Not My Father

I’ve been battling a silent battle of daddy issues. I apologise if I peacock too often instead of shying away. I’m really looking for attention, could you attend to me?

I’ve been abandoned so I don’t want to abandon. I want to hold everything together, juggle if I must all in an attempt not to abandon. Holding on when I should be letting go, its because that’s just the weakness, he let go, honestly I don’t even know the story. How can one event mark my entire life? Crippling me down, all the time.

Ungratefully in a way I mourn the loss of my first male parental figure. Scared by that I almost over looked the blessing of my current situation. Blessed enough to have a Present Father with the foresight to tell me,

“Yes! Your excuses are valid, but you are now your own man!”

At some point I can’t keep running from the pain, I can’t keep covering the wounds with distractions as it rots, eroding away everything exposed. It’s ironic how the living chase ghosts hoping to cure ailments the dead themselves died trying to fix.

I am not my father, and for a long time that is what hurt the most. Because all I wanted growing up was to be like him, whoever he was. And even when I make promises and end up breaking them all in fear of becoming him. I became him because it’s been the only source, of bonding to him but that’s just it, I’m not my father, and that means I shall no longer carry the burden to emulate a standard I was never taught, or cling closely to the memory and ideation of my father’s absence.

I will not become anyone other than myself. I will cast aside the lonely memory of being abandoned and replace it with the gratefulness of being alive today and the opportunity to change that about myself.

The battle is painful, tears, uncertainty, confusion, stress, and all these are compounded by the unanswered questions worse from the unasked ones. This pain is mine to bare and more than once all these experiences have hurt people close to me. Intended or not I am truly sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused in the quest to become my father. I am learning to spot, accept and counteract all negative thought patterns that not only hinders my quest for personal growth but that also ensures I’m stuck in a prison of my own making.

The journey to correcting the negative thought patterns has only started but I think its important we talk about our pain even as we go through it because honestly life gets us all and we are all dealing with our own demons. I hope you find the help you need that powers you up in remembering we are not our parents, we may have elements of their nature in us but ultimately we are not them we are us. May that give us the confidence to try and be more of us, regardless how strange, new, scary may we discover who we ultimately are and who we once have been. Going forward
Legs shaking.
Learning
To
Walk