Just when you think your day is like any other...

My father died two and a half years ago. Dead, gone, no more, passed away, over and out, goodbye. But oddly, a few minutes ago during the most innocuous of moments, when I was thinking of nothing other than the thunder I was hearing (I was taking a shower), I felt it for the first time. I mean really felt it, solidly lodged in the bottom of my stomach: he's dead and gone and that's final. Is that normal? Well, who knows? All I know is that that's my normal.

In the next moment it hit me that I no longer needed my father's critical voice in my head nor in my life. I could, at age 49, finally be free of that voice and now banish it forever. I stood under the water's spray and leaned my forehead against the wall, not moving. Not crying, either (and I've certainly cried a lot of tears since his death, most of them being angry tears), but immobile with the enormity of it all. It was as if a cloak of acceptance descended, embracing the hurt little girl (and adult), letting her know that it's now OK to let him go.

Dad and I never really had a great relationship. He yelled a lot, and seemed to me pretty angry and unhappy most of the time. He wasn't a very demonstrative man unless he was mad. Hugs felt awkward and were not a common occurrence, and when I did hug him, I felt his discomfort manifested in the tension in his body. I really don't think he knew how to be affectionate, it just wasn't him. Nor did he know what to do with a girl child, especially one that didn't conform to the girly "norm" at all.

What made me fear him, his anger, was always just below the surface, quietly evident, just under the skin, and nearly visible in its quaking. Our family spent an inordinate amount of time and energy carefully avoiding the mad elephant's heavy foot, walking cautiously around the rattlesnake lest he strike. I was never quite sure he wasn't going to haul off and hit me when he got so mad like that, but he never did. I felt that way the whole time he was alive, afraid of his physical anger and his emotional rejection.

(So all you therapists and folks who've spent a lot of time with them just read that last couple of paragraphs and went, "Whoo! That girl seriously needs therapy," didn'tcha? I agree. But that's not financially possible right now, though being unemployed, I've certainly got the time to go and I'd like to!).

Yeah, I need closure and processing all around my father. Big time. It may take years. But today, it really sunk in that he's gone and I don't need or want him in my head anymore. I have no idea why today; it's not a special day, in fact, as I sit here and type, I have to consciously think to myself, "What day is this, anyway? Umm, well, it's Friday, and let's see...uh, it's July something-or-other...oh, wait, we had fireworks just...oh yeah, it's July 6th!" But today was the day when the proverbial Mack truck showed up and let me know I could start to let go.

So it begins. The process of forgiveness and letting go. Letting my Dad be and knowing I can find serenity. There's a lot that I'm angry about and maybe those things will come out here as time leads me there. Who knows. All I know right this minute is that I feel a huge sense of relief that I don't have to haul around his criticism and rejection anymore.

So Dad, I do love you, but hey, take a hike, OK? Time for you and I to choose separate paths on the road that is my life. It's time I know I deserve to be free of your criticism and time for you to go on and find the joy you never had in your life. You deserve it, too. I always wanted for you to just love me and accept me exactly as I was, but you couldn't find a way to do that, so I know you must have been miserable with it, too. It's time for us both to be happy with our memories of each other and let go of our disappointments.

I'm ready to start.

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Well, OK, that was kind of heavy, I know, but I needed to write it out and this is why I've started this blog. So, one day you might get heavy stuff and another, light-hearted humor and irreverence. Such is life in my head! If you like reading what I've been thinking about, c'mon back...

~ Julie