The Stranger and the Strangeness

So... my "dad" has called.

I'm not quite sure who would have given him my phone number because my entire family has taken the "just don't talk about it" approach to any paternal aspects of my life. Since everything was such a big secret, I am surprised that whomever gave him my number didn't first ask for permission.

But he's got it. And he called.

His message was pretty brief and neutral. Hearing his voice was quite strange to me, since the last time we spoke it was 1989. When he had called me then, I certainly wasn't emotionally ready to excuse him for his complete and utter absence in my life; nor was I mature enough to realize that he, himself, had his own inner battles. There were other "forces" preventing us from having any form of a relationship... and a cruel cloud of surrounding silence that neither of us fully understood.

When we spoke in 1989, I was devastated. Having my own father ask me how old I was, and when my birthday was, broke my heart. I couldn't comprehend a father not knowing when his own daughter was born. I couldn't comprehend his inability to simply say he was sorry. Knowing he had a kid out there somewhere... who could have needed him... who did need him... and simply carrying on with his life without a care in the world; how could he?


And now I'm a "grown up." Someone who admittedly has made her own serious mistakes. Participated in her own life tragedies. And most certainly, I'm tired of allowing this cancerous silence to continue. Now that I am someone who is strong enough to deal with the pain, resentment, and loss of my fatherless childhood... I'm ready to slowly let him in. I'm not going to say there isn't some level of fear involved. Having a relationship with my father could just as easily become hurtful, as it could become beautiful and rewarding. Healing.


Regardless of the outcome, he is half of who I am. Most of what I like about myself... I get from my father. This is what I have always found ironically profound. I internalized the denial of my father, as a denial of me. Add to that the failure of schools, and my family to support the creativeness that is so deeply ingrained in my very being; and you wind up with a confused little girl feeling unloved, unwanted, ashamed of who she is; trying to be something else... anything else... so that someone would love her for who she was meant to be.


We can't change the past, and that, to me, is the beauty of it. I don't have to spend months on end trying to make sense of the last 37 years without him. Trying to right all of the wrongs. Bandage all of the old wounds. I've got today, and tomorrow. I've got an open mind; a fairly healed heart, and a healthy willingness to simply meet the man who helped to create me. And hopefully, I'll find peace in discovering all of the things I didn't know, before I never get the chance.

Spinning

Holy hell is there a lot going on! I can't possibly verbalize the abundance of emotions I'm feeling right now. Just the thought of trying to is exhausting! So here's a brief inventory of my current dilemmas:

My 84 year old grandmother is STILL in the hospital. She has congestive heart failure, and lives in California... so visiting her is easier said then paid for.

My cat is doing better for now, but she is in some stage of kidney failure. She's gonna die. Right now, it's just a matter of on who's terms: mine or Jesus'. I'll find out what the vet recommends sometime next week.

The schooling program I have been jumping through hoops for for a year has become nothing more than a serious pain in my ass because the people in charge can't seem to send papers where they should in time. Classes are supposed to start next week. In support of my sanity and happiness... I think I'm going to scratch that plan off the list.

My relationship with Mr. Nice Guy, thankfully, is in a good spot. After a mildly neurotic and seriously awkward (for me) exchange of communications, it has now been officially established that we are an exclusive couple. However, with everything that is going on in my life aside from our new relationship, I'm concerned about him getting lost in the shuffle of my busy mind, thinking I'm a hopeless mess, changing his phone number, and boarding a one-way flight to Tokyo.


I sent a message to my Dad, suggesting that we meet sometime this summer. That was two days ago. I have heard nothing back from him.

My brother moved back to town. He's supposed to be staying at my mom's house, but... well that is a very long story. Let me just say that we are about to have an intervention of sorts, a last ditch effort, to encourage her to finally get her house in order. I'm happy to see him, and thankful for the opportunity to get to know each other as "grown ups," but I also have to take care of myself and have healthy boundaries. Because that is something I haven't quite mastered yet... this whole situation makes me a little nervous.

