Introducing “The Other Woman”

I just received a comment from a reader beneath a blog I wrote about my father, one in which I expose my hurt, my pain, the loss and destruction of being his child.

I am not one to like my personal truth being read, much less on such public display, my idea as a writer was to heal my wounds.

Little did I know it would become material read by over 10,000 strangers, a thought that makes me want to vomit, but I write to heal me, and if in any way

possible it helps others not feel so alone on this journey, I am grateful.

I also know that to expose myself comes with consequences, some good, some bad, and I do not publish anything without thought to the people affected, a reality that weighs heavy on my heart. I am indifferent to most comments, try my best not to think of them, never wanting to write for an audience, always striving to focus on my art, my truth. I feel my writing is just a projection, that a computer screen is capturing one moment of emotion or thought, so to be loved or hated, I do not feel personally attached to either thought. I write not because I want to, but because I must, and I let the readers do or say as they will. It is their right.

However, in this case, I have decided it is my right to reply in anyway I please, not in spite, but in addressing the child within, the outrageous injustice that she has endured will be heard and if it comes out politically incorrect or even a tad sarcastic or angry, so be it.
She has been through enough.

And here, is what this stranger had to say:

lea hickman
lhickman3158@gmail.com
71.236.12.232
Submitted on 2011/04/01 at 12:03 pm

“Katie, You are certainly entitled to your opinion about your father; however you are his daughter and he loves you. Reaching out is never easy, especially after a divorce, but your dad wants a relationship with his kids and granchildren, and you should consider his feelings. STOP being selfish!”

And this is my reply, of course, in Dear Abby blog form, but just in a more “OBVIOUS”
fashion.

“Wow. Lea Hickman. You certainly know how to make an appearance. I suppose introductions don’t seem to be needed here since my letters never received a reply, but I guess you know that. I never really thought my personal blog would be the place for a mistress to have a platform, but you are not just any mistress, but one who actually gives advice as well? I should be so honored.
Well, here is your moment and so lets just open up this can of worms shall we?
First off, please don’t be offended that I have not included you in any of my blogs or invited you over to personally say hello because it has been my impression since I was a small child that you were the psychotic ex girlfriend of my father, imagine that?
Yes, he said many times that you were prone to jealous rages over his adoration of my mother, that you could never be one to recover from his rejection.
I never knew he was such a stud.
Lucky girl, you are.
I wondered many times if all those calls and appearances in my childhood and adult life were fatal attraction, and funny thing about a woman’s intuition, I truly did give you the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps he was just in denial.
It just seemed strange that my mother, who was of course, “THE love of my Dad’s LIFE, and THE ONLY love he EVER had,” normal gross announcements he made to her almost daily, was not apart from him even a day for my entire life.
I just didn’t know how to prove you, understand?
I will say I never thought about electronics, like say, computers, the one thing my mother doesn’t know much about, so I apologize for not connecting sooner.
I think it is lovely that you care about his relationships so deeply, I mean really, to reach out to me in his name is well, so kind of you, and effective for sure.
What daughter doesn’t want to run to Daddy when his ex girlfriend psycho perhaps mistress appears on her blog to defend him?
It is romance at it’s best.
I know. Maybe you can come by, the two of you, the reunion will be just beautiful, and I’ll be sure to vacuum. We shall all hug and cry and sing with joy, my two daughters love any excuse to eat cake, but it might want to be in secret you know, just in case, our party were to “get out” and upset family members.
People are so sensitive about these types of things.
Did you know my Dad and Mom ate a lot of cake, together, like 34 years of cake, gosh, that adds up to how many cakes a year for how many special occasions?
Wow. That is a lot of cake.
And I do appreciate that call to not being selfish, and I know I struggle here, I certainly do.
What do I call you again? Oh, Lea.
There I go again, being selfish. Maybe Grammy could be a pet name, just between us?
I am working on that selfish thing. My father certainly could have used more help in raising me. He told me what love is, but maybe you have a better view.
You are a fine example of exactly what my mother should have been you know, to get and “keep” a man as kind, selfless, loyal, and honest as my father.
Oh, but I would keep an eye on the credit card when desert comes.
Between us, he may have stolen it, so just proceed with caution, perhaps take your purse with you to the restroom, and lock it in your home if he accompanies you.
He is known to have 38 aliases and prone to using other people’s social security numbers. Whew, what a handful he is!
But listen, I do want to congratulate you on defending him, and perhaps you also are aware of the 22 page hate mails, mostly stripping my mom of all her dignity in outrageous lies meant to hurt her, not us. I mean who can blame him, right?
Oh and how he loves his grandchildren.
I think he met, no, not sure about my precious nephew, but he did get my little girl a train set one year. Kind of confusing to them, this overwhelming love.
Perhaps it overwhelms them, I don’t exactly know.
I suppose it is hard to blame him, even though he is definitely responsible for years of therapy, and along with the stalking, broken promises, and forgotten boundaries, you may need to give him a loan to help him with this healing Lea!
Not to mention the occasional run from the IRS, abandoning his family over a car, a nice one, the one in his mommy’s driveway? I know I am just his little girl, but really, that car smells brand new, don’t you think?
He used to love to joy ride with mom and I in that thing, and we would go to Bruster’s and get ice cream, and this funny thing happened once, he played this song by Chris Isaac, “Somebody’s Lying,” and I just poked him on the side of his arm, while we just laughed. He always thought I was just hilarious.

