Let's try something new, going forward: at the beginning of some of my posts, I'll give you a taste of my current mood, with a song, and a link, so that you can get a real feel of the moment. Listen loudly!
Given the personal nature of this particular blog, there's a shadow of a dark past, but there's a great future ahead. There's something to be said about giving yourself the chance to start again...and opening up to what you may have left behind. I appreciate the fact that someone else reminds a few hundred thousand of us that we are not wasted space So, without further ado, here we go. Sir Boyfriend will shake his head in mild shame. But for the moment, this song makes my tiny heart soar with something.
No holds bar, anymore.
Things are about the get really personal. So, if emotion is a challenging thing with which you grapple, or if you typically make a mockery of emotion because of your inability to express it...consider yourself forewarned.
About Father's Day. In the past this has been a fairly tough day for me. My relationship with my birth father is an estranged one, to say the least. This isn't a diary, so forgive me for sparing more interesting details, but for now, let the mystery suffice.
I remember days spent with my father, on the porch, on hot summer days. I remember his affinity for sun tea, sans sugar (a mortal sin, in my opinion) and oatmeal cookies. He owned a marina in North Carolina, and I like to imagine that this was similar to his life's purpose and calling: a life by and of the Sea. He was a quiet man, and one, to this day, still shrouded in mystery, to me. He read J.R.R. Tolkien and named his sailboat after the white horse, Shadowfax from the Lord Of the Rings trilogy (well that's my assumption. The connection only occurred to me many years later, while in a Theater watching the movies). Perhaps he is a man more like myself than I originally thought, both seeking the novels of the fantastic.
I've held a rather dark opinion of this man for some time. It's been well over a decade since I last spoke to him. Setting aside the pain, I have decided to try something a little different this year.
When I was four years old, my mom married the man who would become my second chance. This man would become my dad. The irony of our relationship sets in, on moments such as this. And there is no other person for whom my blood runs heaviest. This man would become my own Knight In Shining Armor. I am a Daddy's Girl, through and through. If there was a flag, representative of such an audacious group, I would hang it proudly. This is the man who attended recitals, watched cowboy movies with me on Saturday mornings. He replaced the brakes in my Volvo, taught me how to change a tire and told me to kick a man "where it hurts," should the necessity show itself. He took my trick-or-treating. He took me camping, fishing, ignores me when I belch, and taught me what Barking Spiders were and, more importantly, how to avoid them. He introduced me to the mythology of Irish folktales, and answers my questions about the probability about King Arthur's reign...whilst at work...I'd bet, even during a staff meeting. And he doesn't dismiss my daydreams of the Knights Templar and my imaginings of Christ's "alternate life," as I like to call it. He's supported me, laughed at me, yelled at me and tucked me in as a kid, every night.
So, while I reserve Father's Day for my dad of heart, I thought I might...for the first time, ever, say something about my birth father on this day before Father's Day. And because I've no idea where he is, I lay it here to rest, before God and everyone, 'cuz baby, I'm a firework and shooting across some sky...
I forgive him.
Wholly and completely, I forgive you. Your memory will no longer remain a weight upon me. I've since decided to be a bigger person than the losses in my life.
I have decided that your memory will be ignited in a brighter light.
I have held on to a dream, of my own, for you, for some time and this is my gift to you on this Father's Day. I am letting go of it. It is no longer mine to hold on to.
It is my hope for you that someday you meet the Sea as a man cherishing a dream of the water. Here, in this dream I hold for you, I imagine that, upon, the Sea, you shine. I imagine that you have met your purpose and that you are understood by the space around you. I imagine that you have released, from a tight heart, something of yourself. I imagine that you embark upon the Sea with wings, guiding you along a path of wind which might bring you to a place of calm. I like to imagine that a life at Sea, is for you, a thing of magic, peace and something of supreme happiness. I imagine you surrounded by a library of novels, which I hope take you to some of the same places I've been. That small thing, we might have in common, you and I.
There are memories of time I spent with you, which I will hold to me. I vow to hold these moments as the brighter parts of your memory.
This, I have given up, to you.