My new job is great, but there have been some sources of stress. Some are simply part of the natural process of settling into a new career, and others are the result of inefficient operating systems. I also have the reality of potentially losing my job in September, if we don't get much needed grant funding. My wounds are still rather fresh from being without a job for 10 months... so there is a legitimate level of fear associated with this. One thing I know for sure, is that I need to lay off the coffee, get some regular sleep, and make time to eat some damn breakfast!

None of this is more than I can handle. I just wish it wasn't all coming at me at once! I've done a lot of growing as a person, and was finally getting a good handle on the good, the bad, and the ugly that makes me who I am. Chaos is not my friend, so it is critical that I maintain some sort of balance during all of this. I just have to remember to... breathe. It wasn't that long ago that I had nearly given up on happiness. I had actually picked up the pen to write it off. But now that I've found it, and now that I have had some time to appreciate how beautiful inner peace and happiness truly are, I'm going to protect myself, and fight whatever battles are placed in front of me to the death!

Soapbox Confessions

I think to say you have "grown up" you must learn the art of forgiveness. I know most people expect you to grow up by your mid-twenties... but, hey, we're all different; and some of us really seem to like doing things the hard way.


I'm happy to say, that at the "young" age of 35... I truly started growing up. When we let the pain of the past wrongs, or the embarrassment of past mistakes control our minds, we prevent ourselves from living life in the present, let alone having any hopes for happiness in the future. Unfortunately, although time stands still in our hearts and minds... we still physically grow old. Bullshit, I say!

Anyway... I've had the pleasure of running into several people I hadn't seen in over 15 years, in the past several months... people that may have not seen me at my best. And how could they have? I was an emotional mess when I was young! And after talking with a few of them, most of us were! I might be turning into a "super sap" in my old age... but there is something truly beautiful, and liberating, about forgiving people for simply being human.


If you were to have asked me, even five years ago, if I would ever consider opening the lines of communication with my very absent father... I would have said "hell no!" and maybe even told you to kiss my ass! But somewhere along my journey through this crazy little thing called "life," I realized that every single one of us has had some sort of struggle, hardship, tragedy, or emotionally devastating event occur in our lives. I realized that maybe my dad wasn't a dad because he literally couldn't be one... maybe he didn't know how. I'm not going to say that his lack of involvement in my life didn't hurt me, and I'm not going to say that exchanging a dozen or so emails with him magically erases any past wrongs or regrets. What I will say, is that just about anyone will tell you that life didn't quite go the way they planned it to... and I don't believe that anyone intentionally makes bad choices. They do what they know... and do what they can.



Does this make it right? Of course not. But if we spend our lives keeping score of who was "right" and who was "wrong," who was "good" and who was "bad," we immediately slam the door of opportunity... the opportunity to love and to learn from other people. The opportunity to forgive. The opportunity to have peace and forgiveness; true happiness in our lives.



Yesterday does not matter! We cannot change the past. We can't change the things we wished we wouldn't have done or said, anymore than those who have hurt us can. But what we can do, is accept things for what they were... what they are... and forgive. Most importantly... forgive ourselves.



Of course I wish that things could have been this "easy" when I was younger, but if I hadn't gone through my own hard times, who's to say I would be the person that I am now? And although I do think it's sad that it took me this many years to be able to talk about those "terrible" things that held be back from being truly happy for so many years... I'm very thankful that I can now say, I just plain don't give a shit! I punished myself for things I had no control over, things I didn't do, things I didn't ask for... and if being blatantly in-your-face honest prevents someone from taking the hard, and painful path... or suffering a life in painful silence... I'll risk the gossip... the "oh my God can you believe?"s...



That's me. A peace-love-and-happiness-can't-we-all-just-get-along kinda girl. And if you haven't noticed, I'm not apologizing for that anymore. I'll proudly stand on my soap box and let you make fun of my obnoxious eighties hair, shake your finger in shame about the guy I shouldn't have slept with, or wonder why I didn't "make something of myself" sooner... because I know if you're reading this, you've got a big heart in you, somewhere (smile!)...


Uh-oh! That big fat clown is coming across the stage now with that big, shut-the-fuck-up cane...