But, not to put a damper on anything, cause I am uncertain to your status, on facebook you see, the status of your relationship is what makes it official, anyways, keep this one little thing in mind. If it does go a little sour, don’t be surprised to find dead roses in your mailbox, surround your entire family for holidays with weapons, but use bats so the children aren’t nervous, and always tell him how selfless and wonderful he is, that he did the BEST he KNEW to do, over and over until your eyeballs fall out and every bit of life force has been drained out of your ever loving soul.

Oh, and do tell your daughter I said hello. In high school, she once told me we could be sisters but I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, not until today that is.
Maybe you should mother her since I do have one of my own.
You should meet her one day, or I believe you have.
She is not perfect, but she did love my father very much, as we all did.
He just never saw the value of real love, a perfect offering even in all his failures, until it was way too late.
I’m not sure how any love is more pure than a child for her own father, especially mine, because I wanted to die before I lived one day believing my daddy, the man who hung the moon, could become this. This is the unspeakable crime to a child, this is not the man I remember nor he is the man I ever wish to know.
But perhaps I am just selfish. Perhaps you can give him the love he never had. Perhaps you are the perfect woman to show him love, for trust me, every woman till now, his own daughter, can not. Perhaps you were the only one he loved all along? Perhaps he doesn’t know what love even means? Perhaps you can teach him.
Perhaps.”

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Flotation Devices 101

It is easy to write about the highs of life, the love that bounces off and to me so freely and kindly, the stories that make me laugh, the characters I hold so dear to my heart. I have been accustomed to protecting the ones I love when I write, never wanting them to experience the pain of being exposed for being human, a sacrifice I know comes from being loved by a writer.

I feel it all the time, the fear, the raw emotion of cringing at the publish button, wondering if the people in my life who are affected by my words will know I cringe, or if they see them as flippant pieces of a life easy to judge through a computer screen, accustomed to my truth, never seeing what it has cost me.
I know truth will always set you free, but I am no longer naive.

It almost always costs you something first, and it slaps you with its humility, cuts with a razor blade, burns like a rope tied to your ankles until you surrender.

My father was the charmer, always going the extra mile to give you cash when you were down to a penny, certain to make you aware that life was not safe without him, certain his gifts were the life jacket he threw, a skill so disguised I would find myself thanking and even apologizing, unaware the drowning was not only a black crazy hole sucking you to darkness.

Life jackets make you float and his were weighted with lies, a hand on my head pushing me under, with a smile and a check.

My lie was believing my madness made me sink.
My shame was that I loved him anyway.
My pain was that I deserved it.

And so, the Collector comes, his gifts as beautiful and pure as the ocean is deep, and I did not see the need for a life jacket, my feet not even close to the water. His love opened me to discover the realms of my truth, that I was nothing I had thought.
I jumped in head first, after resisting the tide to the point I was physically ill in my refusal and fear, the weights of my own lies had kept me far from saving, so far that I didn’t even believe I was capable of floating much less diving.

Through Your Vulnerability Comes Your Invincibility.

I love that quote and here I was, hard and shallow, rigid in my refusal to ever fall into a trap, a pride that formed in believing by never being hurt, you always win. I had to sink to learn to swim.

I don’t write to make anyone happy, not even myself, but I write to be free, to own my truth however misguided and scary it may feel.

The Collector has worked tirelessly to give to me, and I let him on the day I made a decision to love him for free, without a return to my investment. I knew that I had serious pain and betrayal hidden under the layers of this one truth, the truth that I do not operate like most, my love to explore and experience far greater than my love to snuggle up with a safety pillow. Pillows that make some feel soft and warm can also suffocate you in the middle of the night, the night you were destined to dance to a song played just once, and so while the lover snores, I toss.

It never occurred to me you can dance just the same, with men who hate pillows, that I am not insane to want both, my judgements have been harsh, this belief I do not love well.
I am sad at this thought, remembering my mother speak of my boredom with boyfriends, her always telling me to just face it and break up with them, the family phone ringing off the hook, my immaturity and curiosity hoped for the best, my need for freedom and adventure always won.

I don’t want this war and so I chose freedom, a belief that my adventures will always be satisfied, and we all win because in the end, no one gets hurt.

I didn’t know war is war no matter which side you are on, a truth I face tonight, staring at my pillow, not sure if I am being betrayed, by myself or him, or perhaps not at all.
It is the madness of the life jacket, not certain if the weight I feel comes from believing lies, or if the weight is not a lie but a truth I have hidden in my quest to be brave. I know that choosing to love despite the fear and betrayal has freed me. I have learned that I am nothing I imagined, that my heart is capable of more than I ever dreamed, that my father does not have the power to make me afraid.

I do not believe he will get the credits on the end of the screen, at my last breath for any of the choices I make, so what is my movie exactly, the message I have come to speak, the ending I want to imagine?

My ending is floating, the sky warm against my face, my smile wide, my heart bursting, the dreams I cried at birth playing before me, the world watching a timeless piece of art that left an imprint of what is possible when one chooses to love and lose, but love again and again.

It is the mark of the true hero.

Bravery is loving when no one has loved you, not the way you deserve, so you find it on your own, and it costs you but is immeasurable just the same.

Love never abandons true seekers.

So I face this weight today, wondering if I have imagined it into being, if a savior has appeared when I never asked to be saved. If love is real, and a man sends a life jacket, cloaked in the finest of intention, flirting between love and casual lies, how do you trust it? What if the savior is just a piece of my unhealed trauma, not even a savior, and my ending is the reality I crucified him for sending the help I needed?

