No one knows it. Because I don't tell them, I tell them everything else though. Every harshness of it so your kept safe at the bottom in the darkest part of the pool.
I know I am not making a lot of sense and I am breaking into something that needed my light and my notice and my attention. So here we are. You are I.
Sometimes I think you do know me. You know me better then I know myself. Being all the way down there at the bottom of the pool in the darkest part. You've seen it all in your silence. You know more about me then any father that is real could. Silently you where there.
When I almost lost my reality on living and when I almost lost my grip. You where there weren't you? You where the one that stood like an invisible barrier that stopped me from doing it. So silent and so utterly there.
I have been afraid of finding out you where just another drunk or what ever looser shitty father that would just leach the life out of me like some bad nightmare. Or worst still you would be the most amazing man I knew and I would hate you for not rescuing me sooner. I thought it would be just as well that I tootle along on my own and just do what I always did and just deal with it.
Mostly I think it would hurt my mum, and I think you understand that I can't do that and I can't go there. Just like I couldn't talk to my step dad before he died.
Some how I need permission. I don't know who or what can give it… I don't know why I think I need it. I think that is just the kind of person I am. I like invitations. I like permission. I like beginnings and middles and endings. I love stories. I live for stories and characters and adventures. I live for truth.