Sometimes Soup Makes You Cry

This weeks entry comes from someone who I hold dear. Someone who God placed in my life right when I needed her. Someone who had similar experiences as I in friendships. We both weren’t sure if we should take this step. But we took a leap of faith, chanced another heart ache and we are about to celebrate our Friendsaversary in November. 🙂

She is one of my most supportive friends, she has a kind heart and I am very thankful to have her in my life.

Below you will find her burden she carries with her from her childhood.

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For those who have known me the majority of my life know that I’ve battled emotional and verbal abuse from my dad for years. When I was little, the verbal abuse occurred more because I wasn’t an adult and he could get away with talking to a child the way that he was. Belittlement was his favorite. For years, he’d tell me I was selfish, I was conceited, that I was a spoiled brat who gave no care to the opinions or feelings of others. OK dad, that’s what YOU think.

My parents got divorced when I was 11 and for the 13 years that followed, my dad and my relationship was an emotional rollercoaster. We’d be going good for a while and you’d think everything was rainbows and then he’d say or do something that would make me not want to be around him. So we’d go separate ways for a while, not even call each other, and then I’d start to miss him and want him around again and we’d repeat the cycle. Yep, I did this for 13 years.

I’ll give you some idea of what I allowed myself to put up with. I still remember, like it was yesterday, Thanksgiving of 2005. I had stayed the night at my dad’s the night before and the day of Thanksgiving, my mom and I had made plans to go to a family friend’s house to celebrate. I told my dad not to make a super big meal because I would be going to the friend’s house to eat. What did he do? He stayed in bed and ignored me all day. Literally. From when I woke up and told him ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ to when my mom came and picked me up, he stayed in his room and slept on and off. Only to come out to use the bathroom and would go right back.

Another instance was my junior prom. He had gone halves on a dress with my mom, went with me to pick it out and he literally told me that he wasn’t going to pay for a dress that he didn’t like. Strike numero uno against me. Then the actual day of prom, he doesn’t even show up to see me in my dress. I had called him the day before to remind him and then called him that morning but got no answer or call back. Strike numero dos.

That same year, junior year, I had my dad call me up, cussing me out, saying that I wasn’t calling him enough, that the phone works both ways, that I’m a brat and my mother spoils me. I told him that if he was choosing to talk to me that way, that he could call at another time when he was ready to talk to me the way a father talks to their child and that I didn’t have to sit there and listen to him raise his voice at me for no reason. He then had the audacity to say, “F*** you!” and then hung up on me.

Throughout the years that he and I were back and forth, there was always a constant that lead up to me pushing him away every time; the feeling of not being ‘enough’.

I blame my father for my perfectionist personality. I need everything to be done a certain way. Even when it comes to crafty things I enjoy doing in my free time, I feel there is a way to make projects ‘perfect’.

For as long as I can remember, no matter what I did in school or what grades I got on assignments, if I hadn’t put my best effort into it then he wasn’t proud of me. That is understandable. I need to put my best effort into all things that I do. Well, it got to a point where even my best wasn’t good enough and he’d nit-pick at ways to make my best even better. As I sit and write this, I can only think of a few times in my entire 24 years of life that my dad uttered the words, “I’m proud of you”.

My dad’s health began declining about a year and a half ago and back in April, he went to the hospital to have his leg amputated due to his health and lack of following diets and medication precautions. My dad thought he was God and could just heal himself. REALITY CHECK!

It was then after the procedure that his health declined more rapidly and on July 4, 2017 he passed away from a 22-year battle with diabetes, as well as COPD.

For a month, I was very emotionally drained. I didn’t know how to mourn someone who I wasn’t close with but was an important piece to my puzzle of life. I questioned if my tears were worth even shedding because it wasn’t like he was part of a daily schedule and I had no idea how to go on with life without him there. He hadn’t been there for many years of my life.

The only difference this time was there was no going back to calling him saying that I missed him and wanted him around.

So, why even blog about it, right? WRONG!

This whole experience has given me every reason to write, I just couldn’t find the words until now.

Though I miss my dad very much and it’s been weird not getting a phone call from the VA hospital telling me of a medicine or eating habit change, or to tell me if he refused dialysis or got placed in a different room so they could better observe him. I tear up driving by his house only to see someone else’s car in the driveway. One day I cried eating dinner at work because they were serving a ham, potato, bean soup that my dad had concocted his own special recipe for. Of course, it wasn’t his exact soup but it was the meaning behind the fact that that was the soup he would make. Work could’ve served any other kind of soup but they chose that kind. I like to think that day, that was his way of telling me he is still with me. Even in the weirdest places, like work.

Sorry, I’ve been known to ramble a time or two. Okay, maybe every time I write I ramble about something.

Back to me talking about the reason behind why I’m writing.

I didn’t realize it until now, that with him gone, I never have to have that fear that my best isn’t good enough anymore. I no longer have to prove myself to him over and over and get shot down every time. I now can take a breather and just put my best effort into all that I do and know that as long as it’s the very best I can do, it is enough.

I am enough.

My mom, and my friends, and my boyfriend remind me of that every day. They all bring so much joy and happiness into my life that it overpowers any doubt or insecurity of not being good enough. My mom feel that my very best is good enough. My friends feel that I am a wonderful person to be friends with. Of course, I have my quirks and often wonder how they can like someone who has so many but they do so I don’t question them. HAHA.

I refuse to let the opinion of one person determine my worth. I refuse to let his voice ring in my ear constantly if his voice only brings hurt and bitterness.

By all means, I want to remember his voice in the moments when he’d thank me for visiting him in the hospital or for taking him grocery shopping. Remember his voice in the moments towards the end of his life when he’d cry and apologize for all things he would have to miss. Remember his voice in the quiet moments when he’d say he loved me.

But, I don’t have to remember the negativity. The mean and hurtful words. The emotional scarring that I still encounter from time to time.

I just remember that my mom, my friends, to my boyfriend, but most importantly to myself, I AM ENOUGH.

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Thank you for your entry, and thank you for being real with yourself and others. Sharing our pain is something not everyone can do. But sharing is important because it allows us to connect to people and sometimes even provide a glimpse of hope or inspiration. Our pain creates us, breaks us and molds us into the wonderful creation we are. And when we embrace our pain, outbursts of beauty explode from the seams.