I am treading water, watching the pull of the tide grab my ankles, pushing me into the unknown dark cold waves of myself, deep and mysterious, and I am awake and alert, defensive and on guard.

It is a paradox, this blind trust of love and faith.

Certainly not all flotation devices are evil and we all need salvation at times but I have trusted the wrong ones too often to risk drowning from punctured holes too naked for my eye to see.
But it is love not fear where the well of healing springs.
It is the making of greatness, this impossible to read life jacket, for it is my only way of knowing if I am the one who has finally learned how to save herself, a thought that makes me want to doggy paddle to safety, the dark sea causing my head to panic and my heart pound.

Sink or swim, I must release the jacket.

It is the only way.

It doesn’t take away the weight, the impossible grin on my father’s face as I grab in certainty only to sink and sink, his life jacket cloaked in a sweetness only betrayal could invent.
This suffocating thing he called love must be exposed, found, and saved, not by the Collector or anyone else.
It is the one thing I want more than any ending in all the world, to trust love because it stands on its own, to know that I am the savior, that no flotation device can be trusted.

That is the point.

I have to let them go by, these safety devices claiming they can save me from the dark pull of my own doubts, my weary distrust of saviors, always appearing at your weakest, the moment before you know you are beautiful and powerful, the very second before you decide you no longer can survive.
I must sink or swim, or both, but I am certain in the end, I will have learned to float.

If only I knew how.

