What You Said. What I Heard.

"You were a mistake."

Those were his exact words.  God knows I sometimes take poetic license and exaggerate just a smidge conversations or words that were said, but in this case it was a direct quote.  I don't remember the whole conversation word for word, just that line.  I also don't remember him saying  afterwards  ".....but I'm so happy we had you."  or ".... you were the best mistake I ever made."  I don't remember him saying that because he didn't.

In my logical mind today as a 39 year old woman I can look at the fact that as an 18 year old kid with two babies under one (my brother and I are 10 months apart), both in diapers, both unplanned pregnancies that it must have been crazy overwhelming.  But as that kid, that awkward, ugly, bruised and damaged kid all I heard was I never wanted you.  I don't want you.  I don't love you.  You're not beautiful or special or worthy and my life would be so much better without you.

And really, I forget what I did yesterday but those words have never left me, it's a tape that runs through my head in vivid detail.  In my mind's eye I can see our living room, that ugly, faded couch with the mustard yellow patterned upholstery and the tufted buttons.  It was summer and I had on shorts, shorts that I bulged out of and I felt the cold bite from the metal ring where the button should have sat on digging into my thigh.  He was drunk, again, telling stories about the good ole days - you know, the ones when he was drinking with his buddies.  I honestly don't ever remember him telling stories about times when he came to see us in a school concert or play a sport but then again it's difficult to have memories of events you never attended.  What I remember is how his eyes lit up when he talked about his adventures in drinking, how he laughed remembering a specific event - usually ones involving copious amounts of alcohol being consumed and then getting into whatever car and driving around, because his love for drinking was nearly on par with cars and really, nothing's funnier than drinking and driving.  He got on the topic of when I was born and that's when he said it.  I was a mistake.

If he had taken a gun and pressed the cold barrel against my chest and pulled the trigger it would have hurt less.  I could have taken that pain, but as it was he ripped out a piece of my heart that day and stomped it into the ground.

My Dad would never have won Father of the Year, he never told me he loved me or hugged me.  He drank.  He got angry a lot and he scared me.  He was impatient and selfish. He never asked about anything in my life and would rattle on about General Motors (where he worked) for hours, and I know nothing about cars.  I think a little bit of me died that day because I always had this stupid hope in my head that deep down he loved me.  Even though I would spend hours sitting on that cold concrete step outside the Janetville store after my shift waiting for him because he forgot to pick me up and I was exhausted after being in school all day and then working I had that stupid hope. Most often he'd show up drunk, no apologies or on the rare times that I allowed myself to feel angry for him being such a dick I would start that long walk home in the dark (I mean this was the country, there were no street lights - just never ending dark) and eventually he'd come along, but I couldn't express my anger to him because that wouldn't be okay - still, I had hope.  But then he said those words and that hope, it died.  He killed it.

Maybe my vision is skewed on this because I can't ever have my own kids, my feminine bits are nothing but spare parts rattling around, hacked away at by doctors and cancer and I would have given anything to have my own baby.  There have been times that I just ached because I held someone's baby in my arms and smelled the top of their sweet head and I hoped so much for my own.  And I wonder, how did he hold me in his arms when I was a little baby, so innocent and new and not feel overwhelmed with love and protectiveness?  I look at those pictures of me as a baby and my heart aches, I was beautiful.  I was precious.  Why wasn't I enough?  Why was I not protected and held and kept safe and loved?  How did he not see my hurt as I was growing up?  How did he let me suffer?  How did he not see how damaged I was?  And why after all this time and therapy can this rip at my heart and make me cry?

It's crazy how those words have had such far reaching consequences and how despite how devastated I felt at his words (and actions) I've done my best to recreate that relationship over and over again in my life. How fucking sick is that?  I seem to have gone out of my way to chose and create relationships where my safety is neither expected or required.  I have chosen people who are either emotionally unavailable or abusive - and it's not like these weren't hidden flaws, I knew what it was from the beginning.   I think at the root of it all I don't believe I deserve to be loved and this is where the sexual addiction comes in.  Or at least a part of it, realistically there's a whole other ball of wax at play here.  But if my own father didn't want a relationship with me (get your mind's out of the gutter!), I mean a loving father-daughter relationship then why would any man ever want me as a partner?  My value is sex.  Not sharing myself, because that's too fucking scary.  Not being vulnerable because god knows they already have the ability to hurt me and I can't open myself like that.  

I write about most things as if I have my shit together and I'm so kick-ass and really, I'm just floundering around here just trying my best to keep my head above the water.  I think the worst thing about this all is those words, what he said, I took them into my heart and I owned them.  I validated them.  And I hurt that little girl in so many fucking ways  that I made his words real.  And my Dad, well I don't need to forgive him.... he is who he is and that's not going to change but I need to forgive myself.  I need to find peace in my heart because I don't want to continue making the same mistakes, punishing myself over and over again.  How do I do that?  I don't have a fucking clue, but I think writing this was a good start.   

I Fell Off the Wagon and Onto a Dick OR Recovery, Relapse and Forgiveness.

