Letting go of some of my dirt

"We can't fly till we let go of the dirt" unknown

I got this in a mail this morning and it said so much to me and made me feel like I have something to say . I don’t actually know what I want to say but there is something that wants out and for once I’m not going to over think and worry about consequences and all that other mundane life stuff, I’m just going to let the words do what they have to and hopefully when it’s done it will all make sense to someone if not to me.

Last night I did something that I’ve been doing for a while now, I sent a mail to someone just to say goodnight and let him know I was thinking about him. Yep another of those silly girl things I do but since we don’t get to see much of each other I guess it’s just my silly way of feeling connected. This email of course turned into something else, I ended up revealing a lot more than I intended and saying things that perhaps I shouldn’t have but at this point in time he’s the only person I feel I can let see that side of me without fear of judgement or least I hope so anyway.

After I sent the mail, I started to think about something I had said in it about missing my dad for the first time in 4 years and that started to bug me since my dad and I had a really bad relationship and had only just started tolerating each other when he died and I realised something. A lot of what I’m feeling at the moment, the sense of failure, the sense of not been good enough, the inadequacy that all stems back to my relationship with my dad. I guess I should elaborate though. My dad was 9 years older than my mom so by the time they got hitched (yes they may have been married but it was never what a marriage should be) he had travelled the world as a merchant seaman and I guess he settled because some of my most vivid memories of him are stories about another woman, the girl that got away. Which of course in my child's mind somehow equated to my mom not being good enough but that wasn’t where I was going with this. For as long as I can remember my dad would comment on how he should never have had kids (yes I know most parents say that at some stage when their kids are momentarily out of control but he meant it). I have all these memories of asking him to come to sports events (hard to believe today but yes), to school functions, hell even to our own birthday parties, but there was always someone or something more important even work took a higher priority than we ever did. I can remember growing up trying to excel at everything I did hoping that he would at some point acknowledge that I existed but he never did and eventually I stopped trying. I was content to go unnoticed until I got involved with someone I shouldn’t have but who showed me that I could be accepted and that someone could be proud of me and could love me even if it was wrong and so began another battle for my fathers acceptance and love, around this time I decided I wanted to teach and being the first member of the family to have made it almost all the way through high school at the time I thought perhaps foolishly that I may have finally found a way to make him proud of me. But again I was wrong his reaction to my grand announcement that I was going to be a teacher and I quote (yes the words still haunt me today) “you’re to damn soft and couldnt be trusted to teach anyones kids anything useful” That crushed me and I finished matric the next year not knowing what I wanted to do since I wasn’t good enough to be a teacher. It took me a while but I managed to find direction and with my love of cooking and catering I with the help of some friends managed to get myself enrolled in an in house catering and management programme with a big catering company. I was finally going somewhere, being under age though I just needed a signature and I was ready to take on the world. Needless to say instead of the signature I got another statement that haunts me till today “ I’ve told you before you’re to soft and anyway catering is a mans career and you’re no man and should know where your place is” It was never said but the implication was there a woman's place was at home. Thats when my rebellion finally kicked in and I went off and got myself a job in Jhb, away from everyone and everything I knew but was starting to hate. It wasn’t long though before I was home because my dad was sick and someone had to look after him now that my mom had finally been allowed to go back out to work. Then he went on early pension and we relocated and my life finally started comming together. I got a job I loved, a place of my own, a man I thought loved me and Chris and for awhile everything seemed good, then Peter started his shit and instread of support all I got from my dad was, what did you do to make him do it? Eventually with Chris’s help I got away from Peter but of course that was wrong to, Chris would never be accepted or good enough, he was to young, he was afrikaans and a pilot. The funny thing is my relationship with Chris as dysfunctional as it was, was probably the healthiest relationship I had had and things seemed to be going well till my dad got sick again and I was summoned to Jhb to help look after him because my mom couldn’t do it all alone. So I was at it again trying to gain my dads approval by leaving everything I loved behind to be there for them and in the process managed to lose what was left of myself. Anyway it went on like that for a few more years and then my dad died and I thought I was finally free of all this, I finally started to find myself recently and I was growing and finally becoming me. The me I want to be, the me I can be, the me who is good enough, the me who knows what she wants and where she is going. And then my life got pulled out from under me again and there he was last night in the back of my head even after 4 years telling me I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m a failure.

But you know something I’m not any of those things, It’s time to put this to rest and for once and for all . I may be experiencing a temporary bump in the road but I will recover and I will get back on track and I will be the person I’m supposed to be. And as much as I should say sorry for last nights email I wont instead I’m going to say thank you, yes it sounds crazy but if I hadn’t felt I could pour out my soul and what was eating me alive I wouldn’t have realised that it’s time to let go of my dad and the way he treated me and embrace the me I know is inside and dying to get out and prove for once and for all that I am good enough..............