My Father, QT, & The Final Chapter

I saw him yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, of all places, the QT.
The last time I saw my father or heard his voice was Christmas Eve, two years ago. Shortly after, I left a note on his car telling him to never contact me or my children again, left the driveway sobbing as his black Lexus got smaller in the rear view mirror, the words “I love you, and I forgive you, and I will see you on the other side,” carved into my heart, its devastation etched in every crack of my soul, the ending.
In my innocence, that foolish brave young girl believed she had released the dark, a profound peace helping her find the courage to face her greatest fear. This is the moment of truth that has brought me great wisdom.
We can find refuge in our strength, allow love into our wounds, see the light of all our goodness, but we must never ever underestimate the dark.
I finally had the strength to leave him, but the reality that came like a force, the volcano that meets the tornado, came speeding through, at a rate I never imagined possible. That note was just the sound of wind stirring in a dark storm, and the reality of the words I thought had so much power and weight crashed against me, taking the breath out of my lungs.
I had not known the battle was not in leaving him.
The harsher reality became he was in no way going to let me.
I thought I had been freed, to find out my strength was just pirate bones, crashing down and dissolving like dust, a laughter loud and ugly, a force rising above me, fears taller than mighty giants standing in front of me, taunting, and I fell in the horror, my knees bloody, my body frozen.
The act of freedom, the cries I yelled for myself, was my moment of reckoning that this was just the beginning, that the end was nowhere in sight. When you pretend with the dark, you are covered by the dark, but to step into the light, to speak the truth, to shake your fist in its face, to hold your foot on a line you will no longer cross is the moment the days of being favored are over, the mask falls, and you are now the enemy.
In ending my relationship with my father, I had aligned with a force opposing him, a betrayal, a piercing bruise to the place he believed had the right to me, a rippling shock to my core that I had miscalculated this man as being unable to love, but in fact, it was greater than anything I was capable of imagining.
To my shock and horror, this was actually a man of the dark, who believed I was an object to be owned, abused, and preyed. When you are not with him, you are against him, no questions asked, and nothing would stop him until you returned back to him.
This was now an act of war.
In the beginning, he was far more powerful than I, my bravado and strength were putty in his hands, and I witnessed crimes too horrific to account here, his whole force placed in getting me back, with any means necessary, and whatever bled, died, cried, begged, or pleaded, was spit he flung at the ground, strengthening his resolve.
We moved like a team surrounding him, and each other, but his power was unreachable, and so began the endless stalking, his black car weaving through the night, leaving pages and pages of filth for us to unravel, a game that he played with little effort, the rest of us unable to move from the weight of his strength.
It was my first step into battle, and I had underestimated him, we all had, and the lengths of hate he went to spit at our feet was on most days, a binding weight of chains around my feet to just do the details of life, to take Kat to school, feed Lola breakfast. I no longer was living, now my life had become surviving.
My mother dropped in weight, shriveled and sick with grief, sobbing on me, her entire body an imprint of his power, and I became acutely aware she could die, that he might hurt her, and if he did, there was no way for me to stop it. We argued strategies, restraining orders, moving cars, and homes, placing people in posts to take care of her, but he always broke us, finding her at her work, calling us until we switched numbers, again, and again. The emails poured through, and despite the blocks we placed in order, he found us. He always found us.
Holidays were a time to watch one phone ring, followed by the ring of another one of us, and another, our phones ringing in turns, never ending, all of us on edge, watching, a bat subtly grabbed, a look through glass and a signal, his car moving by, one hand in front of my mother for shielding, the other in front of children we nervously watched.
Depression hit, and nausea, followed by hysterical laughter, all of us trying to work, while he would wait, like a black snake your feet are afraid to touch, running through the grass, desperate to find your way home. Noises and sounds echoed like loud clanging pans, all of us on constant edge, wondering, waiting. Silence was the beginning of the fear of not knowing what was next, one minute you are washing a dish and laughing, the next you drop to the ground, his car in front of the house, just the black tail of his car being seen through the kitchen window.
This is what not belonging to him cost.
He believed there was a debt to him, a betrayal, and someone had to pay. And we did.
We all played roles, searched, escaped, drowned, and some of us still are, but something happened in the madness, the battle I thought was worth this war, a dark madness I surrendered to, the finality of this thing I called my life.
I was never going to be free.
He was never going to stop, and nothing I had could stop him.
“You win!” I screamed in rage and hate into the black night, that black Lexus, the very symbol of the snake, my rage, terror, and pain rippling through the night, one in particular, divorcee and my car opened, both our GPS stolen. That had been a gift he bought me once, the only treasure I ever loved from him, nicknamed “Sam” for my recently dead dog, the love of my life.
My pain was now at the light, the very thing I believed brought freedom, and asked how I could not be freed, seeing no prayer, no angel, no God would stop him. “Where are you?” I screamed, watching my mom wither into nothing, shaking at the heavens with my pain, my faith long lost in the journey. The hopeless see in the moment, not for what may be, but what is.
He won.
He would always have me under his thumb, in the palm of his hand.
I decided to ask for guidance as how to live my life, date with this horrific shame in my home, aware no one had stepped into our house for years. I could no longer carry responsibility for the reality he could hurt me, or her.
If she died, nothing I did could stop it.
There is real courage in living, my girls the catalyst that life must go on, and so I did, for them, my only strength came that I would not be lost to them, the sacrifice of those precious souls I would fight for. I started to run, write, use my prayers to fill me, instead of to defeat him, my lessons coming in sharp and unexplainable ways, my faith began to return, my sleep unaltered. In letting him win, and choosing to live anyway, the monster in the dark became almost readable, and I found myself strangely grasping it, blocking it, feeling my core, aware I was evolving into a skin I had never felt, my life began to shed, a new one began to rise, the old skin dropping to my ankles.
And so, the book of the shadow came to me.
In discovering it, I wrote my first few blogs, leading to the dark horse, the “I Love the Way You Lie,” a monster in its searing truth, my shame for the world to see. What rippled back to me were parts of my soul returning, a building block of internal truths I let stack one on top of the other, the light of God within me showing me what was possible, my power available for me instead of against me, my new truth a love acting as shelter for my own heart.
It was the first time I could look in the mirror.
And so, yesterday, barely a week after my life altering blog written and published with agony, I turned into the QT, parked my car, Sage and I chatting on the phone, my door opened to get out, about to hang up until I casually tell her two black Lexus cars had pulled in together, a fact at one time, I said, would have been my greatest fear.
One turned into the pump beside me, the other directly in the space in front of me.
“Sage,” I said. “It’s Dad.”
She gasped, and I remember part of what she was saying, but not really. I began to pray, unaware of nothing but this magnetic force within me, a shield of something greater than I, a presence holding me, directing me, and I was its channel, nothing more, nothing less. It had been two years since I had last seen him, and I knew what to do, without question. “Sage, I am not going to move until he looks at me, looks into my eyes.”
This was my purpose, and I had not known I had been training, for this exact moment. I was ready.
It was finally time for the dark to meet the light. Absent of fear, I felt my power rising like a volcano ready to erupt, my eyes fixated on his every move, a still quiet knowing that I must, without any doubt, remain completely focused on him, his eyes must at all cost meet mine, my face should not make any expression, that nothing should register to him, but that I be known.
He looked back at me, confused, and back again, many times, my eyes piercing and fixed, locked and unmoving. “That’s right, Dad,” I said to him in my mind, “Look at me. Look into me.” He did, and what I saw was baffling, like in the movie Ghost, when all the dark smoke monsters scream and die, his motions signaled shock, his hands checking and rechecking his seat belt, his body twisting in contortions. He got up, his face questioning, and he looked back once more, my eyes locked, my face unreadable. He went into the store, and I watched as he circled the aisles, to the front, and back, as if I would leave, a thought that made me want to laugh, not out of anything other than amusement.
The light demands you face it or run, but he did not no where to go. He had no way of escape. I was waiting for him as he came out, glancing down and back, his face registering that I was in the same spot, my leg in same position, the car door opened, my eyes were the message, the weapon, and we both knew it. He looked like he might faint.
He got in his car, able to do one or two things, go right and out of my view, or go left, purposefully placing him behind six cars where he would inevitably cross me.
He chose poorly.
He turned left, and I remember Sage saying her heart was beating out of control, while my own heart beat in perfect harmony to that of a silent film, in slow motion. Time felt like it had frozen. He could finally see me without distance, with perfect vision, his arm could have reached me from his window, my body directed to him, our eyes locked. His window was up, mine was down, and I looked through the glass, into his eyes, and this is the moment spirit met spirit. He was white, shaken, his hand vibrating and as I stared, he began to lift his arm, in the old way, an attempt to wave, as if I was the little girl who always pretended. He was hesitant.
“Go ahead,” I believe I said aloud to Sage, “Go ahead and TRY to wave Mother Fucker,” my eyes felt as if they had not blinked in an hour, but they were anything but tired.
They were alive, awake, open, and ready.
I was surprised not that he didn’t wave, but that he couldn’t. It looked like strong invisible hands pushed him down while he resisted, leaving them wavering and trembling, just above the wheel, unable to move any further.
“I Dare You.” I said to him with my eyes, and through the window I saw his pain, for the first time in years, but it did not affect me, it was just that I was made aware of it. He appeared to register shock of who he was looking at and what he thought I don’t know, but he was grasping everything in his sight, the seat belt, the drink, the holder, the window lock, out of his mind that at every glance, I was there, my eyes locked, pupils black, pulsing with presence. Today I see it must have been freaky, this locked placement into his eyes, my face refusing to register who or what I was looking at. I see how I gave him nothing but everything, in a moment.
I saw him whip with the movement of the cars, out of my line of sight, and into the traffic, and just like it came, the moment left, and it was me again, on the phone, and I could actually hear Sage now, her voice speaking words of amazement, disbelief, shock, and so I got off the phone, became silent, for a very long time, I sat there, just silent.
I waited for the emotions, the grief, the pain, but it never came.
What I saw was just a man. I saw a man that raised me, loved me, hit tennis balls and took me to movies, laughed at the dinner table, ordered peach cobbler in hotel beds during vacation. I saw a man who once loved my mother, bringing her coffee in the morning, making her laugh at night.
I saw a man who was also dark, capable of all that is evil and wrong, but it was still, just a man.
I didn’t know this man anymore than a stranger holding a tea glass, driving a black car, an old acquaintance, one I vaguely remember. I felt moved to pray for him, aware that this shook him to his core, that it was for him, the opportunity to look at me and see me, my soul, not the object, but the Spirit of the mighty living God.
Did he see what he lost? Did he see the little girl he walked down the aisle? Did he see the child he cradled when scared or took to the playground for afternoon play? Did he witness the dark? Did he see his own acts of revenge and hate, experience with horror the imprint he made, the lies to himself, were they revealed?
I guess I will die not knowing, but I will hold in my mind, blast him with light, remember and thank him for everything he gave me, the truths of my soul remain.
This is what it must mean to have salvation.
The war of dark and light is never ending, and its last lesson remains.
It is said, “God does not give you victory in battle. He lifts you off the battlefield.”
I have transcended hate and pain and now I understand the war was inside of myself, is in each of us. The light is there to free us but no one is exempt from the dark, but to transcend war, I release this story. I don’t think I will write of him again, his name is now a shadow, no longer serves who I am today. His crimes against me are forgotten, the end of the story will remain unwritten, a blank epic a script I give to him, asking what he shall say for himself, knowing I can not speak for him. I now must go write my own script, leave him behind, because not only am I ready, but I must. If I could make this story different, I most certainly would. I would mold into the shape of air, flow into his heart, whispering to him that love never leaves, hurts, or vanishes. It remains. I would have shown him the little girl who loved him, what she became because of him, ask him to forgive her for all that she has done to wrong him or hurt him.
If only I were air.

