Dear Dad
If you told me 3 months ago that I'd be talking to my dad again it would've felt like a cruel joke. Back in January around 4am, I sent him an angry but warranted email (that I tried to unsend lol). I had poured my heart out telling him how I felt like he didn't want a relationship with me, how I felt like a burden, and how it hurt so much.
He didn't reply and I started to unpack these feelings with my therapist over several sessions. In fact our first session was two weeks after that initial email. At some point I had convinced myself that it is better to completely shut the door on him but deep down I knew that wasn't true and so did my therapist. I had this fear that if my dad died, would I be happy with the effort I made? I know it's not all up to me but I wanted to know I did enough. That email felt like enough but I wasn't sure. We made a pros and cons list but it didn't really matter - I still longed for a relationship with him. It made me question the concept of pride. Whether I had any respect for myself - in fact this is the same man who has contacted me on less than 10 occasions over the past 7 years. The same man who told me that my mom made it difficult to reach out to me but now that she's gone it's the same radio silence. How much can I really respect myself by opening the door back to him? Most of my friends tell me they wouldn't ever open the door again and it would've been closed years ago.
But I deserve to be happy and I think the potential of happiness outweighs any concept of pride or self worth (which I don't really agree ties into this but I'm still figuring that out).
At first I was annoyed. He had sent me a LinkedIn request and he never replied to that initial email and (also why is my dad trying to connect on LinkedIn?) I didn't realize he had sent a message along with the LinkedIn request so I had simply ignored it. I brought it up with my therapist and we were both confused but she tried to help me look at it from his perspective. But she also taught me to set boundaries. So I replied, explaining that I didn't want to be contacted on LinkedIn and to email me. I didn't expect much.
But here I am, replying to my dad's 4th email in the span of 2 weeks. I'm so perplexed and a part of me is cautious. Why the drastic increase? Where did this come from? Is my dad okay? And not only that but he's actually telling me about himself and he even asked about me and was really trying to get to know me. He sent pictures and updates.
I cautiously emailed him back, giving him little bits of myself but not my whole heart, he emailed back and even apologized for emailing late (it wasn't even late). And then the emails kept coming.
I told my therapist I felt happy but scared. What if he stops emailing me again? I'll be heartbroken. But she told me to just allow myself to feel happy and I am happy. I'm so happy!
Losing my mom to suicide was awful but having my father who's alive out of my life felt just as bad. I lost my mom and felt like I never had a dad. It's something that has fueled a lot of my anger. That anger would seep out into unrelated situations and I would ultimately feel ashamed and upset with myself not realizing how misdirected it was. So at the suggestion of a past therapist, I started writing angry messages to my dad. All unsent, expect that one in January which I regretted. A part of me thinks he did read the email and reaching out through LinkedIn was him testing the waters. Who knows.
He told me I was never a burden and he was scared of reaching out, out of a fear that maybe I blamed him for my mother's suicide (I didn't). He told me he has been dealing with depression and it makes it hard for him to reach out but he said that wasn't fair to me and apologized. I felt bad and comforted him - I see little bits of me in his emails. I don't know my father but I know I want to love him and open up my heart to him - I've been longing for this feeling for so so many years. So each email he sends me, the more I give myself to him. I want to learn more about him, more about me, more about my mom if he'll let me.
When I stayed with him briefly after my mom's suicide, I saw parts of myself in him. We had went to the dentist together and he sat in the same tense uncomfortable way, wrapping his hands around each other, a splitting image of me. It's weird how nature works. I wonder what else I'll learn.