Good Deed #10 Pictures of You

My contact with my "dad" has been a little sparse since I finally decided to allow him a little forgiveness and explore the other half of me that had remained so mysterious throughout my life. Apparently he had to replace his computer and that led to his gap in correspondence.

Letting my dad in my life wasn't an easy decision. He and my mother split when I was just under two years old, so I have no memory of being a "family." And I'm not so sure that we ever actually were one. During my childhood, I saw him just a few times... the last being when I was all of eight years old and in the third grade. I only recall one Christmas present, and one birthday present when I was very young, and a couple phone calls when I was 18. Not only was he physically absent, he was financially aloof as well. He never paid my mother a dime in child support. These days fathers can go to prison for that, but back then I guess it didn't seem important to the courts.

When my mother went through cancer in my early 20's, I recall being very bitter towards my father. I was looking for something to blame for her illness and had decided that maybe if he paid child support, maybe if he provided any kind of support... that she wouldn't have gotten sick. And boy was I going to be pissed at God if he took my mother, who loved and supported me as best she could, and allowed my father the blessing of life. He hadn't earned it, in my young opinion.

But time has marched on, and as I have made my own mistakes, I have realized that we are all capable of blunders in life. I realized that my dad certainly wasn't a superhero, and was in fact, simply a human too. All of the years of being swept under the rug had to have taken a toll on him... it had on me... and my brother as well. In fact, when my brother and I spoke the other night, he said, "I just don't get it. Here I have spent all of this time with my paternal grandmother; I have even lived with her, and she never once mentions my father." I'm not sure that we will ever confront my grandmother about the unhealthy silence she has guarded so stealthily for over 30 years. She's 87. Do I really want to unleash the painful beast and risk killing her with guilt that she may already feel? This is what silence does. It corrodes your soul. It leaves you in a state of perplexity.

Despite swearing my father off in my early 20's... and deciding that only a lump sum of back child support paid to my mother would allow him the right to ever "know" me, I now have an open mind, and heart. In his last message he asked for a photograph of me. I can't really explain why, but sending him a photograph of me seemed so very serious. Visions of him "seeing" me for the first time in 29 years conjures up very raw emotion. Will he cry? Will he be proud? Will he be able to still see the curious and happy little girl's face that he once knew?

It took me three days to finally send a picture. And although the resentments have been won over by a healthy mission to truly understand who I am and where I came from, a small part of me is understandibly hesitant to allow myself such a vulnerability. Somebody might get hurt from this. My grandmother. My mother. My father. Myself. However, I just can't be convinced that enabling this bizarre denial of my father... of half of me isn't more destructive.

I decided to send him a picture of me in my cap and gown on graduation day. A classic choice for a "parent." How he will respond, I do not know. Part of me wishes I could secretly be there to see his reaction, but I'm sure he will send some sort of response. I found out he is living in a nearby state, and because my brother is now unemployed and has time on his hands, I'm considering suggesting a trip to meet him by train. I can tell my brother doesn't like the secrecy either, and because my father is in his 70's, opportunities to meet him aren't going to be ample and endless. I don't care to have more regret in my life... and I'm strong enough to handle whatever end this story may bring.

Knock Knock

My father and I have exchanged a few messages lately. My replies have been fairly casual and somewhat brief, as my mind has been focused on finding a job and figuring out how to make ends meet. I'm hesitant to add any distractions to my life because, frankly, this is some pretty serious shit!

In fact, he hadn't responded to an email I had sent him and after some two weeks, I sent a message that read: "Are you still there?" I wasn't sure if he had regular access to a computer, or whether he had chosen to abandon his quest to know his daughter. But, I knew that I wasn't comfortable with the "not knowing."

He apologized for the delay and said he had been busy repairing a clarinet. Apparently, my father repairs instruments to supplement his income. He has to be 70 some years old... a motivating factor for me to consider opening this door to him.

His message today struck a chord of sweetness with me. He said I must be "after his heart" because I tend to nature and feed the birds. Something that I enjoy doing, despite the strain on my budget. Near the end of his message he wrote, "Last I held you we were playing on top of a bed in Grace's Milford Street house....I missed that...you were thinnish and strong.....Matt was literally angelic in behaviour and appearance....you also..."