I Love The Way You Lie

In my family dynamic, I played the role of the “Secret Keeper.”

I remember as a small child witnessing and absorbing the energy of my father, a very fun loving charming character, a man who I have many traits from, one example being that he skipped his graduation to go to an “Allman Brothers” concert.

He was hilarious and free spirited, a seduction that always helped me to put him on a pedestal, my mom our polar opposite.

When I was a child, she was about rules, education, religion, and character building.

She is a lover of books, prayer, raising children, drinking hot mocha, needlepoint, discussing topics such as the names of God, her passion over learning the Bible in original Hebrew, a passion she could discuss for hours, dissecting lines of the Bible was part of her every day life.

In attempt to to not be in “trouble” with his wife, in the beginning, he would betray her in small ways. He would take me for rides and errands, tell me to open the console, asking me to open a cd we both knew she thought offensive, wink at me, roll down the windows, play it loud.

It was fun, and I love music, car rides, candy bars, and being silly. We both hated church, rolled our eyes when she began her daily scripture lessons, and I felt special, not just because I was like him, but because I thought love meant being someone’s secret partner in crime.

As the years progressed, the secrets got bigger, and they started to hurt, like a pulsing sick heart beat I hated but couldn’t stop, and I was too confused to really know why. The very thing I loved became the thing that was making me sick, and I hated being near her, my own mother, because she reminded me in her innocence of all the years of silent crime, an offense I put on myself, a blame I did not know was not my own. I believed in being his favorite that I owed him.

He bought me a brand new car, and for all the fun we had, the money secretly given, the inappropriate jokes shared and enjoyed meant I kept my mouth shut. As a teenager, he caught me having sex, and while my mom was away, he walked up a long flight of stairs, opened a door, turned on the light, my boyfriend pulling up his pants, my shame and horror rising like a hot air balloon.

I remember he shook his hand, walked out the door, asked us to shut off all the lights. My mom just that past year dropped me off at church youth group, a place where the last day we all held hands in a circle, pledging our virginity to God. I cursed God, not having a clue why.

Maybe I was made for hell.

I waited like a deer in headlights when she came home, my guilt making me want to vomit at her very welcoming hug, and I realized he had said nothing. I believe he thought he did me a favor.

In keeping his secrets, he would keep mine.

I began smoking, my jeep being taken to the gas station, the pack of cigarettes fearfully forgotten, left on the front dash. He came back with a tank full of gas, money for a night out, and I waited, terrified. He hated smoking. I waited. He said nothing, which said everything. I finally got caught, by a group of church friends, my mother horrified, her and my dad on the couch, while she sat there for hours, crying, yelling, asking me how I could do this to myself, to her.

He just shook his head, repeating her lines. I watched the way her and the boys communicated, the way they played sports, made friends, had school projects and golf tournaments, and I viewed them as authentic, whole, and smart in their choices. I was their crazy sister, and my shame felt like a hand around my throat.

I was a constant source of pain and trouble to my mom, and she went in and out of blaming herself, once asking, “How can four children be raised the same and you be the person you are?” So I took her shame as well, certain she did not deserve it, my presence a reminder that she believed she had failed me.

