Reality of Love vs. Fantasy of Love

Often times I keep things bottled up in my head, but there are common things that seem to arise over and over and over again. Certain memories; certain feelings; certain experiences. Some things from my childhood, some things from my adulthood. I often think about my father and why he wasn’t a good father, I think about trying to understand his selfishness and his addiction to heroin. Try to wrap my head around it but for some reason it never quite makes sense. The real question I have is if he ever truly loved me? The next thing is why didn’t he leave drugs alone so he could be a better father to me? Logically I know how addiction grasps a person entire being, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, but logic has nothing to do with the emotional pain it caused in my life. Try explaining that logic to a child, and to a child who knew nothing about drugs or his addiction. As a child I always felt unloved and unwanted by him. Whenever I came around him he seemed to get agitated easily and most times he would only stay around me for a short time before nodding off or flat out getting up to leave. At that time I was unaware of his drug use so I had no idea that the “drugs” were making him disconnect from me. My family never shared with me that he was a junkie so for the first 16 years of my life, I internalized the neglect from my father as being “my fault”, that I must be unlovable, because what parent doesn’t love or want to be around their child? Its almost like if you’re talking to someone and they left abruptly, your first inclination would be to think to yourself “does my breath stink??” That’s how I always felt around him, as if I were the problem.

Looking back on why my father was such a terrible father I realize that I have a different perspective on it that most people don’t want me to believe. What if, just what if, my dad, my father didn’t love me? What if even without the drugs he didn’t love me. Most times people want you to believe that if a person uses drugs, their “bad behavior” is due to their use of drugs. Well I disagree, I offer that if he never loved me, then naturally he would allow the drugs to be more important than me. Because he has died, these are questions that I will never get answers to. My stepmother and my grandmother would always try to convince me that he loved me and would always tell me stories of how he was sooooo proud of me and how on the day I was born he proudly rode around town showing me off to everyone and anyone. But that just isn’t enough to convince me that he really loved me. To me it’s merely a faded memory, one that I certainly don’t remember. What I do remember is crying myself to sleep many nights, more than I should from a person who “loved me”. I remember the stinging feeling of having my arms “snatched” from around him if I gave him a hug to say “Daddy I love you”. I remember being shoved off of his lap if I wanted to sit on him. I remember wanting so badly to share with him about my day only for him to nod off as if what I were saying bored him to death. I remember all of the days that he didn’t show up to special occasions and when he did, he’d never stay long enough for me to ever create a lasting memory of him finally being there. So excuse me that I can’t accept this “notion, this farce of a thing called love.

Love from my understanding means that you show your love by your decisions and actions for those you love. It’s not just words. It means giving up things for others that stand in the way of your relationship with them or giving up things because it will destroy them. Loving someone means you take care of them, you care for their well-being, emotionally, mentally, physically. Loving someone requires that you will spend time with them, laughing with them, doing things to show how much you care about them so they will feel good and good about themselves. Love means sacrifice, it means thinking about someone besides yourself. NEVER once did my dad love me. His decisions and actions all revolved around his need to get high. He certainly didn’t give up drugs for me and allowed it to stand in the way of our relationship because he only wanted a relationship with drugs not me. He certainly didn’t take care of me or my well-being. My mother and grandmother took care of me. He didn’t spend time with me, laugh with me, or do things to make me feel good about myself. The only thing he sacrificed was me. This is a harsh reality, but I didn’t create it, its called life.

I think it takes a lot of courage on my part to be able to admit this to myself and accept it. I think that the more I accept the reality of my childhood instead of trying to embrace a “fantasy” created by others the more that I will be able to accept him and myself. Accepting reality is key because its what I knew, its what I experienced. I can’t accept the fantasy of the “loving father” that he was supposed to be because that isnt’ what I experienced, its not what I knew. Now that I’ve come to that acceptance, I’m now trying to see if I can let go of “wanting things to be different” because the truth is I cannot turn back the hands of time. I will never be able to have a relationship with him because he is dead. I have to let go of the “I wish” I had a dad like this or that. I have to cry for the child in me who was neglected and unloved and after I cry for her I have to help her understand how life works sometimes. I have to teach her that sometimes we get the worse set of parents ever. That some parents come with so many issues and unfortunately, you’ll end up paying a high price for their unresolved issues. I have to help her understand that it wasn’t her fault. I have to help her understand that regardless of her missing out on that vital relationship in her life, that she is still a beautiful creature, created majestically in the image of her true Father in heaven. I have to help her appreciate all of the love she received from others (mother, grandmother, family, friends) and that she is divinely favored. IT is crucial for this understanding to take place because she is now an adult and must live in the present knowing these things.