"Thinnish and strong." I can picture myself as a little girl. I was quite thin, but boy, was I a tough one! Little did anyone know that surviving my brother's endearing beatings required me to be so. Thinnish and strong echoed in my head. I am thinnish... and most importantly, I am strong. Literally and figuratively. And no matter how hard I try to convince myself that being weak and relying on the support of others (or even "giving up") would be a much "easier" path to choose... I always go back to my strength.

The Ditches

Ditch. Ditched.

What's up with the recent ditching of Mona? It's an epidemic!

My cousin has ditched me. He claims he's got personal business dragging him down. Chey has ditched me... same story. C.F. ditched me, but for understandable reasons. "R" disappeared! Maybe he's in a ditch? No word from my father in almost two weeks... that's a double-ditch. Brian hasn't called back about dinner, and Tonya is in the ditching process as well.

The employment world is ditching me.

All the while, I keep hearing random clips on t.v. saying "If you don't have friends and family, you don't have anything."

Have I nothing?

I hate to be bitching about all of this ditching... but it's starting to sting a bit! Have I lost my place in this world? I love life. Why isn't it loving me back?

Beyond the Door...

I sent my last message to my father nine days ago... there's been no response as of yet. Is this proverbial door still open? Has he closed it? Has he sought out security and solace behind it?
I have no idea if my father has a computer at home. No clue as to whether he has Internet access, or takes trips to the library or a friend's to check his email. What I'm dying to know is if he read my last message.

If you recall, our last exchange involved him bringing up the subject of my childhood. And I feel I handled that very tactfully. I was careful to not offer too much detail to prevent him from feeling guilty or responsible for what he cannot change. I didn't want him to dwell on whatever feelings he may have towards his absence in my life. I've let that go. If he chooses to discuss it, I will entertain that discussion, but rehashing or living in that dusty old past does not interest me... it is not my motivation for allowing this door to be pried open.

But with Martha's recent passing, and feelings of loss for Pam still pulsing through my heart... my belief that knowing my father in whatever way this life allows is important, becomes even stronger.

We don't know how much time we have here. Not a single one of us. We never know what conversations will be our last. We never truly know when we will see someone again... Really telling someone how I feel has never been my strong point, but the importance of doing so has been screaming in my ear for the last week. I don't want my father to die thinking that I hate him, or that he ruined my life. I don't want him to think that I would never understand his choices, or that I would never forgive him. It is for these reasons, that I hope he has not shut this door.

My wish for all of you, my lovelies, is that you take every moment you have to let those around you know how special they are to you. That when you think those kind thoughts, you turn them into kind words. You may never know the impact kind words may have on someone's life, but you might, if you muster up the courage and energy to say them. But what you will know, is that if by tragedy or circumstance, you never have the opportunity to converse with them again... you will have expressed your gratitude for their presence in your life. And with that, I will thank each and every one of you, for being kind enough to share this magical, mysterious, and sometimes, maddening, life... with me.

The Empty Chair...

I have sat here... in this same... old... hard... cold...

uncomforting, uncomfortable chair... for twelve hours. Half a day. A lifetime. Lifetime of feelings. Conversations. Words. Said. And unspoken...

And

I

Am...

Mourning. Frustrated. Sad. Hopeful. Desperate. Needy. Full. Empty...

All at once. And...

All

Alone.

In this empty chair...

Passing Pictures Through The Door

I spent the last few days pondering what I wanted to say in response to my dad's message. Deciding how I wanted to address his allusion to my childhood. How to balance natural curiosity and honesty without producing feelings of guilt or remorse for that which can't be transformed: the past.

So I kept it brief, and to the point. I just said life was rough, but not entirely terrible and that I faired well. Then went on to talk about our beloved German Shepherd, Heidi, that he remembered.

And I pushed the door open slightly... I sent him a photo that I had taken. One of my favorites. Something that I created. A piece of me, that inevitably is a piece of him...

Honest. To be or not to be?