I became to loathe the very thing I had loved.

I wept in my shame of being the favorite, and even worse, having once liked it. I went to college and did a lot of drugs, and I mean a lot, snorting anything I could put up my nose, and my Dad would put 1000 here and there in my accounts, never asking why, my mom always saying she missed me, that something was wrong, calling me every day, her very voice made me squirm, my secret side life had began to control me, and I was going to die.

My only thought was, “Please God,” as blood poured out my nose and my heart pumped too fast, and then slow, in the scariest slow rocking motion, and I was watching it from outside myself, my own spirit suddenly aware that I was watching my body, but I was not in it.

“Please don’t let me die. Not for me, but for her. If I die like this, she will never forgive herself.”

So I lived. I paced the house for days, still awake, and I knew I had to tell her. If I was going to die, she was going to have to know first. I owed her that. I wrote her a letter that said every drug I had done, what I did, that I had sex, and locked myself in a room to read it to her, a moment that crashed on her like a brick building, falling to the ground, shattering walls, glass, the noise of wailing and screaming, hatred and pain.

I had done this to her.

I had done this. I just did not know why. I was not allowed to come home, and I was relieved, my guilt begging for punishment. She made a bold statement that it would have been easier to have me die to see me turn into this, a statement I etched on my soul with glass, needing the blood to pour to remind me I was human, because I believed I was of something else, something dark, perhaps evil.

On our last conversation, she said my Dad was coming, and that she had argued this to her death. She went on a fast, unable to leave her room, traumatized, and I did not know what to expect. He showed up, hugged me like I was the little girl that played cds in his car, his baby, and he was coming to save me. He told me to put on something nice, that we were going to eat my favorite seafood, asking, “Aren’t crab legs your favorite?“

I was shaky, barely able to walk up the stairs of this nice restaurant, his comments about the beach, the town, asking me about my friends, telling me to order whatever I wanted. I felt like I was outside my body, looking in. At the table, he consoled me.

He reminded me how hard it had been to live with mom, how difficult and stubborn, how it was nearly impossible to talk to her. I will never forget. He was sipping crab soup, “delicious,” he had said. When we got in the car, he put it on speaker, and told her in front of me that I was wrong, terrible to have done this, that I had lied, betrayed them, agreed to not come to Christian counseling. She wept and yelled, furious, and undone in her grief. It was my moment.

He ended the call, expecting a little ride through town, to see the sites. In this moment, I did not decide to die. I decided to rise. I had never said an unkind or curse word to my father in my life.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I said it with power, conviction, and strength. The car was moving, my hand on the handle, while he nervously locked, while I unlocked, he locked, as he looked at me in shock, like I had slapped him. “Get me the fuck out of your car, you fucking asshole.”

His eyes began to become dark, his speech stuttering, his voice raising. “Young lady,” and I jumped out of the car, him driving next to me, my boots walking me nowhere, but somewhere, anywhere, the possibility of life opening like a flower handed to me by God. I had a lot of walking to do, years and years of walking, healing, and everyone judged me, as harsh as I did, but that day, in my brown leather boots, I realized who I was, what I was made of, that in doing this, to the man I worshiped a god, I could do anything. I am not a fan of rap, but have always loved Eminem, knowing he is all they say and more, in his speech, his addictions, his attitudes to women.

But, in his hate, in his crime, in his guilt, I connect to him, love him for his truth, knowing myself what looks so real to everyone else, can not be judged. When I heard his last song, hearing he had gone through rehab, the first note grabbed me like I was being held in place, someone’s strong wrists holding me down, my heart beat slow, my attention caught in every syllable, every word. “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, but that’s okay, cause I love the way it hurts. Just gonna stand there and watch me cry, but that’s okay, cause I love the way you lie. I love the way you lie…”

The tears fell softly and powerfully through the beat, and I knew her, the girl singing was me, and I didn’t need a fist to know what it meant to be burned, by the very match of a man who called you “Daddy’s Girl,” and knew what it meant to love to hurt, because to hurt was being better than not being loved at all.

I do not know my Dad, and I no longer make a judgment about who or what he has done or become, that statement has taken years and years to make. I have made my peace with him, with my God. I bless him, hope the best for him, but I will not stand and let someone burn my house to the ground. I will rise from the ashes, bless the match that lit my pain, light the torch to burn the lies, and use my voice to expose my shame.

Secrets make you sick.

I will not go down in my shame, allowing you to believe you were a great man, giving me everything I could ever want. You gave me cars, money, time, an education, and a house. You want what you always want.

You want my silence.

I love you Dad, that’s right.

But love doesn’t hurt.

Love does not keep secrets. It exposes them.

You can have all the stuff, but I am keeping my voice.

I love the way you lie.

