Knowing When to Walk Away

**Stream of consciousness writing from a person with ADD who’s off her meds.  It meanders a bit all over the place.  But I needed it out of my head and on “paper”.  If you can’t follow my thought process, it isn’t you, it really is me. **

For years now, I have hoped and prayed for my family of origin to be re-united.  I never wished for my parents to be remarried, my father has a new wife and has moved on, but I wished with everything in me that I could walk away from my position as the family’s black sheep and once again have a relationship with my father.

I used to be angry at him for abandoning his family.  I was furious that he had replaced me as his daughter.  I was incensed that he allowed members of his new family to attack me.  Most of all, I ached that he no longer wanted to be my daddy, that the Prince Charming of my childhood could forget his princess.

I reacted as the child I still was in that relationship.  I begged, cried and pleaded.  I lashed out in anger.  I roared at the world in my pain.  It made no difference.  He was as gone from my life as if he no longer existed anywhere on earth.  He was gone.

I recently had the opportunity to see him for the first time in 10 years.  I opted not to go.

The family tongue-waggers discussed my “reasons” and came up with all kinds of selfish and dramatic reasons why I would have chosen not to attend a family wedding.  They were all wrong.  It wasn’t anger or spite that kept me away.  It was grief.  The pain and agony of my loss bubbled up inside of me and I wailed over it anew.

I thought of the poor bride whose wedding was sure to be upstaged by my outpouring of pain.  If I couldn’t control it in the safety of my own home, what would I do when my pain stood before me face-to-face?  I didn’t want to be that girl at the wedding.  The bride deserved to have people talk about how she glowed, how lovely she was, how in love they both seemed.  She didn’t deserve to be outshone by the gulping grief of her new husband’s family in the 3rd row.

With every part of my heart, I wanted to see that new family created.  I wanted to see the glow of their joy.  I wanted to see that little boy get the mommy he’s been praying for and dreaming about for as long as I’ve had the privilege to know him.

I didn’t go.  I couldn’t be the chaos and drama on what should be a joyous day, and I know us, the drama was inevitable if I was there. If it wasn’t me sobbing, it would be someone else yelling.  We’re an Irish family complete with the hot temper that comes with that.

The irony is that the drama and pain I wanted only to avoid found me anyway.  They chased me with it and thrust it upon me.  It was done in a way whose only point was to hurt me.  There was no reconciliation sought or offered.  There was nothing there but the desire to beat me for my “offenses.”

I am done with it all.  For 10 years I have shouldered the guilt of it all.  I played the “what if” game.  It is time to stop.  It is time to stop pining for the family of my birth and focus my gaze only upon the family I have. I removed the letter to my dad from my sidebar.  I no longer care if he reads it. 

I let go of the anger and the fury years ago because I realized that such anger will burn you up from the inside.  I also came to recognize that you can’t hate a stranger, you don’t know them well enough.  Love and hate of an individual require knowledge of that person.  It’s been 10 years since we last spoke.  I no longer know the people they have become.  I no longer know the person he is.  I have been crying for a shadow for all this time.

Just the same, they don’t know me.  Their anger and hurt is aimed at a person who doesn’t exist.  She is a creation of their memories and imaginations.  They can no more hate the person I am than they can love me.  For years, it has all been a giant game of make-believe played out in our respective imaginations.  The true people no longer matter as we have all become caricatures in each others’ minds.  The only way it ends if for one of us to stop playing the game.  So I have. 

I have reached the point in my life where I’m too old for drama and I just want to be left in peace and that’s all I’m asking for anymore.

**I’m leaving comments open for now.  My family has a history of personal attacks in the comments of my blog.  All such posts will be immediately deleted.