Message received from Dad today:

"i'm relieved to hear back from you! i wondered if i had offended. will write more later. I was out riding my motorbike thru gorgeous weather.....oxygenated blue October skies...thru some teeny towns....with kids and bicycles out playing....a BIG romantic memory swept over me of how simple it was to go home to mom and a warm meal. Simple adventures of youth to relate to gentle loving attentions. No giant world complexes to be guilty and worried about. Smooth and soft like a simple cotton apron.....what a LOVE STORY!!! I hope you got the same fundamentally wholesome "nucleus" of goodness in your early youth. Remember an oil well engine way back in your infancy? And how 'bout Heidi!? Love, Buck"

Here is where I begin to question the level of honesty and openness that I want to have with him. His message is warm and lovely. I have no doubt that my grandmother was a very loving mother to him. But is it time to tell him my reality? Does he need to know that because my mother had to raise and support us kids on her own; that she was always at work or collapsed in a state of exhaustion on the couch, and therefore emotionally and somewhat physically unavailable to me? That nothing for us was really ever simple? Does he need to know that I was actually a quite lonely child and craved the love of a parent? The adoration and pride? That because of this desire for approval and love I wasted a lot of time pleasing others and lived with a secretive and painful void in my heart? Is it time to really dive into the murky waters of the past in the hopes of untangling the weeds to achieve a state of serene clarity? Is it truly necessary to speak of that which we cannot change? The past which I have spent years slowly releasing myself from the bondage of?

Am I ready? Is he ready?

I refuse to be anything less than honest. Is the unspoken truth a form of deception? What is better left unsaid here? That is the question.

The Opened Door

My father has messaged me back. Thankfully, he didn't choose to write an epic letter covering the last 37 years. It was a short message... he said he always wondered about me... and I always wondered if he wondered. It took me until today to write back. After all of this time, it's hard to determine where to start. What to say. So I just told him that I had written him off in my 20's, figuring I didn't know him, so what difference would it make. But, that as I have gotten older, I better understand that we are all human and none of us perfect. I felt I would regret not talking to him.

The reality is that he won't be around forever. At 70-ish, who knows how long he will be here. I think it's important for me to know this mystery half of my existence. Even though I may feel a little guilt that it might hurt my mom. She's never mentioned much of him and I have never asked out of respect for her. Whatever happened between them, in her heart, she has never been with another man. Just kind of closed herself off and I always thought that was sad.

Again, I don't know what will become of all of this... and it is possible that I could regret opening the door. But none of us really know what lies at the end of a journey once they walk through those doors... I'm hoping it's something beautiful.

Mona the Explorer....

I did it. I did it. I did it?!

I messaged my "father."

And I am scared shitless...

Risky (Unfinished) Business

So much for going to bed early...

It's 5:16 a.m. I've been up 20 hours now...

Was calling it a night with C.F. messaging, and Manus signed on. We hadn't chatted in a couple days, so I decided to talk with him. We spent a good deal of time discussing my father, and what the right choice would be as far as contacting him.

My father and mother split when I was about two years old. Or more accurately, my mother left him. A fact I had only learned of in the last several years of my life. Although close to his side of the family, no one spoke of him the majority of my life. He was never at any family gatherings... not even in name. Here is the best timeline that I remember of him:

Seeing him a few times around the age of five.

Once around the age of eight... and the last.

My mother weeping when the sitter cancelled and she thought she would either have to take me to my father's or to work... and my best friend's mom coincidentally at the door. She took me in for the night.

And one disturbing phone call from him around the summer I turned 18.

Recently, he's sent me email messages. They are vague and brief. The last one asking if this was in fact my email address. His brother finally opened up to me about him during our family reunion in August. Apparently my father has been mentally ill in some way for many years. And now... I am torn regarding whether or not to let him into my life.

There is so very much more to this story... and this is something I feel I really need to resolve. He's approximately 70 years old, so I am compelled to come to some sort of decision... and this is part of the reason I have not been able to rest well for a few weeks.

My mind does not do well with unfinished business of any sort.

Sign off time...5:30 a.m.