Related articles

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• Bunkbed Breakthroughs (buddhathepig.wordpress.com)

MY STALKER

I have a few books that have changed my life, and I cherish them, looking back to all my pen marks, highlights, and scribbled notes written on the side. My favorites are the ones completely brittle because I dropped them in the bath tub, and I think it gives them character, brings me back to the place in time I was learning a lesson I thought unimaginable. I think I love my little paper back self help books because it reminds me of myself, worn, dropped, smashed and torn, and yet, every word and line is memorized, my desire to be whole so intense that I constantly feel on the edge of greatness or madness, a fact that keeps me planted on my face, my knees to the floor.
This last book has just been read once, but my little highlighter ran out of ink if that tells you anything, a book that is pushing me, and the fact is, this is a scary chapter in my life.
It is no joke.
My dream of ignoring these issues would involve chocolate covered Xanex if they even exist, maybe tossed back with a couple of Blue Moon lagers, a key lime pie for just myself with a bottle of wine, or even worse, a dating addiction.
My mother says I collected men like little figurines for about a year, mainly because they had superhero nick names to be kept straight, and Divorcee teases I even acquired a prisoner collection, totally unfair, seeing as there was only one, who had two years earlier been in the slammer for a heroin addiction.
My argument that he was fully recovered, having fought and conquered a terrible drug addiction, a good person. I lost interest when I found out he was a terrible guitar player and an even worse singer.
“A man in Prison with no goals? How could that happen?” Insert sarcasm here.
This story would be sexier if he had been as great at guitar as he was with making things with erasers.
He taught me incredible things, like how to make life size boats out of tooth picks.
It is an art form.
Divorcee and mom saw right through me, knowing I was in so much pain the thought of being in a relationship made me want to physically hurl, a process I have been working on.
Now, instead of hurling, I gargle like I may puke into a napkin, then I breathe into a paper bag, for five minutes, with thirty second intervals. Okay, a little exaggeration, but I am a little pissed at Debbie Ford right now, the author of “Why Good People Do Bad Things.” This book is poking at me, asking me to write what I only want to avoid, but can’t. The writer in me is too bossy, not letting me sleep until my spirit is satisfied.
The book has changed my life but I want to address the chapter about what it means to be a “whistle blower.”
She brings up the three women who had the courage to take down Enron as her main example, and she says, “we hid part of our light, our ever-loving goodness, so that we could fit in and not have to suffer the consequences as a whole for the suffering done around us, in front of us.” I feel she is giving me the stare down through the book.
She asks if we have the courage to be fearless in our lives, or if we have decided to be a part of the walking numb, convincing ourselves we are good, while then laying it down thick with her end statement that… “all the good deeds in the world won’t wipe the damage that goes unattended in our own backyard…”
She really hit a nerve with me, because I want to be an Enron lady, to tend to my own yard, to be fearless.
And yet, what to do about my Stalker.
I have not written about him because I am ashamed.
I have not written about it because I am afraid.
It is a surreal thing to have a stalker in your life, mainly because it makes you feel as if you might be crazy, like maybe you didn’t see the car circle three times, the same color as his, while you were just washing dishes.
It is now a fearful act to accidentally look through your own windows, to check and recheck the garage doors, the locks. It is an energy that suffocates, the doorbell ringing, and every time, maybe for life, I put the children away in rooms, look through the peep hole, my heart pounding, relieved for that moment, until the next door bell occurrence.
Dead roses, letters left late into the night, the endless texts and emails and utter exhaustion from the toxic anger directed towards me, something I can’t get past, understand, or have closure no matter what route I take.
I have lived my life so long hiding, locking, looking over my shoulder, my heart dropping, an array of texts bringing him to every uninvited holiday, and just last Easter he got caught circling our Easter egg hunt, turning in the driveway to pretend as if he weren’t really stopping by a different home that far away.
I do not know this man.
I have heard stories of him loving children, and I have vague recollections of this, but they fade, and I do not know how the man I remember can be replaced by someone who has clearly no value for life, the human spirit, or truth.
I was certain I would not write in my blog about this, my feelings of fear and powerlessness have run rampant so long, but out of respect of other victims, people I love dearly, wishing no disrespect for the process they were and are experiencing. I seem to feel responsible for actions that do not belong to me, for those I love, out of the illusion if I can control my pain, I can control theirs.
So, I finally changed my phone number.
I also contacted a man of authority, a man who is of the light, who saw and believed me, all my monsters running from beneath my bed. I discovered this is not a crime of sickness as much as hatred, and I find no answers in this. When I closed this long revealing conversation with this man I trust, I left in peace, began a busy work week just to have my bathroom door pounding on at 2 a.m. in the morning.
“FIVE TEXTS! FIVE! he said loudly to be heard over my bath or because he was angry.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, so tired from a long night at work, a late night at Walmart, picking up Dance and Kindergarten Camp supplies.
“You left your phone at Walmart.”
He tossed me his, sleep walking to his room.
Then, it hit me. The five texts he received were for me, the very man I changed my phone to protect me from.
I was a little stunned, uncertain.
I dialed Walmart, anxious till someone picked up, a sweet cheerful voice saying she found my phone, proud like she were about to be given a little plaque with her picture on it.
“Maam.” I said this with power, a little too much, as a matter of fact.
“Do you understand you gave away the very number to a man who has been terrorizing me, for years, and that I just changed it?”
There was a long pause.
“Please leave that phone with a note only me with i.d. can pick it up, what questions did he ask, and what information did you give?”
“But, my goodness, I don’t really understand.”
Here it was, my shame, my sadness, my pain, and the reason I stay far away, the world just not allowed to know me, nor did I blame them, all for the sake of the one question I waited for her to ask.
“But, you don’t understand. I called your Daddy, honey.”
Oh, I understood perfectly.
I can not pretend to understand what it meant to be the women of Enron, Martin Luther King, and I wonder if they felt sick to their stomachs too, wondering if and what it might cost them.
It may hurt me or free me, but I know this for sure.
When I hit publish, I will have blown my very first whistle.