The wicked witch of the west, she's dead.  That over dramatic bitch melted all over the place after they chucked the water on her.  And poof, just like that, she was gone... all that was left was a puddle.  No more flying monkeys sent to eviscerate the Scarecrow, no maniacal broad with a skin condition hell bent on revenge plotting against them.  They reached Oz.  They got a heart, courage, a brain, an all expenses paid trip to Kansas (which seemed kinda fucked to me dude was ready to give her anything after she exposed his bullshit scam, me personally I would have asked to have been sent somewhere in the Caribbean first - some all-inclusive resort, I mean she had just went through a hellish time and she could have made it back to that shit hole Kansas on her own after that, right?).  But I digress.

When the movie ended I thought 'but the story isn't finished.'  I really wanted for there to be a sequel to show how the characters of this twisted little fable made out after their wishes were granted and had completed this incredible journey.  I mean I imagine that the Scarecrow still woke up in a cold sweat after being chased by flying monkeys in his dreams.  The Tin Man probably had commitment issues, because yes he was given a heart but he wasn't ready or given the coping mechanisms for the reality of how easily it could be broken, how people would steal little pieces of it when he least expected it and how overwhelming it would feel to have it nearly burst with love.  And the Lion, well I wouldn't be a little bit surprised if that poor fucker needed years of therapy because being such a little bitch for so long that label would be hard to ditch and all the courage in the world wouldn't stop people from being dicks to him.  And then there's Dorothy.  Dorothy who literally went through a tornado only to end that horrific experience by killing somebody, with a house.  I mean sure, it wasn't premeditated or anything and the bitch was evil, but still murder is murder and I'm sure the guilt ate her up when she had time to process it all.  Then she meets all these fucked up individuals who journey with her to what she thinks is her heart's desire.... to go home. But who knows what happened when she got back?  I mean that chick was a hick from Kansas her experiences in Oz were beyond her normal - like me being from a small hamlet in Ontario and going to the Gay Village in Toronto for the first time, terrifyingly delightful.  And that home, that Dorothy she was she can't go back to that, even if she takes off those fabulous ruby red slippers she can't go back, because at her core she's changed.

I think about her line, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home." and I struggle.  I struggle because no matter how many times I click my shoes together (okay, so their flip flops maybe that's why it doesn't work) I don't get "home."  Maybe because there is no magical "home" and if there is, I don't know what it is.  I know that there is no Auntie Em waiting for me to engulf me in loving arms and tell me how worried she was about me and that she's so happy I'm alright.  That just doesn't exist, no matter how much I wish it did.

I went to Oz (and by Oz, I mean Toronto Western Hospital) and asked for my wish to be granted: to lose weight.  There was a part of me who hoped, against all hope that I would lose weight and that I would finally be happy.  I wished so hard for that damaged, dirty, ugly, broken part inside of me to be taken away,  for there to be an end to the loneliness, fear and hurt even though part of me believed that I deserved it.  I lost weight.  A significant amount and I felt happy, I really did.  For once in my life I nourished my body, I fed it good healthy food.  I worked out with a personal trainer who pushed me, encouraged me and helped me to feel strong and healthy and for once safe.  I looked in the mirror and I liked that woman I saw looking back. I liked her face and I loved her heart.

So the story ends there, right?

I'm fixed.

Yeah, not even close.

Life became stressful again, overwhelming and all of my old insecurities, my old demons who I thought I had battled and had beaten came back and reared their ugly heads.  I stopped listening to how I felt and honoring those feelings.  I just wanted to numb out and all my old partner's in crime were right there suited up and ready to go.  I couldn't eat a whole bunch at once, but I could graze all day, fill my poor little stomach till it hurt, because God I was hurting so much and no one knew, no one saw and I just needed to take that emotional pain away for awhile, focus it somewhere else because I just couldn't take it anymore.  That aching loneliness returned and I lost myself in another, floated away and looked down at that body that wasn't mine and ended up feeling even more alone.  Those moments where I celebrated my body and the wonderful sensations it could have became just another way I used to punish myself.

So recently I've slayed a few of my demons, I've made some changes.  Am I still an addict?  God yes.  Do I still do stupid shit?  Uh yeah, almost on a daily basis.  But I feel like in a way I've come out of that dark place I was in.  I've found some peace.  But like Dorothy, my story isn't over.  And that's the most wonderful thing I can think of, because it means that I still have a chance to change how it ends.  It's like a choose your own adventure book.  But like all stories I have to figure out the why - the point of it all - and I don't think the point of this story of my life is to reach this magical, mythical place where I'm perfect and life is wonderful and I'm all Martha Stewart-y and shit.  I think the point is to take the shit that life throws at you, learn to stand strong when you can't duck, to take responsibility for the shit that is yours, to deal with the shit from the past as it comes up, layer by layer, but most importantly to master the art of self-forgiveness.  That's a big one for me, I can forgive the trespasses of many, but fuck me I'm so hard on myself.  I said that I don't have an Auntie Em in my life who can take me in their arms and cradle me and tell me everything is okay, but I can do that for myself.  In my brokenness there is beauty, grace and an opportunity to take the broken pieces and glue them lovingly back together to form a creation that is amazing beyond words.