Father’s Day Player Hater

I have become a Father’s Day player hater. In fact, Baby Bro and I are convinced we could become rich with our own Hallmark line, one dedicated to people like us, if that is even a possible statement one could make. I’ll get to that. I would first like to convey that I believe with all my heart good men are in the world. I see and know beautiful, loving, honest, trustworthy fathers every day. My brothers, my coworkers, bosses, and friends. The people who know me best and love me anyway are and have been male, my ex husband being one I am most proud of.
Okay, okay. You get it. I am not a bitter, male bashing single 32 year old woman, deprived of sex and sleep. Okay, maybe the sex and sleep. Anyways, I marvel at the love I see around me, the importance of good fathers in the world, and I believe to honor them for a day is the least of what they deserve. When I was at M’s party last week, a girl showed me a tattoo of a magnificent tree, her voice choking back tears as she spoke of her father’s recent death, the grief of what Father’s Day would remind her of. The man she loved and missed with every heartbeat. Fathers are fascinating.
I think of my friend, the Mad Scientist, and his love affair with his father, his best friend and hero, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, the tattoo he had on his arm that his father had done to match the other half, so that no matter what, the two of them would recognize love was beyond even our own memories. It links us together, taps our souls and we can fight it, hate it, or love it, but the truth is we belong to someone who brought us here. It is our unique right of passage into this world, and we all have our own story to tell.
Marco speaks of his father like he were talking about an angel, a man so full of wisdom and truth, telling him right and wrong, a man to this day of little words but big heart. He also told me childhood stories of being rushed home to bed, mama telling the kids to not move or make a sound, police lights circling the house, his daddy coming back from burying drugs in the back yard. His father would stash the family rent under the seats of the car, buckling him and his brother on top.
Clyde refers to his dad as the man from the movie, “Big Fish,” the character bigger than life, crazy and genius and loud in the telling of his stories. Clyde is the son, rolling his eyes, loving him with all his heart, and yet, driven absolutely crazy by him, never feeling heard or understood.
My favorite girl, she who owns a sacred part of my heart, in high school, actually finds the woman with red finger nails hiding in her Daddy’s closet, the woman who tore down every dream she and him had built together. Now that we are adults I see those dreams had been real all along, that it took hard work and time for her to see that he was not just her father, but a person. Somehow, through the years, I came to admire what they have because in the good, the ugly, the ups, and downs, it is real.
They have something I dare to call love.
I dare call it love for I have seen that word used by the darkness as well, cloaked in words like forgiveness, healing, scripture, therapy, an energy hungry to destroy the very souls wanting to embrace it. Take Preacher D, who raised the closest father to my heart, to torture him, to yell, run over his bicycle and beat him for leaving it in the driveway. He tormented and starved him, bringing home different mothers, and to this day, Preacher D says he loves his son, and once I met him, just the day of our wedding. He calls every few years, mostly to see how our walk with God is coming along.
I believe we all know a little of this darkness, some much more than others, and I used to believe I could fight it, understand it, change it, overcome it. I now know the only darkness we can heal is that in our own selves, and I have learned that lesson with so much pain, so often, that I have learned never to judge what I do not understand.
It is a humble lesson, one my marriage and my father have taught me well.
We had a little work conversation about what this day, Father’s Day and what it means, and my friend D has eyes light up like Christmas trees when she talks about her dad, a man who lays up all night worrying about her opening her first credit card, who comes in to tip her 30 bucks. He brags about her and she glows, a sight I find breathtaking.
For more of us than I thought, our fathers leave a bitter taste in our mouths, and after many rounds, I found much material Baby Bro and I can add to our growing Hallmark line. It is a dark humored line, not for most, but originates from our hopeless search to find a card to say what we feel on days like this, as if we needed reminding that finding a card for our father is quite frankly, an impossible task. We want to represent those of us who are sick to death of stamping bullshit and sending it, rather than facing the truth of our nonexistent relationships. These infamous holidays seem to be most important for the ones in our lives who need us to validate what they are not, have never been, and if sent by card, email, phone, or skype, damnit, so be it.
These marked holidays are too big for even them to ignore and so for one day a year, they need us to play.
A game I think a lot of us are sick to death of.
We are a dying breed in this huge holiday industry, trying to find cards that speak some element of truth, the least of all blank, much less the cheesy rhyming rose colored glass half full of lies, lies so big the paper smells like gasoline burning the lining of our stomachs.
I don’t know what we would do with cards that said what we felt, the group of us sick of feeling alone and defeated every year in Kroger, exhausted from the lines of poetry written for people we have never known.
How about this? This was collected just from being at work, my attempt to justify this blog, an attempt to research collective souls I see on a daily basis.
“Thanks Dad for stealing my identity and ruining my credit.”
“Dad, I love you but being wasted every day of my life kind of ruined all our memories.”
“Happy Father’s Day. Have we met?”
“If you had money for a boat and a mansion for your wife and two kids, was the child support not really in the mail?”
“Dad, thanks for the phone calls. It did suck you only had time once to visit.”
It went on and on, so much that a few of the regulars cheered, tapping their beers in the air, a high five from across the bar. I hope that all the people that are cloaked in the real meaning of this day are not even around to read this, celebrating by cook outs, kisses, gifts, and cards. I certainly will be. I have a beautiful father of two girls, and my brother D to congratulate and support, off to work to wait tables afterward. I am certain to see full tables of loving fathers being welcomed and kissed, cards lovingly passed, surprise endings, and happy faces.
But, I also have my own truth, and it is my hope to reach out to those of us who are hungry for something we never had, who ache to see it, who cry for longing for it, who lay at a grave for missing it.

For you, Dad.